Grumpy Old Ladies

“I’m not old,” Donna said, half whining and half incredulously, and recoiling as her youngest daughter tried to take the plate full of mini quiches right out of her hands. She was quicker, though, and turned her body to keep them out of reach.

Christina rolled her eyes in the same exact way Donna herself had always done with her own mother. Christina had always been the most like her, and she’d probably known what Donna was thinking. Donna glared back, praying she didn’t look like her mother but fearing she did, and they both squared their shoulders in the same manner.

Refusing to admit defeat, Christina picked up a basket of muffins. “Aww,” she said, tilting her head, “Lemon poppy! Dad’s favorite!”

She sounded like she was going to start crying again, which Donna didn’t think she could take, so she interrupted her daughter before she could get much further and said, “He would have killed me if I didn’t have some lemon poppy muffins at this.”

This wasn’t strictly true. Ollie had been a practical man, and he probably would have thought that having his favorite food at his own wake was a silly thing, but Donna had baked them during a flurry of kitchen work and wasn’t prepared to explain why.

At the doorway, Donna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Just keep moving, she told herself. Just keep moving.

All week she’d had so much to do. Sunup to sundown, calling this person and calling that person. Answering questions and making arrangements. She’d said thank you to everyone who reached out to her, but there was a whole other level to it underneath the basic decency of communication that she wasn’t sure that even she was grasping. It was hard to do much thinking. Her brain felt numb.

Through the crowd, she spotted Christina exchanging a glance with her twin brother, Henry. They had their own near-telepathic communication methods, and Donna loved to share examples of it to underline how close a bond they had. She didn’t appreciate it being used against her, though it was difficult to keep track of why she was annoyed with them. She’d wanted them to help more during the week, despite the fact that she knew they were all busy, and all lived so far away, but now that they’d arrived she was frustrated when they kept trying to do things for her.

A touch at her elbow snapped her out of her mental fog, and brought her back to the moment.

“Oh! Hello!” Donna cried, throwing her arms around Regina Evans, a neighbor from down the street.

“Donna,” Regina said, hugging her back. “Lovely wake. Ollie will be missed.”

“Thank you,” she replied, disentangling herself and nodding. “He was a good man.”

“I just wanted to catch you up. You didn’t miss much at the executive meeting on Tuesday.”

“I missed the meeting?” Donna said, stunned.

“Not to worry, not to worry. No one expected you to be there. Your mailbox ivy resolution passed.”

Donna just blinked. She couldn’t believe she’d lost so much time. Suddenly it felt like the world had rushed past her when she wasn’t looking, and she wondered what else she might have lost track of.

“Yeah,” Regina said, nodding, “so we’ve got Steve purchasing a stock of seeds and some sticks to help them grow upright, and then I’m gonna have Millie and Julieann write up some instructions for planting them around. We should have that all coming around door to door, and by June we’ll all have some very pretty flowering growth coming up along the roadside. Should be stunning.”

In her proposal, she’d offered to do all of those things, and it was disheartening to be cut out. Maybe it’s a good thing to have that taken off my plate, she thought, and then, out loud, she said, “Oh, that’ll be beautiful.”

Regina touched her elbow again, politely, and turned back toward where her husband and son were conversing with others.

Donna wiped the corner of her eyes carefully. Her makeup was waterproof, but one never really knew. Once she started thinking about it, she felt her heart rate racing, so she moved to the side so she could see herself in the mirror next to the closet. Her makeup was fine, though she still hated her dress. It didn’t fit her at all. She’d almost had a complete meltdown at the dress shop in town.

Almost all of her kids had made it home for the service. Five out of six were there with her, shaking hands and handing out hugs. Only Laurie, who, technically, was not actually her child but had more or less grown up under her roof, hadn’t been able to make the trip, but she and Donna had been able to Facetime a couple times during the week and that had been comforting. Laurie was a good kid even though she persisted in making a living so far away.

Over the course of the afternoon, hundreds of people came through. Most of the neighborhood stopped by to pay their respects, and nearly all of Ollie’s coworkers. More family members than she could count. She found herself repeating phrases like “I don’t know how I’ll get along without him,” and “Ollie was my rock,” very mechanically. Reflexively.

She was pretty sure these were things widows said. She must have heard them somewhere, on a TV show or something. Everyone seemed to accept her axioms at face value, which was good, because she had been having an increasingly hard time keeping her thoughts straight. Had anyone asked her a question that required more thought than a stock answer, she might have cracked. Twenty-six years of marriage. She’d been with him since she was twenty, more than half of her life, and any attempt to think about what came after Ollie was simply unfathomable.

The doorbell rang late in the afternoon, and Donna frowned. She was sure she’d checked everyone on her mental list of relatives and acquaintances, and even if she’d missed one the service pamphlet was pretty clear to simply come in.

The police officer looked very young, and very flustered, when she opened the door. Increasingly so, as numerous guests in black behind her quieted and turned.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said, managing to keep his eyes on Donna’s. His older partner was not as discreet, and stared at her cleavage quite openly whenever Donna wasn’t looking at him.

Donna straightened her back, making her ample chest quiver, and gave him a bristling glare. “Yes?” she said, impatiently, and immediately regretted her tone.

“Um… there was a noise complaint for this address.”

Donna snapped her attention to the younger officer, who was sweating slightly, still keeping his eyes respectfully on approximately the right level without quite meeting her gaze.

“A noise complaint?”

“Yes, ma’am, we received an anonymous phone call earlier this afternoon. We’re just following up.”

She immediately knew who that anonymous caller was, and couldn’t stop her physical reaction of turning and glaring around the door frame toward her left hand neighbor’s house. Instead of calling that woman all the expletives she deserved, though, Donna froze. Her urge to communicate her frustration suffered a very polite evisceration by the good and proper front that she put up in front of guests and friends.

There was an explosive sigh behind her, and Donna glanced over her shoulder. Lennox, Laurie’s brother, got up from where he’d just sat down with a plate of food.

In her mind, he and Laurie both were more hers than that woman‘s, and that filled her with a lot of pride.

“I’ll go talk to her,” he grumbled.

The younger officer held up one hand in a calming manner, in a way Donna was sure he’d been trained to do to calm a crowd. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “The complaint was anonymous. Nobody is filing any charges, but we’re obligated to make an appearance. I’ll make sure the report reflects the nature of the event, and there won’t be any citations today.”

“Well, that would be wonderful of you,” she said, though she was pretty sure she was failing to make her smile as saccharine as she wanted to. She added, “Thank you, officers,” and did her absolute best not to slam the door in their leering, staring faces.

