They had a big black dog and a baby.
One morning last summer, when I turned onto Pine Street suddenly they were there, ahead of me, the four of them walking. After that, I never saw them out on the block again, and I never saw them all together again.
They never spoke to me or nodded Hi, but Gary says they spoke to him a couple of times.
On Saturday night, someone told me they sold their house. They had to really drop the price. Sunday morning, as I skipped church again, from my bedroom window I saw their dresser and swivel chairs and coffee table on the tiny front lawn.
At first I thought it was a yard sale. Then I saw the modest-sized U-Haul backed up the short, steep dirt driveway.
So, of course, I was suddenly sad.
I have a heart that breaks inappropriately—an old dishwasher of a heart that jostles the ceramic mugs and glass inside, noisy and inefficient, barking through its cycles and blowing steam.
I think: Why is the truck so small?
At Christmas, she hung huge plastic colored balls on the frozen boughs of their lilac. They were there until April. When spring finally came, on Sundays they brought the baby out front, dipping her in and out of the plastic pool like a laughing pink egg roll. The big black lab leaped around the tiny yard, running nowhere, crazy with the freedom, an uncontrollable foal. As they held on to his leash he dragged them up and down the driveway.
The baby started to scream.
They were genuine homeowners and they did everything right, but I never got to have small talk with them.
I know everyone else on this block.
What did she want to say with the big Christmas balls on the tree, and the lights in her windows? That she was just happy Christmas was here, or did she wish her neighbors a Merry Christmas? Was she (secretly) expecting someone to drop by with cookies? Did she make too much fudge herself, hoping to give some away? Now I'll never know. She had a wooden daisy, missing half its petals, hanging on the clapboard. It's down, now. Did she love flowers?
There's a little bed of chrysanthemums at the foot of the driveway, but it feels like a period at the end of a sentence.
The truck is gone but some final things are being loaded into cars. Already the windows have their curtainless stare out toward the street. Boxes appear and are carried away, and a bald man is holding a tiny pet carrier lopsided, like Gary holds pizza boxes. I hear her giving instructions to the men—too loudly, like certain types of girls in high school always spoke.
From where I sit I hear a motor start, and tires crackle on the gravel, and I have a terrible lump in my throat.
Why is that truck so small?
