Oh, rats!

A love story

When I shared the video tale of this story, a friend responded,

Your memoir writes itself!

And I laughed because it does and because what I am writing (attempting to in between painting and parenting with my full chest) is memoir adjacent and also crazy odd, disturbing, exciting, challenging, interesting things are always happening in my life, even when I am craving peace and quiet.

Photo by David Todd McCarty on Unsplash

The girls’ father lives less than ten minutes from us and in the aftermath of what was an incredibly stressful and painful separation, we were able to find a comfortable groove in which to continue to support our daughters. Americans claim it is very French of us (he’s French), but I really think that when we are able to put the battle weapons down, we can see where the fighting left us all with wounds and scars, and that we did not want our girls to carry those with them into their relationships. Is it more American to keep fighting to the death? I suppose that is a question to consider.

There are still days where his behavior and worldview infuriate me, and I would not say that we have grown, rather that we have chosen well our battles, and that both can agree we’d rather not have every moment of contact have the potential for violence (emotional or psychological). How we got here is another story altogether, but I mention it to prepare you for what follows.

Last summer, D spontaneously bought five Rhode Island Reds, a breed of chicken, sturdy and curious, and brought them home to his backyard. He’d created a garden oasis with fruit trees and herbs, a swing, and glorious windchimes that echoed sound vibrations throughout this heaven, and in less than a month, they’d all but turned this haven to dust. They ate everything, scratched at everything, trounced on every surface with abandon, and slowly began to recognize him (and us) and seek affection and connection, which made their destruction forgivable to some degree.

Realizing that he could not find peace or respite on a dank sandlot, D began to rebuild his garden and relegated the chickens to a fenced-in coop with two shelters and large water tank and feeders. (This was the final result after first trying to contain them with an electric fence that they simply used the only bit of their flight power to flap over, then were unable or unintelligent enough to fly back over.)

The garden began to return to form; peaches and pears, oregano and mint and dill, lavender, forsythia, and roses grew, and honeysuckle made its way over the arched trellis that announced the entrance to this paradise. All was well until it wasn’t.

He first noticed the food disappearing at an alarming rate.

Are these chicken eating all this food or what? he’d asked in the way he turns a phrase in English.

Where is all the water? Why they are so thirsty?

And the chickens continued to strut around unbothered, showing no signs that they were famished or that they’d overeaten. D bought a new water tank convinced that the original had a hole somewhere and the water still disappeared. He put up motion sensor lighting, fearful that a racoon or other animal had somehow gotten inside and on a night when he’d returned early from work, saw the light go on on the surveillance camera and discovered the intruder.

Rats. At first there was just one, one that he could see anyway, but on the days that followed, he discovered a steady stream of varmints coming from next door and found that an empty lot behind his neighbor’s backyard had become a breeding ground.

You should call the city, I suggested. They are not going to stop coming if there is a nest.

I could hear him blinking through the phone, trying to figure out how this solution could not be the only one.

These rat bastard! he’d exclaimed and set to designing a fortress around the coop through which the rats would never invade and then went to Home Depot.

He made a lot of trips to Home Depot, each time arriving at ours unannounced and heated and agitated but also excited and sure he’d solved the problem.

I think you should just call the city. Let them know this is likely a larger problem and make sure to mention that you are across the street from a school.

There was the blinking again and he left to set up the traps along the perimeter and fortify the fencing around the chicken condos. He’d report each night how many he’d caught and where he’d disposed of them and each time I’d suggest calling the city.

If there is a nest, they are likely breeding like mad. You won’t be able to catch all of them.

He caught so many that it seemed he’d begun to agree with me, and he had, but not in calling the city, but in confirmation that there would be too many and that he needed refortification. Stopping by after another trip to Home Depot, he explained that he was going to dig a trench around the coop fencing and add additional fencing one foot below the surface and then overlay the area with cement tiles so that if the rats somehow were willing to dig below, they’d struggle to come up due to the tiles overhead. I just shook my head and said to let me know how it all went.

I don’t like to receive phone calls. I prefer a text to ask if I am available for a call because often I am navigating the world with one-track focus and any interruption can throw me off, making me a terror until I can get back on track. I think a lot of creative people are like this, so I don’t apologize and also know that for some it is a pain in the ass.

But he kept calling that afternoon, so I answered.

What?

It is in these moments that all the ways we were wrong for each other become apparent again. We don’t speak the same languages in so many ways. He is older and patriarchal and dismissive and completely out of touch with the feelings or intentions or motivations of others. His calls, like many/most/all feel intrusive with high expectations and a courtesy he would not/did not ever offer me. I try to temper my tone.

Is something wrong? Do you need something?

I forgot to tell you, he starts. I catch one. Can you believe this? They not digging. They climb. The motion sensor go off and I go outside to see and she is climbing but on the inside of the fence! She get through a hole up top so now I have to put more to reinforce and I don’t know if I can before I leave for the week.

And here is where it gets good and also goes all the way off the proverbial rails.

If some get caught in the traps, you can…

Pardon me, what?

You can remove…

Excuse me? Are you kidding?

Nooooooooooooon. They already will be dead. You can…

Know one another’s love languages they say and we all giggle like, of course, and here is where I failed. Because like so many women eager to be chosen, never to be abandoned, I lead this man to believe that he could or should or even would start a sentence with ‘if a rat gets caught in the trap, I could…do something, anything other than speak it into existence, no ma’am. No. Non. Nope. Uhhhn uhhhn.

And he was shocked even that I was so adamant, that I invoked the names of his tennis and Frenchie friends and suggested he call someone more qualified and willing to do his bidding, but alas, he’d said, they cannot.

So here we are at a stalemate. And by stalemate, I mean, I will likely encourage him not to set traps because I don’t want to see them rats dead or alive. I will go in the mornings and grab the eggs and make sure there is food and water for all of God’s creatures to eat at their leisure. I will ignore the calls and texts asking if there are holes in the ground or the fencing. I will report how many eggs I found each morning and water the indoor plants.

This will be the unspoken compromise. We won’t talk about it, and I will not explain why I feel so triggered by being asked to do something so far outside my comfort zone. I have by now shaken the expectation or hope that he or anyone really, sees me as someone to take care of, to be gentle with, to consider, because I know this is not the way we’ve engaged with one another, not the way the world has ever engaged with me. And the part of me that so loves the world, that is beyond all the imposed definitions of me, is eager to engage, to feel, to experience, and connect. But the part of me that is afraid, still small, still hopeful that I am really enough as I am, even when I have to say no or I can’t or I don’t want to, is somehow still conflicted. Such is the life of a daughter raised with conditions of love.

I called the city and left a message on the hotline though I have no expectations that anything will be done. I couldn’t let it go and I wanted someone in authority to take responsibility. I have always wanted someone in authority to take responsibility and protect us. Protect me.

And so, I have loved him and everyone before him with every resource I had, dared myself to try harder or move in and out of my comfort zone, hardly letting on that I was terrified or angered or hurt. I have had so few expectations and made so few demands that being asked to protect his impulse-buy chickens (that I love so dearly because, well chickens), feed and water them and the garden, put myself in harm’s way, real or imagined, for them and anyone else while never demanding the same, only breaks my heart a little. Until it’s a lot.

And the part of me that so loves the world, even when it doesn’t quite show me the same love back, wants to make it all right. And that is what I have believed was love.