***

Three weeks later, Donna really missed her husband for the first time. Sure, she had mourned his premature departure from this mortal plane. She had been cast in the role of a grieving widow, and played the part to a tee. His funeral had been a beautiful occasion. She went to visit his grave every week, on her way to or from church, and made sure to keep it tidy and presentable with fresh flowers.

It was hard to say how much of any of it really penetrated, though, and how much of it was her forward momentum continuing to propel her through her days.

Spring had come late. Their lawn had looked pristine right up until it didn’t, and when the time came to mow it Donna had been positive it wouldn’t be much of an issue. She could work on her tan while she whistled and bustled around the yard. She’d be done in an hour or two, and be sipping lemonade on her back porch by noon.

That had been the plan but the wretched machine had refused to start, which felt like such a hostile thing for it to do. It wasn’t enough that she had to take care of this herself, no; the mower had to go out of its way to confound her.

That induced the first moment of genuine, stomach-wrenching longing, which surprised her. She had often pointed out to Ollie how much she did around the house, how Ollie took her for granted, and how many things were needed to keep a household like theirs running. Ollie, bless his soul, had ascribed to the ‘happy wife, happy life’ theory of marriage, and had not once in their entire marriage fought back.

It occurred to her for maybe the first time, as she stood there in the grass cursing at an inanimate object, that maybe it wasn’t just her that kept the house running.

Donna stalked around the little green John Deere push mower, out on the front lawn where she’d walked it, and contemplated calling the handier of her sons, Peter. That would be tantamount to surrender, though, so she frowned and groused and poked at it like she had even the slightest idea what she was doing. The tips of her fingers were getting oily, which was not helping her mood.

“Hi Mrs. Lampanella!”

Donna and Ollie had moved into the neighborhood between the birth of Janet and Peter, in their early twenties, and they had been among their peers. Nearly every resident had been between twenty three and thirty three years of age, and a generation of kids grew up together. Since then, about half of the families had moved away, so after the initial crop of kids came a much more spread-out gaggle. The boy on the sidewalk behind her, standing astride his bike, was one of the followers. He was maybe fifteen. Donna couldn’t remember his name, but she knew that his parents had moved into the old Silvestri house around the corner. Their names were…

“Hello, Mr. Payton!”

He smiled, seemingly excited to be remembered, and pointed at her mower. “I don’t want to be here.”

Donna quirked her head.

“My dad saw you futzing with that thing and he told me to come over here. He wants me to be mowing people’s lawns to build character.”

“But you don’t want to,” she said, looking down the street without turning.

The boy smiled. “I mean, not really, but I like money. Is your mower broke?”

“I’m sure I’ll have it going in a minute,” she said.

“Okay!” he said, brightly. “If my dad comes and asks, though, I gave you the whole spiel, okay?”

Donna tapped the side of her nose, and then pretended like she was scratching her cheek as he rode away. Watching the boy pedal gave her the excuse she needed to search further down the street, and sure enough she spotted the elder Payton trying very hard to look like he wasn’t peeking over his fence. That made her bristle. The boy —Eddie? Maybe?— had been pleasant about it, but she resented his father’s presumptiveness. She was going to fix it herself now, come hell or high water.

“Check the fuel shutoff valve,” came a voice from behind her. “Ollie always shut it for winter so moisture didn’t get into the fuel tank.”

Donna whipped around and scowled.

Magda was walking to her car, shouting over the hedge that ran between their front yards. She slowed for a second, watching, but Donna wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of following her suggestion in front of her. After a moment, Magda laughed, sat in her car, and turned on the engine. Donna stared after her, fuming, and when Magda’s car disappeared behind a corner she turned her attention back to the mower.

Fuel valve. What fuel valve. She shifted her anger towards Ollie, for making her feel helpless and ridiculous in front of the one person she never wanted to look helpless or ridiculous in front of. He should’ve known better. He should’ve left her written instructions, or a diagram, or…

She knew that was a bit much to ask for, him having gone so quickly, but he could have at least mentioned—

Just as she spotted the fuel line switch she remembered Ollie had mentioned something about it the previous autumn. Or maybe the year before that. She had laughed and shrugged it off at the time because mowing was Ollie’s job: one of the few sorry things he did around the house, always making more of a show about doing his chores than actually achieving anything. Or so Donna had always thought. Once the valve was opened, the damn thing started right up.

Mowing improved her mood. Look at me, managing on my own! she thought, as she moved back and forth across their—no, her yard. She eyed the product of her effort lovingly. Neat, tidy, presentable, just as the Dayton Farms Homeowner Association recommended. She had met the standards in one more little thing. One more box checked on her list. Her life consisted of similar small achievements, and she had long ago become adept at deriving immense satisfaction from them.

Sometimes, in her head, she awarded herself a little gold star, and that always made her smile.

After mowing, she brewed some coffee and sat on the porch, eyeing her newly trimmed yard, but it was hard to look for any length of time without turning her gaze over to Magda’s side. Magda had mowed her own lawn a few days earlier, but not diagonally like she was supposed to. The more Donna eyed her neat, diagonal lines to Maga’s equally neat but horizontal ones, the more she fumed.

Magda did it out of spite, she was sure. The witch could not do a single thing that was expected of her. Always having to annoy others. Doing every little thing the wrong way. It annoyed her all over again that Magda had known more about her lawnmower than she did; that Ollie had discussed it with her. She knew that Ollie had been on much friendlier terms with their neighbor than she was, but to be reminded of that annoyed her even more. And how had that devious wench repaid Ollie’s friendliness? By calling in a noise complaint to his wake?

She caught herself grumbling under her breath, and that hit her like a bolt. Grumbling under her breath was a bad habit Ollie had always tried to help her with. He always said ‘instead of complaining, just go do the thing.’

“Oh, I’ll go do the thing,” she grumbled.

Donna’s eyes fixed on the maple tree that grew on Magda’s side right next to their property line. The branches stretched over to their—her yard, right over the spot in front of her garage where she liked to park her car. It was just one more example of the total ruthlessness the woman had: they had asked Magda to trim it back many times, and yet she did nothing. Ollie had fretted over the leaves falling on their side just last autumn, when he was once again raking them, and it looked like it was about to drop its crop of helicopter seeds again which meant that her driveway was going to look terrible until she got out the pressure washer.

