One Last Thing ✅

thirty-four things

I plunge outside into the sunshine, opening my mouth wide and taking in a huge breath of fresh air, feeling as though I've just escaped from a tomb. I only take a moment to enjoy it, though, before I start walking. Fast.

It only takes a few seconds to reach the edge of the parking lot. I keep expecting Mr. O'Hara to jump out and yell at me to get back to school, but that doesn't happen. I am alone. Blissfully alone.

A busy street stretches out before me, but there are no cars at the moment. I take the opportunity to walk across, heading toward a large residential area. Again, I think someone will drive by and call the school to let them know a strange girl with her arm in a sling is wandering off campus, but there is no one to see me.

After crossing the road, I follow the sidewalk for a long time. The houses in this area are modest but well-maintained with neat hedges and gardens. Most of them look empty in the middle of the day, their occupants at school or work, living their lives, doing the things they do.

I remember this time a couple of years ago, when we were reading To Kill a Mockingbird in school, and this kid laughed at the idea of Boo Radley stabbing his father in the leg with scissors. Harper Lee should have made up something that would actually happen, he said. My teacher responded by saying we'd be surprised at the things that happen behind closed doors. I think about that now as I walk, the people in this town—and what they do when no one can see them.

Passing a blue house, I imagine a father with a big, bushy beard who works at the power plant and comes home to his wife and two children. Does he eat dinner with them, discuss his day, maybe read his kids a few books before bedtime? Or does he down a six pack and get out the belt?

Maybe it depends on the night.

I walk faster, examining each house, inventing a family for each one. I weave backstories for each one, give one person epilepsy, another a winning lottery ticket, another a cheating wife. Crossing the street, I enter a slightly better neighborhood with slightly larger houses. I make the parents fight about money, the kids spoiled.

Before I know it, I've reached a neighborhood that looks eerily familiar, and I realize I'm on the street where Mrs. Edwards lived. But instead of wanting to turn around and head back to school, I feel oddly drawn toward her home.

What was she like when she was alive? I mean, what was she really like? Not at school, where she wrote vocabulary on the board and wore pencil skirts and cardigans every day. What was she like at home? With her husband? Her daughter?

I want to know the little things, like how she took her coffee or what television programs she watched before going to sleep. I crave this information like someone might want to know more about a lover. That sounds weird, but it's true. I'm feeling a little obsessed.

Her house appears just as it did when Abbott drove me here yesterday. Same withering garden, same wreath on the door, same silver SUV in the driveway. The only thing different, I realize as I move closer to the house, is that someone is in the backyard.

The house is on a corner, and the sidewalk I'm on wraps around the side of the house to the back. I follow it curiously, my heart thumping as I close the distance between myself and the little girl on the swing set behind the Edwards home. Today she is wearing a Cubs hat with overalls and pink Converse shoes.

I walk until I can see the expression on her face—not one you might expect from a child playing in the backyard. She looks kind of spaced out, pushing off with her feet and then letting the swing do its thing until it slows down and eventually stops. Then she pushes again, just enough to get her moving.