NEIGHBORS

Steve Edwards
Nov 5 · 4 min read

originally published in Split Lip Magazine

The ones always puttering in the yard, spraying dandelions, raking up sticks and leaves, turning the mower on its side to scrape clumps of grass from the blade. The ones who wave when they see you even though you don’t talk. The ones who seem to have it all — beauty, wealth, friends — until their kid drives drunk and kills somebody. The ones you don’t see for months. The ones who watch from behind blinds, muttering judgments and hissing at their yappy dogs to shut up. The ones always cooking onions.

The ones you meet out walking your dog. “Some weather we’re having,” you say.

“Gorgeous,” they say.

The ones whose newspapers pile up at the end of the driveway, who shuffle around in attics opening old boxes long after midnight, who get decked out in Lycra to ride expensive Norwegian bikes. The ones who hold their sadness deep in their shoulders.

The ones who make a show of going to church, their kids all scrubbed and coiffed and dressed immaculately, the girls with ribbons in their hair and the boys in dark ties and shoes that hurt their feet. The ones who park their cars in your spot. Who never left this town. Who just got here but probably won’t stay. The ones looking up into green maple leaves while a robin sings at dusk. The ones who kneel in the garden pulling lambsquarter from the strawberries. The ones you used to lust after. The ones you still lust after. The ones scared to death of their own desire. The ones who pray by paying attention, smoking on the porch while a thunderstorm rolls in. The ones who don’t even know they are dying.

“What’s her name?” they ask, offering a hand to your old blue heeler.

“Ginger.”

“Like ginger-ale,” they say.

“Oh, like on Gilligan,” they say.

“But she’s not a red-head,” they say.

The ones who tell you their life stories. The ones who cross the street when they see you coming and pretend to be lost in thought. The ones who are lost in thought.

The ones who scare you because there is clearly something wrong with them but nobody else sees it. The ones who gleefully squander their talents. The ones you hear through open windows all summer long, singing, the notes like some slender climbing vine. The ones you’d help if you could. The ones who pop pills. The ones whose child rides his bicycle all over town because he’s not allowed home during the day, and who sometimes walks with you and Ginger, talking about comic books and TV and all the things wrong with his mom’s health. The ones who are like wind-blown leaves in the fall, brown and brittle, skidding down the sidewalk in a race to nowhere.

The ones shaking salt onto tomatoes.

Afraid of spiders.

Bouncing basketballs on driveways.

The ones with nothing better to do than sit in a lawn chair and chat with you and Ginger on a hot summer day, who bring Ginger a bowl of water and scratch her ears while she drinks. The ones with hands soft as spotted pears.

The ones who bring casserole when your ancient mother dies, who invite you to their daughter’s quinceañera. The ones who see right through you.

The ones who notice Ginger’s limp. “Something wrong with your paw, girl? Step on a piece of glass?”

The ones who ask after her when they run into you at the market, or the ball game, or church on Sunday. The ones you tell what the vet said — osteosarcoma — and the ones you don’t. The ones cleaning out the garage. The ones digging through their purses then going back inside and returning a moment later with satisfied looks on their faces.

The ones who pity you, a woman past her prime and getting older, pink windbreaker faded to gray and frayed at the cuffs, shoes scuffed and falling apart, a rosary around her neck because even though she doesn’t believe she wants to believe. The ones who see only a woman alone but for the milky-eyed heeler limping beside her. The ones who will never know the special name your mother called you, or how your father used to toss you into the air like a ragdoll. The ones you could cut with a word. The ones you could forgive. The ones with faces you collect like specimens, insects pinned to corkboard — swallowtail butterflies shedding their lacy black scales — for examination on nights you can’t sleep. The ones with hearts like cut-and-come-again zinnias. The ones Ginger likes. The ones who will notice when she’s gone.

Written by

Nonfiction/Fiction Writer

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