Donna eyed the branches evaluatively. She was sure she could reach most of them with Ollie’s branch cutter, and if she backed Ollie’s pickup truck out of the garage and stood on the bed of it…

An hour later she stepped back, wiping her forehead and watching the fruits of her labor with a mixture of delight and horror. She had butchered the tree, leaving it completely lopsided. She’d gotten angrier and more daring as she worked, in a spiralling frenzy, and had cut every single branch as close to the property line as she could manage so that it looked like the tree had grown into an invisible wall. A terrific little thrill shivered through her body. She had overdone it, cutting way more than was necessary, but there was no taking it back.

Ollie would have stopped her. Maybe Ollie was the only one who could have. As she stood there, staring at the product of her rage, she wished that he had. She wished he was there right that moment. But he wasn’t. That was when she had her second moment of truly missing her husband.

***

Donna’s third moment of missing her husband happened later that week.

She’d had trouble sleeping since he passed, the bed feeling too big and too empty, and her sleep schedule had gotten way off. She’d sleep late in the morning after staying up late, because what was the reason to get up early when she wasn’t joining Ollie for breakfast, and then she wouldn’t want to sleep until a little later each night. She wasn’t really tired, but it was dark and the clock said it was an ungodly hour of the morning so the rules said she should be in bed. She tossed and turned, kicking the covers off, then pulling them on again. It was a bit too hot with them and a bit too cold without them. She wondered if that’s what menopause would feel like, which made her feel very old. Very old, and very alone, and that was when it hit her.

Earlier in the evening, she had gone to her monthly book club. They had only met once since Ollie had passed, and she had anticipated that they would, as a group, still be sympathetic and supportive. She had been wrong, because Ellie had just gotten a diagnosis of cervical cancer and the whole rest of the meeting revolved around her. It was justified, of course; Ellie was a lovely woman and any kind of cancer diagnosis was serious, but between that and listening to all the others complain about their husbands never taking any gynecological ailments seriously, the whole affair had left her in a very foul mood. She wasn’t exactly sure why it was so foul, but foul it was.

Years earlier, one of their other neighbors, two doors down from Magda, had gradually dropped out of all their social engagements after her husband had died, and she’d finally moved away… Donna couldn’t say when. She hadn’t thought about…

Donna groaned, because she couldn’t even remember the woman’s name anymore. Christina would know; she’d been friends with the oldest daughter. Penny, maybe? Or was Penny the mom? She’d have to call Chrissy in the morning and ask.

Donna hadn’t thought about that woman in years, but now Donna wondered if she had just withdrawn, like Donna had thought at the time, or if she’d been slowly pushed out: her isolation and frustration marginalized by the trivial goings on in the lives of everyone around her. And, ultimately, if the same would happen to Donna.

She had thought about relocating. She would have loved to live closer to her children, especially now that Chrissy had finally gotten to it and given her a grandchild. She was sure she could have been of great help, being so proficient in running a household and all. To her amazement, each of her kids brushed off the suggestion that they needed her every time she ventured there.

From kids and grandkids her thoughts wandered once again to Ollie. She squirmed in her huge, lonely bed, wondering what it was that bothered her, but she didn’t figure it out until she got so hot that she removed her nightgown to lay naked on the sheets.

She was horny.

Her and Ollie’s sex life had been active in the beginning; they had gone at it like bunnies, playful and insatiable. Having kids and being constantly tired and often interrupted had changed that, but they had maintained some semblage of that aspect of their marriage. Even after the twins had ruined their sleep for good and made finding a babysitter almost impossible, they had made it work, and over the years had settled into a schedule of once or twice a month. Donna’s sex drive, which had been whirring in overdrive in her youth, had been well served by that schedule, and after being with each other for almost thirty years Ollie had known all of her buttons and remained willing to push them.

As she lay there naked in bed she realized it had been almost four months since the last time she’d had sex. She had been so occupied with Ollie’s illness, and then the quickness of his passing, and then the aftermath of his passing, that she hadn’t thought about sex even once. Now, suddenly, alone in her bed at four in the morning, it was all she could think about, and she was ill prepared to handle it alone.

Her hands roamed, tentatively, down her voluptuous body. She eyed her boobs in the low glow of the nightlight, gathered them up over her chest and let them flow into her armpits once more. Cradled in her arms, they towered over her. Ollie had loved them, but she was often exasperated with their impractical size and the attention they drew. She stroked her tummy, feeling the stretch marks with her fingertips. She was going to have to masturbate to get her brain to settle down. She tried to remember the last time she’d done that, but couldn’t.

It was daunting to be faced with the prospect of satisfying herself after so many years where her sexual goal had been satisfying someone else.

Uninvited, her thoughts moved to her next door neighbor. She was unnerved that Magda hadn’t yet made her move after the incident with the tree, and had been thinking about her a lot: anticipating her next strike, wondering what she would do. Magda had been a widow for… close to fifteen years now? After her kids had moved out, she had taken that sorry excuse for a dog to keep her company. What was its name again? Peanut? A chihuahua of some sort. Donna had always thought there was something fundamentally wrong with having a dog that was smaller than a cat.

Donna snorted at herself. Why was she thinking about the dog?

The point, she reminded herself, was that she didn’t remember Magda having any affairs since her husband’s passing. Or, at least, she hadn’t brought anyone home, even after the kids had moved out. No strange cars in the driveway. No headlights lighting up their bedroom late at night. Fifteen years was a long time to be without. How had Magda done it, and here she was about to lose her mind after four months?

Those thoughts halted when she touched herself for the first time. She was already more aroused than she had realized. She’d thought it would be clumsy and uncomfortable —God, had she been a teenager the last time she’d fingered herself?— but it was just like riding a bike. It all came right back, fingers instinctively homing in on her most sensitive buttons, and for a long, happy while she lost herself in the physical feelings. Afterwards, she was pleasantly relaxed, limbs flush with a warm and heavy feeling, and managed to fall asleep before her thoughts caught up with her again.

***

“Guess what that bitch did,” Donna ranted as she bustled through her kitchen.

“Gee,” Peter, her second born, said. His head and shoulders, peering out from the screen of her upright iPad, looked unsurprised. “I wonder who we’re talking about.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me,” she said, pulling out her rolling pin and wielding it menacingly toward the screen, with just a hint of a smirk.

“Well, you butchered her tree, Mom. Lennox sent me pictures.”

The smirk disappeared. “You’ve seen it?”

“All of us saw it.”

“Oh,” she grumbled, “so now you ungrateful bastards are all talking behind my back?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

Donna threw both of her hands up in the air, and held the pin like she was going to throw it. Just for a second. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was… As soon as the words left my mouth. Instant regret. I’ve just been having a hard time, with your father, and that bitch—”

“Mom, come on. Magda raised us too. You’re putting me in a really tough spot here. We spent almost as much time over there as—”

“You did not!”

