Construction debris – boards, nails and grey clods hardened by mortar – awaited them like land mines in unfamiliar territory. He liked the idea of a brand new house, so unlike all the old houses where they had lived before. He was proud to live in a house with modern appliances, with a chocolate brown refrigerator, and matching dishwasher, stove, and built-in oven. But he missed the tall trees, the thickets, and the wet grass around their old house in Utah.
His father was anxious to level the mound of topsoil that had been dumped in the front. Shoveling it into the wheelbarrow was something that he and his father could do together. They took turns carting the dirt around to the back yard. He liked flattening the dark soil with a garden rake and the patterns of neatness that it left. He thought about the stubborn cowlick to the right of his widows peak that refused to lie flat, even when he combed it wet.
When the monotony of the garden tasks bored him, he left to throw clods and stones, aiming for a bucket or a board on the slope behind the house. He was getting better and better at it. His father promised to buy him a new baseball mitt, and practice with him, just as soon as the yard had been landscaped.
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