varying degrees of light

The man stooped over in his backyard, shoveling down stray patches of grass and tossing them in the general direction of a red wheelbarrow. Various tools lay all around the area - buckets, hoses, different kinds of shovels spilling out from the bed of a truck, piles of earth and piles of excess concrete. He had been going all day, working at times with hired men, otherwise by himself. His wife and daughter had left the day before for summer vacation - he would join them in a few weeks. For now, and until then, he will work furiously, every day, to complete his increasingly toiling projects. His days will be long, maybe longer than they were during his school years. He had pulled out, yesterday, his ragged work shirts, the ones his wife had placed in the rag pile beneath the bathroom sink, so he could get them dirty one last time. He pulled out his jeans, his old shoes so he could work in them one last time.
Out of the corner of his sweat-stung eye, he saw his son, his youngest, return home from work. For a moment, he stood up and felt an immediate relief in his back and lungs.
"How was work?"
His son set down his sweater and backpack against the house.
"It was fine. Where'd you get that sod?"
"The university - they're turning the field by the concert hall into a parking lot."
"The soccer field?"
"Was that the soccer field?"
"It was the soccer field. That's what this is?"
His son walked over to inspect the neatly stacked and rolled grass.
"They're turning it into a parking lot? Whose truck is that?"
The man continued his shoveling. "Stan DeNoor's."
"Do I know him?"
"He teaches agriculture at the university."
"I don't know him."
His son crouched where he was shoveling and gathered the renegade tufts of grass, depositing them in the red wheelbarrow. He breathed in the air, tasted it. It was cold again. It had been cold in the morning when he was out in the field in his thin jacket. Then the sun had shone for a few hours and the earth had begun to yellow again. He thought he felt a drop of rain on his neck.
"Sod won't grow if it's on top of grass," the man said. "We have to clear these out before we lay it down."
His son picked up another shovel and began to slice at the grass on the other end of the lawn, both of them working towards the middle. The man grunted as he worked. He handled his shovel methodically, like a machine. Shovel down, foot press, grunt, scoop, toss. On the other side, his son bent over and jabbed at the grass until their roots released the earth and he moved on to another patch, stabbing it violently until he could toss it aside.
"Your mom and sister landed safely."
"They called today?"
Neither of them looked up as they spoke.
"While you were at work."
The dirt was sandy and coarse. Once all the old grass had been cleared, they rolled out the grass from the soccer field like new carpet, stamping it down and using a trowel to cut out puzzle pieces, filling in rhombus and L-shaped holes. The sky had dimmed when the last piece was set, making the green, green grass seem gray. When his son handed him the lawn sprinkler and turned to work the faucet, he had to walk slowly through the dark, being careful not to disturb the tools and piles. He set the sprinkler down where he estimated the middle of the lawn was.
"Okay, turn on the water."
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The sprinkler buzzed in a circle, touching the man's wrists and shirt for a brief moment. He looked down but could not see his hand, rubbing his fingers together and feeling mud begin to form on his palm. He was standing at the edge of his new lawn - behind him sat the red wheelbarrow and a large pile of the old grass, yellowed from refusing to grow. Knowing this, the man felt a short sensation, an immediate relief, and turned to take his old shoes off and go inside.