“Mom,” he said, putting a lot of heavy emphasis on the word, “I know Laurie and Lennox came over, like, every day when she was working, but Dad worked late a lot, and when you had PTA meetings, or the HOA, or your book club, or when you volunteered at the church carnival, or—”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t that often,” she said, leaning on the counter.

“It was a couple nights a week,” he said, giving her a meaningful look.

“Not every week!”

“Two or three nights a week, every week, for years.”

“All six of you?”

“Yeah.” Her oldest son bit his lip, like he always did when he was trying to figure out how much to lie. “I mean, yeah. Mostly.”

“Peter Anthony.”

“Okay,” he said, snickering, “you didn’t hear it from me, but for about a year? Two? God, I can’t even remember now. Anyway, Janet and Lennox were sneaking around. They’d use any excuse to not be with the rest of us. On nights where you’d be out and we’d all be at Magda’s having dinner, Janet and Lennox would be upstairs in her bedroom having sex.”

For a brief moment, Donna was struck temporarily blind. “H-H…How old were they?”

“I forget now,” he said, shaking his head and actually laughing. “I can’t believe I’m the one finally breaking the seal on that. Janet is gonna kick my ass.”

“Not if I kick her ass first,” Donna ranted. “Janet and Lennox?!”

“Yeah,” he said, still laughing. “Oh, gosh, she was, what, fifteen? Maybe sixteen?”

“You all spent so much time together, though!”

“Some more than others,” he said, and started laughing even louder.

“Ahhh,” she said, recoiling, her face twisting like she’d caught a whiff of something rotten. “They’re like brother and sister! I don’t want to think about that.”

“Alright, alright. Tell me what Magda did that was so bad.”

Donna narrowed her eyes, and then gave herself a good shake. “She cut a little hole in our hose! The good orange one that we’ve had for years! I went to put the sprinkler out like your dad always used to, and as soon as I turned on the water I got drenched! Soaked my shirt through completely! I screamed, and, and… and then, from over in her backyard, she started laughing. She couldn’t have seen what happened to me over the fence. She knew, and she knew because she did it.”

“Mom, that hose is, like, twenty years old.”

“I found the hole,” she said, “and it was cut. A little slit, like a knife.”

“Okay,” he replied, “even if that was true, you’re going to let it go, right?”

“Like hell I’m gonna let it go,” Donna roared. “I’m gonna get her back!”

“Mom, you are way too old to be getting into a prank war with your neighbor.”

She scowled, said, “You’re out of the will,” with a little smirk, and ended the call. He wasn’t, but it felt good to say. Especially his shocked reaction. She was going to be getting a call from Chrissy later, because Chrissy was the one they all thought could reason with her, and that made her groan.

“She started it,” Donna mumbled to herself, as she started rolling out the dough with extreme prejudice.

***

Donna’s smile turned devilish. Twenty minutes into her bath, she’d started to feel the stress leeching from her tired muscles. Pulling all the weeds from the two little flower beds at the edge of her driveway always took a toll on her lower back, but her smile wasn’t because she felt like she could bend and twist again; it was because the vanilla scented oil she’d added was kicking in as well, and she was horny. She pulled the drain plug, and reached over the side of the tub for her supplies.

She couldn’t believe how often she was masturbating. It felt scandalous, touching herself once or twice a week after so long of having sex once or twice a month. That made her cheeks burn, but it didn’t make her stop. It made her feel good. She liked feeling good.

Her favorite thing to do had been a complete accident the first time it happened. She had been trying to shift how she was laying in the tub, and lost her grip. She slid across the partially filled tub on her back, until her bum was flush with the front of the tub, and moaned when her pussy moved right in line with the path of the faucet. The heat of it, and the gentle-but-insistent downpour of pressure, hit a sweet spot for her nerve endings. That first time, she’d only just needed to add a little bit of touching herself, feathering her clit, to orgasm.

Each of the following times, she’d been more purposeful. She took her two inflatable bath pillows and used them to prop her head up out of the water. Then, while the faucet was running, she’d position herself just so, with her feet way up on the cool tile, and play with her nipples. It felt good to play with both of them while the flowing water did its thing. It felt good to be able to throw her head back and moan, loudly. Full throated, and filling the house with her echoes. It felt good to let loose and enjoy herself, and it also felt like she hadn’t had a whole lot of that in her life for a while. A long while.

After a minute or so, she’d get impatient. She’d lift one of her breasts, the left one, which was slightly smaller and slightly more sensitive, to her lips. She couldn’t moan quite the same, while she suckled, but that freed up her left hand to give that extra little bit of touch that she needed.

She was just getting out of the tub, ten minutes and one amazing orgasm later, and drying her hair, when there was a knock at the door.

She called, loudly, “Can you get tha—” and cut off when her brain kicked in and she remembered that there was no one else in the house.

She couldn’t just pretend she wasn’t there. She’d yelled, loudly, intending to be heard. Whoever was at the door would have heard her, and would be waiting. In fact, they knocked once more before Donna had gotten her shorts pulled up. Her headspace got darker and darker as she hurried down the steps, and she had to pause, with her hand on the door knob, to compose herself.

“Hello girls,” she said, affecting a bright, wide smile, as she opened the door wide.

A flock of snickering Girl Scouts smiled back at her. They said, “Hello Mrs. Lampanella,” in discordant unison. “Would you like to buy some cookies?” Some of them couldn’t manage to finish even that before breaking out into full-fledged giggles.

Donna’s expression never wavered. “Well of course, ladies. You know me. I remember quite a few of you coming here last year!” She made eye contact with two of the older girls, and they beamed. “How about you put me down for three boxes of Thin Mints and, oh boy, what are the lemon ones called again? I can never—”

“Savannah Smiles!” they cried.

“That’s the one,” Donna replied, laughing with them. “Two boxes of those.”

The oldest one, the one with the clipboard, started making a series of notations on her worksheet while the other five all counted out her boxes by committee.

While they worked, Donna smiled and waved at the pair of moms waiting together out on the sidewalk. Fifteen years ago that had been her out there, following Janet, and then Laurie, and Chrissy, as they pulled an old Radio Flyer wagon around from door to door. The moms smiled and nodded, but were too invested in the conversation they were having to spare very much in the way of attention for one of their forebears.

