Cathryn Grant

The quiet of her new house wrapped itself around Roberta’s skull. It felt like a quilt in which the fabric had been rubbed smooth until it was as soft as a rose petal. The sun was just setting and already she longed to slide between her clean sheets. Tonight would be her first good night’s sleep in six years. The silence was thick, making the tick of her clock sound sluggish. No cars moved on the dead-end street.

Roberta took off her clothes and dropped them into the wicker basket. She ran water for her bath. She would use crystals instead of bubbles, believing that the snapping granules would work harder to dig out the grit from boxes and packing tape. She put her foot into the teaming water and felt the lavender bath crystals nip at the tips of her toes. In spite of the heat, she lowered herself quickly. Steam rose and stroked her face, forcing her muscles to unclench. The scent made its way into her nostrils and even her brain felt like it was being scrubbed.

The noise at her recently vacated apartment used to keep her head in a vice all day and most of the night. Children screamed, unrestrained by their lazy parents. Thin shrieks sliced through the air, around corners, and through walls. Tears boiled up in her eyes when she tried to eat dinner. Lifting her fork to her mouth, her hand would tremble as the shrill sounds climbed the walls and slithered across the ceiling. When the children finally were put into their beds, thudding sounds stole the whispered promise of silence. She heard the dull, subterranean thump of stereo bass. In her bed, the ceiling over her face shuddered as the young men in the second-floor apartment traipsed back and forth, pacing like leopards, rumbling sounds dripped from their television shows and video games.

Even when they went out, she had no peace. The coming and going of cars in the parking lot outside her window kept her on the precipice of sleep. Only after the last tomcat had swung his headlights over her pale curtains, revved his engine, slammed his door, and sauntered to his apartment, could she sleep.

The apartment complex had been a spacious, older building. It had a center garden bursting with rosebushes, strips of moist, thick grass, small magnolia trees, and flowering shrubs. But the atmosphere was destroyed by too many human lives pressed too close together. She stayed, trapped, until she could save enough money for a small house.

Tranquility flowed over Roberta the first time she looked at this house with the small porch, edged by two archways. She had fallen desperately in love with its solid, rough adobe walls and the soft red rolls of tile laced together on the roof. the rough, dark front door had a tiny window with an iron door that could be opened to check for visitors.

The house next door was not as fortunate. It languished under faded brown siding on the front and sides, the back was stucco painted avocado green. The two-car garage stayed open all day, gagging on boxes, tools, and unwanted furniture stacked to precarious heights. A small space was scooped out to hold a rough plywood workbench and an electric saw. The only redeeming feature was a bed of prize-worthy roses growing between the two houses.

Roberta’s garage was tidy. Her car was parked in the center. Near the door was a sturdy set of metal shelves. On the bottom shelf was her little hibachi, a bottle of lighter fluid, and a small bag of charcoal. The next shelf held a brown bottle of plant food, her watering can, and gardening tools. The top shelf had a few clay pots and a bag of gladiola bulbs that she planned to get into the ground immediately after the new sod was laid on Monday.

As Roberta soaked in the tub, her mind ran over the parts of her house and her quiet street as if she were running her tongue over her lips. She closed her eyes and imagined herself in a silent world without headaches, safely enclosed in her piece of heaven on earth.

Her thoughts slid down into the steaming bath water. The house was filled with new sounds, things she hadn’t been able to hear before, like the steady hum of the refrigerator.
A new sound came from the back of the house, just a few feet beyond the bathroom wall. There was a faint squeak and then a click. It sounded like someone opening the door that led to her back stoop. A different sound followed on the heels of the first: the squeal of rubber-soled shoes on the hardwood floor.

Roberta sat up straight with a soft splash. She listened, and soon there were more tiny squeaks. She stood up, grabbed her oversized white towel off the counter and wrapped it around herself while she stepped out of the tub and onto the white bath mat. She opened the door and stuck her head into the hallway. The air felt chilly after the team in the bathroom. She shivered, held herself still, and listened. A few more squeaks on the floor were followed quickly by the scrape of boxes she’d left on her kitchen table.

Roberta yanked the towel tighter and crept down the hall, berating herself for leaving wet footprints on the glossy wood. She shivered again. Her heart beat with a shudder, even though her mind was telling her it couldn’t possibly be someone out to hurt her, not rummaging in a box of rice and pasta.

At the kitchen door she stopped and moved slowly past the door frame.

