It’s just past lunch on a dreary Tuesday. Marcy is considering a nap when she passes the kitchen window and a swatch of red catches her eye. She leans in to get a better look at the neighbor’s yard. The flash of color is Jill Halpern, wrapped in a red raincoat, carrying a shovel and a black garbage bag to the back of their property. There are several trees there, but no real landscaping back there. What the hell could she possibly be doing with a shovel and a garbage bag, out in the rain?
She watches her for a couple of minutes, noting the way she swipes the back of one gloved hand over her cheeks, both left and right.
Jill stops in the back corner of her yard, drops the bag, and grips the shovel. With Marcy looking on, Jill raises one booted foot—nicely booted, too, not like galoshes—and presses the tip of the shovel into the ground. She cuts through and removes nine hunks of earth, stopping between every third one to wipe her face again. Marcy doesn’t think she’s wiping rain, but tears. That’s when she decides to don her own weather gear and go see what her mousey neighbor is up to.
“Caroline, I’ll be right back. Stay in your room,” Marcy calls up the stairs before darting out through the side door.
It’s a useless effort—Caroline likely wouldn’t leave her room if Marcy was set on fire in the front yard—but it makes her feel better for saying it. If nothing else, just so her daughter will know she’s alone in the house.
Rain splatters Marcy’s cheeks the moment she steps out from under the small roof over the side porch. Well, porch is generous. It’s more like a four-by-four slab of concrete with a peak of wood overhead. The moisture on her face gives her pause, but not for long. Whether Jill is crying or not, Marcy still must find out what she’s up to. This is the kind of behavior that’s too strange not to question.
Marcy’s boots are soft and silent in the wet grass, so Jill doesn’t hear her approach. When Jill doesn’t turn around, Marcy decides to clear her throat to announce her presence. The last thing she wants is to startle her neighbor and end up with a shovel planted on the side of her head. “Jill, is everything all right?”
When Jill turns to face her, Marcy can see she was spot on with the tears. Jill’s face is ravaged. Her nose is bright red, her cheeks are stained with smeared streaks of mascara, and her eyes are bloodshot and ringed with spiky, wet lashes. “No, I’m not.”
She starts to cry in earnest, dropping the shovel and burying her face in her hands. Marcy reacts, wrapping her arms around her neighbor and crooning into her hair. Her maternal instincts are always just a tear or scream away from bursting into action.
“What happened? What is it?”
Jill shakes her head. “It’s just…it’s just so awful.”
“It’s okay. You can tell me.” When Jill doesn’t respond, Marcy pulls away and angles her head to look into Jill’s downcast face. “Why don’t you come over? We can go inside and dry off. I’ll make us some hot tea. Unless you need something a little stronger.”
“I-I can’t. I have to…to…” She starts to cry again, hiccupping gulps that tug at Marcy’s heartstrings. She sounds as though she’s mourning a terrible loss, and Marcy wonders for a few seconds if something has happened to either Mark or her daughter. Or maybe a parent.
“You have to what? Tell me and I’ll help however I can.”
“I have to bury my cat.”
Marcy glances down at the trash bag. Now she can see a small lump in the bottom of it, and her throat constricts. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
“S-someone killed her.” Jill covers her face with her hands and wails.
Marcy gasps. “Killed her? Are you…are you sure?”
Jill lowers her hands and meets Marcy’s eyes. Hers are filled with misery and pain. She nods. “Yes.”
“Could it have been an accident? I’d say—”
“No!” Jill snaps, her brown eyes flashing with a sudden burst of anger. “This was no accident.”
Marcy clutches her throat with one hand, as though it might ease the tightness there. She doesn’t ask how Jill knows this. She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t need help with gruesome visions. They’ve already begun to ply her mind in a rapid assault. “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. I…I don’t even know what to say.”
“Who would do that? What kind of monster could do something like that to an innocent animal?”
Marcy’s stomach lurches. She closes her eyes against bloody images, but they’re still there, playing against the backs of her lids. “I don’t know. There shouldn’t be anyone around here who would…who would…” Marcy’s voice trails off. There shouldn’t be anyone in their neighborhood who would do such a thing, but Marcy can think of one person who might. She has no name, no address, and no gender even, but she knows there’s an anonymous person out there somewhere who has a score to settle. And that person knows roughly where the Halperns live.
“That’s what I thought, too, but clearly I was wrong. First your mailbox. Then the gas leak. Now my cat. What the hell is going on around here?”
Marcy doesn’t mention the menacing texts Jill said she’d gotten, nor does she ask any questions about Mark. Now isn’t the time, so she just shakes her head helplessly instead. “Maybe you should call the police.”
“I already did. I got a very polite blow-off.”
“Really?” Jill nods. “I guess they don’t really specialize in crimes like this.”
“I guess not. So now I have to bury my cat.”
“Is this something you should be doing? Can’t Mark take your cat to a crematorium? I know they have those.”
“Mark is gone. Again. As usual.” Her tone is bitter enough to tinge the air around them with acid.
“Maybe when he gets back?”
“Who knows when that will be?”