Donna quickly stepped back into her house a few steps, and fished her checkbook and a pen from her purse. When the oldest girl gave her the total, Donna gave her a twinkling smile and asked her to check it again. Then, when the girl came back with an amount that was six dollars more, she smiled and wrote the check.

She waved and thanked them all, for coming to her door again, and broke down just about the second the door was closed. She couldn’t say why, really. Maybe it was the mistake right before they’d arrived, calling out for Ollie. Maybe it was that she didn’t even like Thin Mints. Her kids had liked Thin Mints, and she couldn’t keep a lid on the instinct to keep some squirreled away for them. Maybe it was just that she hadn’t felt like smiling just then, not for other people, but she’d put on the mask anyway.

It was a mask she’d worn often, as a mom and a housewife. It was familiar. It deflected attention from her, and told the world at large that she was fine even when she wasn’t.

She was tired of pretending to be fine.

***

Donna was still upset a few days later. She pushed her cart in the Walmart, grumpily reminding herself to buy groceries for only her own needs. Leaving Ollie’s favorite snacks on the shelves made her more melancholy than she had anticipated. Some things were so ingrained, like keeping a couple jars of unshelled pistachios, that it caused physical pain to put them back.

She was loading her purchases on the cashier’s belt, when a familiar voice carried over from the adjacent counter.

“Leave the tools,” it said. “You don’t need them.”

Donna snapped her head up and glared: Magda.

“What do you mean?” she said, leapfrogging over annoyed and going straight to pissed off.

“You already have a set just like that,” Magda said, emptying her own cart. “Ollie left it at my place when he put up some shelves for me. I’ll bring it over later.”

Donna felt her temper rise. She loathed to be reminded Ollie was on more neutral, even friendly, terms with their neighbor than she was. It didn’t even register that Magda was confirming she’d bought the right kind of socket wrench set.

“You just take and take and take, don’t you? All of you.”

Magda looked up, and her raised eyebrows aggravated Donna further.

“Don’t give me that look,” she continued, improvising wildly to keep Magda on the edge. “Have you been covering for Lennox? Hmm?”

“Lennox? What about Lennox?!” Magda’s voice had genuine alarm in it, and against her better judgement Donna pressed on.

Her skin started to burn. “He’s been sleeping around with my daughter, that’s what I’m talking about! Now she’s pregnant, and her fiance is leaving her!”

What am I doing? she thought, but there was no backing down. One bad decision piling on top of another. They stared at each other, thunderbolts flashing from each their eyes, and she didn’t think she could have stopped herself if she tried.

“Ma’am,” Donna’s cashier added, timidly, to the stunned silence. “Excuse me ma’am, will you be taking the tools?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need ’em! I don’t want anything from that bitch!” Then she whipped around, back toward Magda, and continued, saying, “You can keep them, you hear me? I don’t want ’em back!”

Donna threw down some cash, that was probably close to the right amount, and stormed outside, feeling the color rise on her neck and cheeks. She mentally kicked herself all the way to her car, threw her bags into the trunk, and shoved the shopping cart across the parking lot. She was so ashamed of herself. Why had she made up such a stupid lie? One that would be corrected by a simple phone call? Why?

Magda drove her crazy, that’s why! She completely made Donna lose it. A series of incidents and slights between them that stretched back to ancient history. Ollie had always been there to talk her back down. To make sense of the situation. To keep Donna sane. No more.

She sat on the driver’s seat, determined to drive off as quickly as possible, but couldn’t. Instead, she rested her face onto the steering wheel and felt hot tears dripping on her hands as she sobbed.

The worst part was that she wasn’t even sure why she was crying.

***

“Mom,” Donna said. She hated the tone of voice her mother drew out of her, so irritatingly similar to what her own kids sometimes used with her. It was a tone no one else was capable of triggering in her. “I’m forty-six! You do not need to be checking up on me!” No one else could make her feel so small.

“Janet called me! She’s worried about you, and with good reason! What were you thinking?” Her mother’s voice was faint. Thin. Donna pictured her on her patio on the retiree paradise resort she frequented, sipping margaritas in the afternoon sun.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me. I am your mother, remember?”

“Yes, mom,” Donna said and rolled her eyes.

“And don’t you roll your eyes at me either.”

Donna was momentarily confused, and had to recheck their conversation was audio only and not facetime. By the time she was assured it was just a lucky guess, the window of opportunity for a snarky comeback had passed. She sighed. “Look, Mom, it’s just been difficult. That’s all.”

“Why would you say that about Janet and Lennox? What is this between you and Magda, anyway? I thought you two were friends.”

“Friends?! We were never friends! That bitch—”

“Now, now, I distinctly remember a time when she used to come for sleepovers all the time. You two would giggle half the night away, and I’d have to come and take your flashlights away so you’d go to sleep! You were plenty friendly back then.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Don’t you yeah-but me! Put on your big girl pants and apologize to Magda. Don’t make me come over there.”

Like you would, Donna thought, moodily, and drew a deep breath. “Alright, Mom.”

“Now that’s more like it,” her mother said with a self satisfied tone. Donna rolled her eyes, making sure to keep it from her voice this time. Her mother saved her the trouble of casually changing the topic. “I gotta let you go. They’re gonna start the canasta tournament.”

“Good luck, Mom,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it.

***

Donna was mowing her lawn. She still felt a fierce sense of achievement over managing it so well by herself, even though she’d been doing it for months. By that point, it finally felt like it had in her imagination: she had on her white shorts and her skimpiest top (so that her tan was as even as possible), and she could feel the sun caressing her skin while she worked. It was a hot day, and she had kicked off her shoes. She loved the scent of the freshly cut grass, the sound of the mower, the strain on her muscles as she maneuvered it around the dogwood, the feeling of soft grass under her—

squick

There was something under the sole of her right foot. She shivered in disgust as she lifted her foot to see. Wasn’t it too dry for snails? The scent carried to her nostrils before she could see it. It was dog shit. A very small turd, from a very small dog.

Donna let out a wordless shout of disgust and rage as she kicked her heel into the grass. She immediately started hobbling in circles, mad and unfocused, and bellowed when her boobs tried to escape her top.

The third shout, already a little hoarse, was more of frustration.

Had she smeared any of it with the mower wheels? No, she thought, as she examined them, probably not. That was good news. The mere thought of trying to clean off the shit made her shiver in disgust.

Maybe she could wash her foot in the garage sink. If that didn’t work, maybe Ollie had some rags there that she could wrap around her foot so that she could get inside to the bathroom without making a mess everywhere that she’d have to be the one to clean.