Standing on her oak kitchen chair was the boy from the ugly house next door. He had pulled a strand of spaghetti out of a half-opened package. The spaghetti wobbled between his lips like a stalk of grass as he nibbled the end. His arms were buried up to his armpits, digging through the box for something more interesting to eat.

“What do you think you’re doing in my house? Get off that chair this minute!”

Roberta wanted to rush at him and yank him off the chair, push him out the back door, but she was conscious of the towel she had to keep clasping with her right hand.

The boy turned to look at her. “I’m Jack,” he said. He chomped on the spaghetti and it rapidly disappeared into his mouth.

“I told you to get off that chair.”

He stepped down slowly and stood staring at her. “Do you have any kids?”

“I asked you a question first. What are you doing in my house?” Even as she asked, she didn’t care to hear the answer. Whatever it was, it would be meaningless. “Go stand by the back door,” she said.

Roberta darted down the hall to her room. She dropped the towel on the floor, chastising herself again because she’d only been in the house for one day and now she’d have to buff the bedroom and hallway floors to keep the dampness from marring the finish. She yanked on a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, slid her feet into a pair of canvas shoes, and hurried back to the kitchen.

The boy had not moved to the back door like she’d told him to. He was back on the chair, peering into the box. She grabbed his arm and yanked him off the chair. She tightened her grasp, squeezing the flesh above his elbow. She dragged him out the back door and along the side of the house where her gate stood open. “You have no right to come into my yard when you’re not invited, much less into my house. When you want to ask a question, you ring the bell.”

“I was looking for my ball,” he whimpered.

“I don’t care. Don’t ever come into my yard again.”

She felt a needle of pain in her left temple. It made her angrier as the needle drilled smoothly from her skull, deeper into her brain she pressed her index finger on the tender spot and felt a slight relief.

She cut through the bare patch of ground in front of a huge, scratchy palm-like shrub that grew ambiguously on the property line. Most of it was planted in the neighbors’ yard, but the stalks reached out and scratched her gate, blocking part of the opening the neighbors’ gate yawned open, pushed against the house by thick, dried weeds. The open gate exposed an elaborate display of tubs, cardboard boxes, and stack of cardboard tied with string. There was barely room to squeeze past to the back yard. The  passage was further hampered by branches trimmed from various shrubs, protruding from a bent can much too small for its contents. Dried and brittle, the clippings looked like prison bars protecting the bins of sawdust, bottles, plastic and stained newspapers.

Jack pulled away from her. “You’re hurting me.”

“Quit dragging your feet.”

“You’re mean.”

“You’re trespassing.”

Roberta pounded her fist on the neighbors’ front door. She’d never met them, only seen them working in their yard. She had waved optimistic greetings, planning to get acquainted after she was all organized.

The neighbor women was thick from having given birth to three children. Her brown and gray hair was permed. She wore childish jumpers with wide straps and big pockets. The husband had a pointed head that was bald on top. Below the bald spot was a short sprinkling of white hair, making the crown of his head look like a boiled egg sitting in a white egg cup.

There was a teenaged boy whom Roberta had seen lurking under the tree in the front yard. He wore baggy shorts that flapped around his knees like a skirt. His blond hair was cut very short and you could tell that some day his head would have the same eggy look as his father’s.

The daughter was the only one that had an intelligent gleam in her eye. Roberta had only seen her once. She felt the little girl and the roses didn’t belong with the rest of them.

Roberta knocked again, feeling a sting in her knuckles and a sharp pain in her arm. No one answered. Jack gave a violent tug, pulling himself away from her. he opened the door, went inside, and shut it in her face.

She pounded harder, her eyes blurry with anger. The child was completely disrespectful and she would have to lay down the law to his parents. She pounded a fourth time, prompting a muffled cry from Jack, “Mom!

The mean lady next door might want to talk to you.”

Might, thought  Roberta Not only was he badly behaved, he wasn’t very bright. She heard patient footsteps.

The woman opened the door. “Hi.” The word came out slowly, as if she hadn’t heard Roberta’s fist slamming against the door, as if her son’s reference to the mean lady hadn’t penetrated her tight curls. She smiled and added, “Welcome to the neighborhood. I was planning to stop by, but wanted to wait until you got yourself settled.”

“Unfortunately, we have to meet under less than pleasant conditions.” Roberta paused. “My name’s Roberta Finch, by the way.”

“Diane Maxwell.” Diane pulled her son close to her side and rubbed to top of his head.

