Betty opened an Earl Grey teabag and dropped it in a porcelain mug that was still in one piece. As she poured the steaming water over it, she just shook her head. “Love your neighbor, bah humbug,” she muttered as she went to the dining room. This was the spot where she normally enjoyed her afternoon cup of tea and looked out into her yard as the afternoon light came through the branches of the old maple tree. But she had barely sat down by the sliding glass door when she glimpsed a streak of blackish fur darting across her backyard like a hairy little demon. She blinked, then stood to peer out the window. “What in tarnation?”
There, hoisting his leg next to her beloved dogwood tree, a tree she’d nurtured and babied for years in a shady corner of her yard, was a scruffy-looking blackish-brown dog. At least she thought it was a dog. But it was a very ugly dog and not one she’d seen in the neighborhood before, although she couldn’t be certain that it was a stray. With each passing year, it became harder and harder to keep track of people and pets.
She opened the sliding door and stepped out. “Shoo, shoo!” she called out. The dog looked at her with startled eyes as he lowered his leg, but he didn’t run. “Go away,” she yelled, waving her arms to scare him out of her yard. “Go home, you bad dog!” She clapped her hands and stomped her feet, and she was just about to either give up or throw something (perhaps the stupid dog was deaf and very dumb) when he took off running. He made a beeline straight for the fallen-down fence, neatly squeezing beneath the gap where fence boards had broken off, and escaped into Jack Jones’s yard—just like he lived there!
“Well, of course,” she said as she shut the door, locked it, and pulled her drapes closed. She picked up her teacup and went into the living room. “A mongrel dog for a mongrel man. Why should that surprise me in the least?”
She sat down in her favorite rocker-recliner and pondered her situation. What could possibly be done? How could she manage to survive not merely her loutish neighbor but his nasty little dog as well? It almost seemed as if Jack had sent the dog her way just to torture her some more. If a person couldn’t feel comfortable and at home in their own house, what was the point of staying? What was keeping her here?
It was as if the writing were on the wall—a day of reckoning. Betty knew what she would do. She would sell her house and move away. That was the only way out of this dilemma. She wondered why she hadn’t considered this solution last summer, back when Jack had first taken occupancy in the Spencer home. Didn’t houses sell better in the warmer months? But perhaps it didn’t matter. Still, she wasn’t sure it made much sense to put up a For Sale sign during the holidays. Who would be out house shopping with less than two weeks before Christmas?
“Christmas . . .” She sighed, then sipped her lukewarm tea. How could it possibly be that time of year again? And what did she need to do in preparation for it? Or perhaps she didn’t need to do anything. Who would really care if she baked cookies or not? Who would even notice if she didn’t get out her old decorations? Christmas seemed like much ado about nothing. Oh, she didn’t think the birth of Christ was nothing. But all the hullabaloo and overspending and commercialism that seemed to come with the holiday these days . . . When had it gone from being a wholesome family celebration to a stressful, jam-packed holiday that left everyone totally exhausted and up to their eyeballs in debt when it was over and done?
Betty used to love Christmastime. She would begin planning for it long in advance. Even the year that Chuck had died suddenly and unexpectedly just two days after Thanksgiving, Betty had somehow mustered the strength to give her children a fairly merry Christmas. They’d been grade schoolers at the time and felt just as confused and bereaved as she had. Still, she had known it was up to her to put forth her best effort. And so, shortly after the funeral, Betty had worn a brave smile and climbed up the rickety ladder to hang colorful strings of Christmas lights on the eaves of the house, “just like Daddy used to do.” And then she got and decorated a six-foot fir tree, baked some cookies, wrapped a few gifts . . . all for the sake of her children. Somehow they made it through Christmas that year. And the Christmases thereafter.
When her son Gary was old enough (and taller than Betty), he eagerly took over the task of hanging lights on the house. And Susan happily took over the trimming of the tree. Each year the three of them would gather in the kitchen to bake all sorts of goodies, and then they would deliver festive cookie platters to everyone in the neighborhood. It became an expected tradition. And always their threesome family was lovingly welcomed into neighbors’ homes, often with hot cocoa and glad tidings.
But times had changed since then. Betty had taken cookie platters to only a couple of neighbors last year. And perhaps this year she would take none. What difference would it make?
Betty set her empty tea mug aside and leaned back in her recliner. She reached down to pull out the footrest and soon felt herself drifting to sleep. She wished that she, like Rip Van Winkle, could simply close her eyes and sleep, sleep, sleep. She’d be perfectly happy if she were able to sleep right through Christmas. And then January would come, and she would figure out a way to sell this house and get out of this neighborhood. She would escape that horrid Jack Jones as well as the ugly mutt that most likely intended to turn her backyard into a doggy dump site.