Eva
So this was what the world had come to: surveillance. Other grandmas stayed home and started baking their Thanksgiving pies early, picked out knitting patterns for all the Christmas socks they were going to make, then met their friends for a lunch of tea sandwiches. I, on the other hand, had opened someone else’s garage, picked up a pair of high-powered binoculars, and joined the world of police stakeouts, of front porch cameras, of backyard motion-sensitive lights, of neighbors not trusting neighbors. I was crouched out of sight of one daughter’s fancy mounted camera, eyes trained on the other one. Slightly more exciting than baking or playing canasta at the Saturday Club, but shameful nonetheless.
And to make it all worse, I was rewarded for it doubly.
I wondered why Hannah was so upset, talking to those two detectives, and at first, I was just foolish enough to believe it was connected to her sister and brother-in-law. To poker night, the little girl at the door, and the missing boots. You didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to add those things up.
Two neighbors’ SUVs drove past Hannah’s slowly, noticing the police car. Probably taking photos on their damned phones. How many times had the detectives visited her? Three? Four? And Hillary’s, just once.
I suppose the police knew more than anyone and were just trying to play all the angles. But if they expected my girls to turn on each other, they had another thing coming. Hannah had sent them on their way with an angry flourish. How I wished I could read lips! But I could read body language. One detective meaner than the other, louder. She had told them both to go to hell, one way or another. She would not implicate her sister. No.
I watched her go inside, and I swear I heard the dead bolt click in the door. The men walked back to their car, a slow stroll down the hill as if they were looking for something else along the way. They sat there longer than I would have thought. To rattle her? To scheme? Two more cars drove by, slowed down, took note.
How long before this news spread around the street, the book club, the poker night? How long before people put this other equation together, that the second a new boy appeared, a girl disappeared?
It occurred to me as they pulled away, heading west up the street, that they could be coming to Hillary’s next. Why not? Two birds, one stone. We’d made it all very convenient for them, hadn’t we, with my two girls living next door to each other? But they kept going. I waited five minutes, ten, and was planning to leave. How much more information could I hold in my head anyway? Miles and his dying deer. A girl waving goodbye to Miles. Hillary and her front door with the girl. Ben and his missing boots. And on top of it, a shady real estate transaction. Dear God, I had a lot to think about!
Then suddenly, Hannah’s door opened. She walked down the porch and around the side yard, and I froze, put the binoculars down for a second, believing she was looking up the hill, coming for me.
But no. She walked to her small backyard. She traced her toe in the dirt, outlining something. She brought her hand to her mouth. Was she stifling a yawn? Or a sob? I got my answer when I saw her wipe a lone tear off her cheek.
And then, she turned to the back woods and held her middle finger into the air for a good five seconds, until she dropped it and went inside.
Here only a week, and already she hated a neighbor? What did that neighbor know?
I watched her as she went back inside, but something made me look closer at the small patch of yard. Zero in. Change the focus. And see the shovel, leaned up against the door.
And I knew for certain she wasn’t protecting her sister but her son. Her dead-animal-carrying son.