“Your son walked right into my house. He was snooping through boxes in my kitchen.” Roberta stepped back in anticipation of Dian’s shocked exclamation.

Diane smirked. “I’m sure he wasn’t snooping.” She smiled and pulled Jack even closer to her hip.

It always happened. Families circled like a wagon train, protecting their own. They assumed outsiders were wrong, if not outright liars, while they defended their family members.

“He was snooping,” Roberta said. “But that’s beside the point. He has no business even being in my back yard without permission, much less walking into my house uninvited.”

“I have him permission to go into your back yard. He lost his ball.”

“You gave him permission?” Perhaps Diane had misunderstood. “You can’t give him permission to go into someone else’s yard.”

“He lost his ball. No harm done. He just wanted to take a quick look. He tried the door, he’s used to visiting all the neighbors, right Jack?”

Jack nodded, his face slack and his eyes round.

Roberta pushed her face closer to Diane’s. “You allow your son to wander into the neighbors’ houses without permission? Your neighbors put up with that?”

“He doesn’t mean any harm,” said Diane, still compulsively rubbing Jack’s head. It looked like she expected a genie to appear and grant her three wishes, the first of which would be a wish that Roberta would go away, or better yet, move away.

“I don’t think you understand,” said Roberta. “So let me explain it like this: I don’t want your children in my back yard. And if any of them ever come into my house again, I’ll call the police.”

“My goodness,” said Diane. The rubbing finally stopped. “He’s just a child. But if you feel that strongly about it, I’ll try to remind him to ask before he goes looking for a toy the next time.”

“Try isn’t good enough,” said Roberta. “Make sure it doesn’t happen.” She turned around and walked down the driveway, took the few steps along the sidewalk to her driveway, and went into her house. She was shaking, unable to understand why people refused to manage their children.

Two days later, Roberta planted her gladiola bulbs, all twenty-five of them, in the fertilized patch of dirt under her living room window. By the time the first spears were cutting through the dark soil, she knew should never have peace in her new home.

When she bought the house, she had known that the divorced man in the house on the other side had two obnoxious boys who visited every other weekend. She hadn’t known her yard was the accepted pathway between the two houses on either side. Even Jack’s father, William, cut across Roberta’s yard when he went tot talk to the other man about one of his home repair issues the children ran, skipped, and jumped across her freshly laid sod, and over her tender  young jasmine shrubs, planted in a pathetic attempt to block the path across her property. Swarms of noisy children with sticky hands and gooey noses seemed to be everywhere. She heard them in every room of her house.

Jack didn’t come into her back yard after that first time, but he commandeered her front yard as an extension of his own. Roberta’s shoulders sagged with weariness from marching out the front door, telling Jack and his friends to walk on the sidewalk or to move their wrestling matches to his own yard. The children didn’t even dignify her requests with an answer. They stared at her as if she spoke another language.

Roberta couldn’t make up her mind which member of the neighbor family she despised the most. It wasn’t Diane with her glazed face hovering above her appliquéd jumpers. In spite of her first encounter, it wasn’t little Jack. The girl, Cynthia, was innocuous.

The teenaged boy, Billy, was repulsive. He slunk around the neighborhood, peering out of half-closed eyes at everything he saw, smoking cigarettes at night when his parents were busy in the house. It was easy for Billy t o hover just beyond the rim of light that came from their living room window. He stood at the end of the bed of roses, lit up, tossed his match on the ground, and puffed rapidly until the cigarette was a very long stub. Then he squashed it like a fat bug on scraps of lumber that his little brother left lying around the yard.

If there was one bright spot in Roberta’s torment, it was that Billy smoked right next to his father’s rose bed—she wallowed in his teenaged hostility. His father lavished his love on those six rosebushes, two yellow, two red, and two white. Every weekend he plucked weeds out of the bed and scalloped the sunken areas around the roots of each bush. He spread finely granulated sawdust on the ground to hold moisture in the soil. He pruned and sprayed insecticide that he thought powerful enough to require his wearing a military gas mask. The mask covered most of his face, and had two vents the size of cocktail-nut candy that stuck out on either side, making him look like a mutant chipmunk.

The children behaved as if all of Coolidge Drive was their personal toy bin. Balls lingered in the gutter and bikes obstructed the sidewalk. She prayed that a neighbor would back a car out over an errant bike, but her prayers went unanswered. Nearly every morning Roberta found one of their toys embedded in her lawn.

