My Least Favorite Neighbor Did Something Unthinkable Last Spring
In 70 years, nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
Who knocks on the front door these days? Friends tell you they’re coming. FedEx and Amazon just leave whatever they’re bringing. Even neighbors text first. No one just drops in.
I was surprised when I looked out my front door on that nondescript April day to see my neighbor, Angela. I’d not seen her more than once or twice since I moved here 20 months before.
People are very friendly in our neighborhood. We gather for fun and sometimes to address common concerns. We text each other when the wildlife gets spectacular or just too close.
My other next-door neighbor — five years my senior — calls me “bubbe,” the Yiddish word for grandmother. My across-the-street neighbor takes my succulents when I travel and calls them “li’l darlings.” I text both of them to say when I’ll be gone. Otherwise, they watch for my blinds to open each day to know I’m alive and well.
But of course wherever people gather, there is always a bad egg. I’d been told to watch out for Angela. They said she’d left papers on the stove and set her house on fire. She’d “broken up a marriage” by having an affair with somebody on the block…