She doesn’t even know when her husband is coming home? Doesn’t he tell her?
Marcy finds that quite curious, but keeps it to herself. “Well, why don’t you at least wait until the rain stops then I’ll help you? We can find a place to take her—is it a her?—and go together.”
Jill’s large, wounded eyes melt into Marcy’s. “You’d do that?”
Gently, Marcy’s lips curve. “Of course. That’s what neighbors do.”
“Hopefully not very often.”
“Hopefully never again.”
They both smile, Jill’s watery, Marcy’s grim.
“Come on. Let’s get out of the rain.” Marcy slides an arm around Jill’s shoulders and grabs the ties of the garbage bag with her free hand. The weight of it turns her stomach, but she carries it so Jill doesn’t have to. She leads the other woman to the side door and into the kitchen, leaving the bag on the stoop. Marcy is suddenly thankful for that little roof. It provides just enough dryness for the dead cat.
Jill toes off her boots onto the rug by the door, and walks stiffly to the island. She pulls out a chair and plunks down, staring at the granite as though her heart is as dark and cold as the rock slab.
“Chamomile okay?”
Jill nods. “Anything is fine.”
“Chamomile it is.”
Marcy fills the kettle and sets it on the stove to boil. When she turns to get mugs from the cabinet, Jill is crying again. “How could someone kill my cat? What kind of monster would do that?”
Unfortunately, Caroline chooses that exact moment to make an impromptu trip to the kitchen. When she sees Jill’s head down as she cries, she stops as though she hit a brick wall. Caroline is as uncomfortable with displays of emotion as she is with physical contact.
Her already pale face turns a shade lighter, and she makes a slow, awkward pivot to retreat. Marcy is torn between the sobbing Jill and her daughter, but only for a few moments. Seconds later, she mutters a quick “Excuse me” and makes her way after her child.
Caroline is already halfway up the stairs when Marcy stops her. “Caroline, wait.”
Her short legs stop on the third step. She doesn’t turn to face Marcy. She doesn’t speak or make a sound. She just stands there, obediently. For the most part, she usually obeys without question. It’s only when she’s upset that she becomes hard to manage. Marcy half expected resistance this time, but she doesn’t get it. If anything, when she climbs past her daughter and looks down into her face, she finds the same blank screen she sees more and more often of late.
“Are you okay?”
Caroline doesn’t respond.
It’s when her arm twitches up toward her face and stops that Marcy sees the tear. A single tear is crawling down one porcelain cheek. Marcy wants to wipe it with everything that’s in her, but she refrains. She curls her fingers into loose fists to resist the urge. It isn’t easy for a mother not to comfort her child, but in some cases, it’s necessary.
“Did you overhear us talking?” No response, but it isn’t hard to figure out that she did. “Don’t be sad about her cat, sweetheart. Sometimes sad things happen, but we don’t have to let them make us sad. You can still be happy about your dolls and your toys and your waffles. Do you understand?”
Again, Caroline says nothing. Marcy is well aware that the concept might be beyond that which a nearly five year old can understand or employ, but she doesn’t know what else to say. Normally, she would draw her into her arms and stroke her hair, hold her while she cries, but she can’t do that anymore. Caroline won’t let her. So in the absence of that, there are only words. And sometimes words fall short of the profundity of actions.
This is one of those times.
Marcy doesn’t know the words to use to convey the comfort she wants to extend to her child. In this way, like so many others, Marcy feels inadequate, unprepared for Caroline’s disability.
“Don’t cry, Caroline. It’s okay. Everything is okay. I promise.”
“No.”
The word, the one single word, takes Marcy by surprise. “No?”
The dark eyes Caroline raise to Marcy are full of pain, so much so it breaks Marcy’s heart. She shakes her head once, violently.
“Yes, honey, they will. Everything is okay. It always will be. I’ll make sure of it.”
It’s clear that her assurances mean less than nothing to Caroline, so when Caroline moves to walk around, Marcy lets her go. She has no idea what to do, what to say, or how to make this all right for her little girl. How could she be so reckless in bringing Jill into their home after such a tragedy has taken place? Especially with a child in the house.
Marcy berates herself as she heads back down the stairs and toward the kitchen. The kettle whistle is squealing, but the chair where Jill sat is empty. On the island is a note.
I’m taking her to be cremated. Thank you for your kindness. I hope your daughter is okay.
When Marcy checks the small side stoop, she finds it empty. She steps outside, out into the rain, hoping to catch sight of Jill, but the neighborhood is quiet.
Just before she ducks back in her house, a shiver snakes its way down Marcy’s spine. She feels eyes on her. Menacing eyes. She checks the windows in the Halpern house. The curtains are still, no shadows to be seen.
A loud roar has Marcy whipping her head toward the street. A dark sedan guns its way out of sight. Marcy watches it go. She recognizes the taillights. She’s seen them before. Leaving her street, just like they are now.
Marcy stares at the bend in the road, the last place she sees the car before it disappears. As she turns to go back into the house, she knows she was right.
Someone is definitely watching.
But watching whom?