Anything left on her lawn belonged to her. when she went out to pick up her paper, she was the only living creature standing in the damp air, looking at the toys defiling her street. She carried a half-empty bottle of bleach for collecting Billy’s long cigarette butts. She picked them up with a gagging sound in her throat and deposited them in the bleach. Then she bent over to pick up her paper. In spite of the dim light, she could see even the smallest green soldier stuck headfirst in her lawn. She glided over and removed the toy of the day. Some mornings she had a bonanza, there were two or three toys, little plastic figures and metal cars. Once she had found a golf club. She plucked them off the wet grass and carried them into the house. After laying the paper next to her cup of coffee and carton of yogurt, she went out the back door, around the side of the house, and dumped the alien objects into her cavernous trash can.

The same day the first yellow bud poked its face out of a gladiola stalk, Roberta went shopping with a friend from work. She drove away when a thin layer of fog was still silencing the neighborhood. She returned late in the day. The air was hot and dry, sucking the moisture out of her nostrils.

She turned her car into Coolidge Drive, slamming her foot on the brake pedal when she saw the circus in her front yard. The neighbors had spread a yellow plastic sheet across their lawn. It was about three feet wide and twenty feet long, with a hose attached at one end. Water seeped through pin-sized holes, making the plastic slick. All four children, from the houses on both sides, were lining up near her jasmine and racing across her lawn. They jumped onto the plastic and slide the length of the sheet, screaming as their slippery bodies plummeted toward the driveway. Diane and William sat in lawn chairs near the roses, watching the flailing, flying children. Their yard was soggy with water, and Roberta’s was flattened from wet feet. She could see some of her torn grass plastered on the children’s legs.

Roberta stomped on the gas and her car shot into the driveway. She jammed the gear shift into park and fell out the door, leaving her keys dangling from the ignition. Her car beeped frantically for her to come back and get the keys. She lurched into her yard and cried, “What are you doing? You’re running my lawn!”

They looked at her. The children hesitated in their line, glancing toward their parents for a signal telling them whether or not they should stop. Whatever the indecipherable signal was, the next child took off running and flung himself onto the plastic mat with a yelp.

“Get them off my lawn!” she screamed.

William rose slowly from his chair while Diane continued to watch her children. Her face was relaxed and her unpainted lips were barely touching. A smile danced across them and her eyes refused to flicker in Roberta’s direction.

“We didn’t think you’d mind,” said William.

“Make them stop running right now. The lawn will be torn to shreds,” she screamed.

“We didn’t think you’d mind because it’s so hot and there’s no place for them to cool off.”

Roberta’s eyes throbbed against her eyelids. Her heart beat faster, making it difficult to breathe. It was all she could do to keep from yanking the offending plastic right out from under them. Her voice escaped in a hiss. “Get them off my lawn. Now.”

Diane eased herself out of her chair and she and her husband silently motioned for the children to move their line onto the sidewalk. Together they lifted the wet plastic and shifted it at an angle. The children would have to run on cement since the plastic now stretched from the sidewalk to the driveway.

“I hope they don’t get hurt,” said Diane as she moved past Roberta and shifted her lawn chair so the children wouldn’t crash into it when they flew off the other end of the mat.
Roberta put her car in the garage and went into the house. She locked the front door, including the deadbolt. She slipped off her sandals, washed her feet in the bathtub, and rubbed them dry with a thick white towel that she immediately put it in the empty well of the washing machine. Before she sat in her leather chair by the living room window, she poured herself  a glass of Chardonnay.

The family would continue to trample on her life and slaughter her peace. She hadn’t spent her life savings on a cute Spanish house in a nice neighborhood to be held hostage by a herd of goats. Something had to be done.

They had finished running and sliding and had gone into their house. They left the yellow plastic lying in the yard. The hose was unscrewed from the faucet, coiled liked a huge green snake wrapping itself around the plastic. The faucet dripped into a spreading puddle of mud.

Her gaze turned toward the rosebushes. They were so beautiful. She had never seen rosebushes with so many blooms; there must be thirty flowers on each plant. She longed to pick a white rose. There were enough for her to have one in a vase every week, all summer. The neighbors never cut any of the blooms to take them inside. They let them grow free on the shrubs, while William coddled them.

He took better care of the roses than of his children. He touched them so tenderly, and when he was finished with their Saturday morning care, Diane came outside and rubbed his head while they stood looking at the roses as if they, not the three urchins, were their beloved children.