She eyed the lawn carefully as she walked across it, wiping her stained foot through the grass with force on each step. She spotted one more small turd on the side she hadn’t yet mowed. She would have to comb the yard before continuing. And every time before mowing from now on. Infuriating! Disgusting! So… unsanitary!

Donna had never liked Magda’s dog, but now she regarded it with open animosity. What if she laid some rat poison around her yard? Maybe the filthy fleabag would eat some and drop dead. It was almost the right weight, after all. The yappy little thing was basically a barking rat already.

She peered into the garage, shadowy and dimly lit after the sunbathed yard, and estimated the distance to the sink. She glanced around, and when she didn’t see anyone around, she grabbed her boobs and took a few tentative hops on her unsoiled foot. No—no she couldn’t. Even for such a short distance. Donna hated that they bounced so much. It was just… unseemly. Obscene.

She clenched her jaw, stepping clumsily only on the heel of her foot, and hobbled over to the sink. She scrubbed her foot with soap and Ollie’s old sponge until it was red and felt tender. Then she went inside, still walking mostly on her heel, and spent a long while washing and disinfecting it.

“Babe, it’s only shit.” She could hear Ollie’s amused voice in her head. “You had four kids. How can you be so freaked out by this?”

Donna growled and banished her late husband from her head. Sure, she had spent years of her life washing other’s bottoms and changing a lot of very messy diapers, but it was a very different thing to do that for her own children. Holy shit, she thought, when she realized how long it had been since she’d had to wipe a bottom, and suppressed the giggle with extreme prejudice.

This was not fun! She was furious!

Donna went back to the garage to dump the sponge into the trash can. She wondered if Ollie had more of those somewhere. Probably yes; he was always a hawk for good deals to stock their house with this, that, or the other thing. He hadn’t been cheap, exactly, but he had been prone to say that a penny saved is a penny earned.

She opened cupboards and rummaged in Ollie’s craft table’s drawers. When she pulled open the big center one, her gaze fixed on a box full of miscellaneous items. There was a set of keys she didn’t remember seeing before. Ollie’s handwriting was on the paper slipped inside the plastic dongle. She took them in her hands and turned the keyring the right side up. “Magda”, it said.

Ollie had a key to Magda’s house.

Donna flipped the offending item around in her hand, turning her head towards Magda’s house as though she could see it from inside the garage. Ollie had kept a key to that witch’s house, and had never mentioned it to his lawfully married wife.

“You just would have got all worked up, over nothing,” Ollie’s voice said inside her head.

“You shut up,” Donna said. She slammed the key back into the box, closed the drawer and picked up an empty jar and a pair of thick plastic gloves. “I bet she didn’t make the dog shit in our yard when you were alive.”

Ollie didn’t have anything to say to that. Donna spent the next fifteen minutes scrutinizing her lawn very carefully and depositing the three miniscule turds into the jar, shivering with disgust. She very briefly entertained, and was indignant at, the idea of Ollie carrying on an affair with the witch, but if that was the case then why would he label the key? It was the kind of idea that only made sense when she was already irate and not thinking clearly.

She reluctantly mowed the rest of her lawn, being physically unable to leave the job half done, and despite her frustration it delighted her to see her yard so tidy again. Every time she was on Magda’s side of the yard, she eyed the slightly-overgrown-but-still-noticeably-wrongly-mowed lawn, and her temper rose. When she was done she didn’t even stop, but pushed the mower over to Magda’s side and proceeded to cut her lawn the way it was supposed to be cut. Diagonal. Just like everyone else.

Donna kept an eye out for more turds and, sure enough, couldn’t find any on Magda’s side. She deposited the poop jar in the garage, and the following days found her examining her yard with a keen eye and steadily filling it up. Every time she picked one up, she got more and more angry. Her mind was constantly trying to come up with the best way to return the pile of shit to Magda. The spare key kept popping up in her thoughts as well; should she take the dog shit inside? Put them under Magda’s pillow, perhaps? Bring one of Ollie’s screwdrivers and drop them down one of the HVAC vents? A canine upper decker? Donna wasn’t sure if Magda knew they had a key to her house, and didn’t want to give away that advantage if she didn’t.

It was a ludicrous revenge fantasy, and it made her ludicrously giddy.

Later that night, when Donna lay on the bed, spread eagle and sweaty having just masturbated to a furious orgasm, it occurred to her that the key might not work. There was no telling how old the key was; maybe Magda had changed the locks since? She raised her head and peeked over the windowsill to the shadowy bulk of Magda’s house looming behind the fence.

She huffed and curled up, pulling a blanket over her naked body. Only one way to find out.

***

Donna was very alert. She had awakened much earlier than usual, had a bit too much coffee, and was currently, intently, peeking through the curtains of the window that had the best view of Magda’s car.

She was so on edge, and so wired on caffeine, that she nearly squeaked when she saw Magda emerge from her house at seven fifty on her way to work. Donna held her breath and made sure not to touch the curtains.

Magda looked good in a suit. She was tall and slender, and Donna felt an intense twinge of envy at how well the jacket accentuated her curves. She wondered if Magda had the suit tailored, but no; she wouldn’t need to. Her body type was the exact proportional shape every clothes manufacturer seemed to cater to, unlike herself; Donna had never met a suit that fit her even remotely well. She muttered bitterly under her breath and adjusted the strap of her bra, which was again digging uncomfortably into her shoulder.

It happened so fast that Donna almost missed it.

Magda looked around, suspiciously, and walked closer to the property line. The taller woman threw something on the roof of Donna’s car, and then she shouted for the weasely, stupid little dog to come inside. Sure enough, it had again been shitting on her side of the—

Donna gasped as it hit her. Bird food! She had wondered why birds seemed suddenly so eager to shit on her car, especially now that the tree didn’t stretch over it anymore, and had thought she was just imagining it. The nerve on that woman!

Donna followed, with narrowed eyes, when Magda shut the front door behind the dog-shaped squeak toy, locked it, walked to her car, and drove away.

Time for action.

Donna collected the key from the garage and snuck over to Magda’s back door. She told herself that it was a fact finding mission, that being able to get inside of Magda’s house would work once, so she needed to find something perfect. Something masterful to get Magda back for all the birdshit on her car. She held her breath when she slid the key into the lock, and sighed explosively when it worked! She twisted it carefully and stepped in quickly, pulling it closed behind her with grim determination. Finally, she could really show that bitch who she was. She was going to—

“Oh shit!”