He didn’t deserve to have those roses. Roberta’s shiny new pruning shears with the long, fang-like blades would make short order of that bush. She would clip each bloom at the lowermost part of its stem. Maybe she would just clip one each day. How many days would it take, she wondered, until he noticed the population decreasing? As long as it was taking for his stupid children to  notice their toys were disappearing?The children never trampled on those flowers or left their toys lying under the roses. The rose bed was a sanctuary, untouched by the mess that spilled out of every orifice in the house next door.

Roberta ate her dinner in the kitchen, unable to bear looking out where the twisted plastic mat grew pale in the darkening yard. Soon Billy would be out with his cigarette. Diane and William never appeared to smell the smoke, or if they did, they weren’t doing anything to stop his nasty habit.

The rest of the street was organized, lined with well-kept yards. The inhabitants were quiet. Other children living on the street stayed in their back yards and picked up their toys. She would be doing the people of Coolidge Drive a favor if she delivered an appropriate punishment to these people.

It was dark and Roberta was back in her chair, sipping her final glass of cold white wine. Billy had taken up his post at the foot of ht rose bed. His rapid-fire puffs didn’t look pleasurable. At first, she had considered pouring her concoction of bleach and cigarette butts into their yard. But now her blood had reached a full, rolling boil, and a mucky broth of ash and paper seemed too kind.

Let the punishment fit the crime. Roberta swallowed the last of her wine and went into the kitchen. She soaped and rinsed her glass. she dried it with a linen towel until it sparkled, and put it in the cabinet.
Billy stood outside in the dark, flicking his limp paper matches into her yard. They weren’t as easy to track down as the cigarette butts, and she found them floating on all her plants. They even found their way onto her hardwood floors, entering the house surreptitiously stuck to the bottom of her shoes. What would happen if he flicked one of his matches before it was dead and it landed in the remains of the insecticide? She had no idea whether it insecticide was flammable.

Roberta turned off the lights and went into her bedroom. She lay on her bed with the spread still in place and stared at the black ness covering the ceiling. Without the roses, William would have nothing left to do but pay attention to controlling his children. She lay on her back for hours, listening to the sounds disappear into the night.

Roberta waited. She had to wait three weeks. It was a Sunday night when they all finally piled into the blue minivan. Diane was carrying a casserole pan wrapped in dish towels.

At nine o’clock they weren’t home yet, and it was as dark as it was going to get before they came tumbling back down the street.

Roberta pulled a pair of black leggings out of her drawer. She put on a long black shirt, and gripped her hair into a ponytail that hugged the nape of her neck. S crept into the garage and took her can of lighter fluid off its spot on the shelf. She stepped out of the garage door near the house and looked up and down the street. She could rely on her other neighbors to be inside most of the time. Perhaps they felt invaded too. Roberta would deliver them all with one act she would punish William for his misplaced priorities, expose Billy for the slob he that he was, and get revenge for the destruction they’d inflicted on her yard and her sanity.

She walked casually along the front of the house, just in case a neighbor was peering out at the silent street. Pausing in front of her gladiolas, she whispered, “Soon you’ll be the most beautiful flowers on the street.” She reached for the hose and unwound it several loops, dragging it toward the side of her yard. She’d hold the hose on her right side, so if anyone was looking out, they would think she was water the edges of the grass near the rose bed. The neighbors’ hose was till in the middle of the yard where it had lain for weeks. William moistened his roses with a huge metal water can, making countless, useless trips to refill it.
Crimping her hose under one arm, she popped open the cap on the lighter fluid. Then she gripped the hose and can in the same hand and began squirting the sharp-smelling liquid along the base of the roses, soaking the sawdust, flicking her wrist so lighter fluid squirted out on the stems and blossoms. Hopefully the smell would dissipate quickly. If they caught a whiff, they might think it was from the barbecuing she’d done earlier.

When the can was empty, she snapped the lid shut and rewound the hose. She put the can back on the shelf. Stepping out of the garage, she took one last glance at the roses. She should have cut one and put it in her bedroom. But it was too late now. She went inside and took up her position in the chair by the window, leaving the lights off.
It was twenty past ten before the minivan ambled down the street and eased into the driveway. There was a lot of opening and slamming of doors. Billy scuffled up and down the sidewalk, ignoring his father’s shouted commands to close the back of the van.

Roberta’s heart began to pound. Soon the noises would sink like dirt settling in a garden after it’s been inflated with water. Then Billy would light his cigarette.

Her vigilance was rewarded. When the porch light went out, Billy wandered over to his spot at the foot of the rose bed. He pulled a cigarette out of one pocket and a book of matches out of the other. He lit the cigarette, puffed frantically, and dropped the still-burning match onto the ground. The bed where the roses would die, burst into flames. Billy jumped back and yelped like a do whose nose had been pinched. He stumbled, falling on his rear. Roberta smiled as the flames leaped up the stems of the flowers, turning the blossoms bright orange.

She stood up, waiting for the commotion. Within minutes, Diane appeared in the front yard, her white skin and pale yellow dress brought to life by the flames that leaped up, licking the eaves of the house. Billy fumbled with the faucet, turning it on when the hose wasn’t yet attached.

Diane screamed. Roberta could see her mouth moving, but couldn’t decipher the shrill words. Finally, something had gotten her excited. Billy dropped the hose and had twisted his body to face the shrubs. His eyes bulged out of his face, looking at the side of the house where the flames were spreading further than Roberta had anticipated. The smell of smoke seeped into her living room. All she could see was orange flames.

What was causing all that smoke?

Diane grabbed Billy’s baggy shorts, dragging him toward the house; her lips still formed a scream, but no sound came out of her throat. Billy held the limp hose and stumbled between the faucet and his mother. Although further amazement at the neighbors seemed impossible, Roberta was stunned by Billy’s inability to do anything about the waves of flame cascading over the roses, blackening the buds and stems. Diane’s hysteria was just as incredible. Apparently she could be a woman given to panic in spite of her bland reaction to her children’s unruly behavior.

Now Diane was sobbing, hanging on Billy, pushing him toward the house. Roberta had to get a better view. She couldn’t believe that neither one of them had managed to get a grip long enough to attach the hose and turn on the water. The small fire would get out of control if one of them didn’t stop stumbling uselessly in the yard. She hoped she wasn’t going to have to go outside and subdue it for them. Her triumph would end with a whimper if she had to douse her own handiwork.

Against her better judgment, she stepped closer to the window. As she pressed her face against the glass, an animal-like bellowing punctured her fascination with the brilliant flames. It sounded like a creature caught in a metal trap. The bellowing obliterated all the other noise, and ripped her attention away from Billy and his mother. The sound came from the side of the house, but she had no windows on that side. It was so loud it sounded like the wounded animal had entered her living room.

She ran to the front door and opened the tiny iron door that faced the neighbors’ property. The metal touched her lips, leaving a bitter taste when she sucked in her breath. Now she could see what had caused Billy and Diane to trip over each other as if their very lives were going up in flames.

William was trapped in the recycling center. The fire had raced through the dried weeds and rushed hungrily to the side of the house where the flames satiated themselves with stacks of cardboard and string, and cans full of dried clippings. After creeping over the newspapers and boxes of sawdust, the flames had gathered around William’s legs and grabbed onto his slacks and cotton shirt. Bursts of fire climbed his body and the fabric of his clothes was turning into black flakes that floated up into the darkness.

His mouth was open, and agonizing cries poured out as he turned in circles, trying to find a place to run, but his cans and combustible materials surrounded him. The flames formed a small picket fence from the rose bed to the gate. Billy, who at long last had managed to screw the hose onto the faucet, was afraid to cross the border between him and his father. Instead, he sprayed the hose in every direction, over the roses, where the flames were dying back, across the pointed needles of the palm, and along the fence.

Roberta didn’t want to watch anymore, but neither could she close the metal door. Her face pressed tighter into the opening, and she continued to stare at the burning man and the helpless woman and son.
When she heard the sirens, she pulled back and found the strength to close the little iron window. She heard the burping sounds of sirens winding down, and the screams of William. The flames, finished with his clothing, searched the open containers for more fuel and at the same time continued to lap at his flesh. Roberta thought she could smell his burning skin. Then his shrieks disappeared and all she could hear was the clank and rattle of equipment and the firm shouts of the firefighters.

Roberta crept down the hall to her bedroom and took of her clothes. She folded them and put them in a box in the closet. She slipped between her crisp, white sheets, cherishing the soothing coolness against her bare skin.

Only the roses were meant to die. This was an unfortunate accident, but it served them right. She reached into the drawer by her bed and fumbled around for the earplugs that had been useless in her apartment. She tucked them into her ears and closed her eyes, drifting into a silent, peaceful sleep.

© Cathryn Grant, January 2002