The miniscule canine, some kind of Chihuahua, came bounding around the corner like an excited brown tennis ball, yapping as it hopped around her, stupid little tail wiggling like crazy. Donna let out a nervous laugh; she had already forgotten about the dog, and had gotten the fright of her life when it suddenly and erratically began circling her feet.

“Hush, you stupid rat,” she said, and nudged it away with her foot. She snuck through the kitchen, looking left and right and wondering where to start. Magda’s house wasn’t laid out like hers, and she had no idea where the bedroom would be. Maybe it was best to start upstairs and work her way down? She started up the stairs, looking up to a corridor with doors leading off it, when suddenly she had a jolt even more vicious than the surprise appearance of a dog: a sound that couldn’t be anything other than a key turning in the front door deadbolt behind her.

The still-yapping small vermin heard it too and it darted towards the front door, paws skidding on the parquet. Donna cast a look towards the front door just as it started to open, hurried up the last few steps fast-fast-fast-fast, opened the door closest to her in wild panic and tried to close it behind her as quietly-but-fast as possible. She leaned back on it, her heart thumping so hard she was sure the whole neighborhood could hear.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Magda’s voice was muffled through the door. “Hush, Peanut. Mommy forgot her lunch, that’s all. You can stop barking now.”

The voice carried a little differently, and Donna guessed she was walking towards the kitchen.

“Really, boy. Enough already.”

Magda started to sound a little irritated, and the dog stopped yapping. Thud-thud-thud, said Donna’s heart, in the following quiet, and she strained her ears. She couldn’t hear anything, but she was sure that at any second Magda would yank the door open, and she would fall backwards into the corridor, and she would be busted, and—

The front door closed. Donna stood, frigid, wide-eyed, for a full five minutes, before she slumped and breathed out. Quite the burglar, she thought. Almost caught red handed on my first job.

She let out a small, nervous giggle and eyed the room. This might have been a kid’s bedroom once upon a time, but now it seemed to be some kind of recreational room. There was an exercise bike in the corner, a yoga mat, and a set of weights on one side, TV and a DVD player on a shelf on the other side, a single bed curiously at the center of the floor, and some kind of a machine on the foot of it. She stepped closer and felt her jaw drop.

Attached to the machine was a penis on a shaft. Dildo, Donna thought to herself. Artificial penises were called dildos. It was very convincing and authentic looking, with bulging veins along its shaft and a pair of testicles attached to the base. The only thing that made it nonrealistic was the color; it was translucent and purple. Donna looked at the bed, at the machine, then probed the dildo carefully with a fingertip. It felt soft and rubbery, wobbling at her touch.

Donna had never seen anything like it before, but it didn’t take much imagination to deduce what it was for. She circled the bed, and on the other side of it there was a box full of dicks. Magda had a box full of dicks. Different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some with a hole at the base, for attachment to the machine she supposed, and some without. In addition, there were other devices, which Donna guessed were also aimed at… self-indulgence.

She eyed the room again. There was a lockable walk-in closet, open now, and it didn’t take much deductive reasoning to see that was where Magda hid her… equipment… when her kids came to visit. Donna turned to look towards the TV, suspicious now of what Magda might be watching while taking care of herself, when her gaze swept across the window and she gasped.

This room was on the side of the house facing hers, and from this window Donna could, quite effortlessly, see down into her own bedroom. She instantly remembered all the times she had undressed, often setting her clothes on the chair in front of the window, and blushed. Then she remembered all the times she had laid on the bed, the side of the bed most visible, where she’d spent so much time masturbating recently, and she blushed a shade or two deeper. It did occur to her that the view had not been unobstructed before she herself had butchered the tree that stood conveniently in the line of sight, but all feeling of responsibility dissolved when she spotted a pair of small binoculars at the windowsill.

Donna hovered, looking towards her house, then around the room. Maybe Magda wasn’t watching her. Maybe the binoculars were for some entirely innocent reason, although she was pretty sure Magda wasn’t into ornithology. She turned away and went to check the TV. It was positioned diagonally to the bed, undoubtedly so that Magda could see the screen when… Donna glanced back towards the bed and blushed again.

She opened the cupboard under the TV set, kneeling before it, and gasped. Neatly stacked rows of DVDs, all arranged alphabetically by title. So much porn. After examining a few, she discovered they were mostly of the lesbian variety. Nearly all. All? Donna stared at the cover of one, maybe the fifth she’d picked up, and felt her eyebrows rising higher and higher. The Office (Sapphic version) was printed on top, and in the picture there were two middle-aged women locked in a passionate embrace. One was taller and slimmer, red-haired, and the other was short and plump, with enormous breasts. She hadn’t known people like that featured in porn, not that she knew very much about the subject.

Donna tried, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to put it back down. She looked at the piles of disks, clutching The Office movie to her chest, and finally closed the doors and stood up. She didn’t have a clear plan in mind, but she didn’t want to part with the film before having a chance to take a closer look. In her head, she was repeating What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?

She left the room reluctantly and checked the rest of upstairs. Her mind wasn’t in her burglary anymore, but she checked each room dutifully to see what was where. She had again forgotten about the dog, and had another near heart attack when it ran up to her, yapping its teeny head off, when she came downstairs.

“Shut up, or I’ll make the world’s tiniest pelt out of you,” she said, threateningly. It looked at her with its annoyingly bright eyes and tilted its head, but mercifully shut its mouth. Donna checked the downstairs and, not wanting to leave without having done some kind of a prank, diluted Magda’s orange juice with tap water before skulking back to her own house.

***

Donna squirmed on the couch. She had just watched Magda’s DVD for the second time, and there was no denying that she was all hot and bothered. It was an amazingly erotic film, not at all how Donna had imagined porn to be, although it was porn: no doubt about it. It was very explicit, very light on plot, and very heavy on a cast of women sneaking around and fucking in each other’s offices. It took her a long time to realize that the title was a play on the UK/US version subtitles for the respective sitcoms, and that made her snicker.

She was surprised by how much watching lesbian action turned her on. It reminded her of her few experiences: there was the one dare, when she had to kiss Tanya, and the one girl at college, Daisy, whom she had seriously been attracted to, but then Daisy had dropped out and… and then she had gone steady with Ollie, and that had been the end of everything else in her love life. Her very few and very ancient experiences.

Donna didn’t know how to handle that evening. Her masturbating habit had grown from when she started it to, now, an almost daily occurrence, so much so that she thought she maybe couldn’t sleep without taking care of herself first. Idly she wondered if that was some kind of an early menopause symptom, because she didn’t used to be this active. It wasn’t that sex with Ollie had been more satisfying than masturbating. It had been different, and in a way it maybe had been more satisfying, but that wasn’t all of it. She was changing.

Her thoughts kept returning to the binoculars on the windowsill. If she suddenly started to close the drapes, or undress in the bathroom and wear a robe, Magda might guess she had been found out. Maybe, especially if she realized that her orange juice had tasted different. She also didn’t want to change her ways, she loved masturbating naked on her bed, but Magda might be looking at her! How could she possibly masturbate with someone looking? Just the idea of being watched made her dizzy, but if that someone was that bitch?

It had been getting harder to summon her hatred of Magda. Harder, but not impossible.

She could masturbate on the couch. Or in the bath, though that had lost some of its previous appeal after the Girl Scout incident, but that would only postpone the inevitable. She snorted at herself, then went to check on Magda’s car. It wasn’t in the driveway. Encouraged, extremely aroused and strangely defiant, she strode to the bedroom, undressed at her usual spot by the window, and threw herself on the bed.

She came harder than she had in a long time. Maybe ever. Thinking of the lesbian movie, combined with nervously considering the possibility of Magda having come home just then and peeking through the window, sent her crashing over the edge with such force that she cried out and thrashed about on the bed.

Her dreams were restless, and in the morning she remembered only that Magda had been in them.

***

Donna settled into her favorite armchair, set her freshly brewed coffee on the table beside her, and sighed. She’d been putting off calling her youngest, and was, frankly, embarrassed to be caught out avoiding her own child. It was the kind of thing they usually did to her, and that got her back up. He’d said he was going to call, so she’d be ready when he did. In her favorite chair. With her favorite coffee in her favorite deer mug.

There was a chill in the air, it being mid-November, so she had the space heater on inside her covered back porch. Once upon a time Ollie would have had something to say about where she’d put the space heater, so close to the wicker table between her chair and the chair where he used to sit, but Ollie had less and less to say as the year wore on. Even in her head, where she had heard his voice as clear as day, as if he had been in the room, her late husband had drifted into silence as the months wore on.

She picked up her favorite book, intent on reading what she could while she waited. When she’d first read it, as a teen, she’d liked the dream-like magical realism of the tale, and the protagonist’s unique interactions with the miniature dwarves that lived in her walls. As she’d gotten older, she’d been drawn to the curiously interconnected themes of independence and trust. Of late, though, she had found that the relationship between the protagonist and her rival had more layers than she’d realized, and she was enjoying it again with fresh eyes for what felt like the third time in her life.

She’d only managed to read a few pages when her tablet buzzed on the table beside her, and she swiped across the screen to unlock and answer. Henry, Chrissy’s slightly younger twin brother, smiled brightly at her from his kitchen.

“Hey mom,” he said.

She gave a little wave. “How is your day going, Nugget?”

There had been a time when calling Henry by his pet name had sent him into a fit of uncontrollable giggles, and it depressed her to realize that the distance between that time and now could be measured in decades.

“Pretty good,” he said, tersely. “Job still sucks, but if they go ahead with the takeover then I’ll get a whole team of associates under me. That’ll be… you know… awkward and hard for a little while but I think better for me in the long run.”

“Why awkward?” she asked, clinging shamelessly to any excuse to put off the inevitable.

“Well,” he said, rolling his eyes a little at something off camera. He knew what she was doing, but he also couldn’t help himself. “We’re gonna be getting rid of a lot of MassFlow’s management. People at my level. Keeping the service contracts and the lines and the operators and technicians, but consolidating the hierarchy. We’re gonna be firing their boss and installing me, an outsider.”

He knew she was stalling, he had to, and she wanted to keep him on his toes, so she jumped right over that shark. “How was your Halloween? Did you and Dierdre do anything fun?”

“Why are you antagonizing her, mom?”

“Oh come on,” she said, “You know she—”

Henry waved his hands sharply, and she stopped to let him talk.

“It doesn’t matter why. I don’t even know why I asked. I know she pushes your buttons. She always did.”

“Thank you!” she said, emphatically.

“I don’t know why she pushes your buttons so hard, but she does.”

“You’ve never seen that bitch eat crackers.” Donna leaned forward, smiling devilishly. “Did someone already tell you what I did?”

Henry smiled, and then quickly wiped the smile off of his face as he reacted very minutely to something off camera. She suspected it was his twin sister, Christina, but it could have been Dierdre; Henry’s fiancée had always been partial to Magda. “Yes. How did you guess her Wi-Fi password?”

Donna gave him a smug little smirk. “I have my ways.”

“I can’t believe you kept turning on her porch light, and she didn’t figure it out.”

This time, she cackled. “I went out into the yard with my iPad, all bundled up, and set up under the McPherson’s oak back in the corner of the yard. Every time she went stomping through the house, she’d turn on the kitchen light so I’d see her going, and I’d quick switch the porch light off again before she got there!”

“That’s devious,” he said. Then he raised his eyebrows, stared behind the camera, and said, “What. It is.”

“Hi Deirdre,” Donna said, making an intuitive leap.

“Hi Donna,” Deirdre replied, wearily, from off screen.

“How did you know how to do that?”

She licked her lips. “About a year ago, they were bugging her at an Homeowners meeting because she hadn’t contributed anything in years. You know, we all bring some ideas to the table, I had the bake sale and the little candle thing at Christmas a couple years ago.”

“I remember,” Henry said, nodding.

“Anyway, they bugged her and bugged her and bugged her, and eventually she said that, you know, she’d been putting in a bunch of little doodads around the house that automated her lights, and her heating, and her AC, and the little… that stupid… Roomba! God. Can you imagine? Run a vacuum once in a while.”

“Mom,” he said, giving her a look.

“Anyway,” she continued, “She wanted us all to automate our outside lights so that they all turned on, up and down the street, within a couple seconds of each other. Blink!” She made a chopping motion with her hand to emphasize. “Magda thought that would look cool. She demonstrated how it worked, brought her little tablet thing and showed us, and I remembered the name of the app she used. I figured out her Wi-Fi password a while ago, but I sat on it until I figured out something to do with it. Making her get up and give out some candy on Halloween for the first time since Lennox moved away seemed like a pretty good use.”

Henry snickered and shook his head. “How did you know she had any candy?”

Donna panicked, briefly, before saying, “Oh, she always used to have a bunch of candy tucked away. You think I didn’t know you kids would sneak over there in the afternoon and steal it? Nothing changes.” That was true, technically, but she really knew that Magda had candy in the house because she’d seen it the last time she’d used her back door key to trespass and… snoop.

Henry made waving motions off camera. “Mom, you’re too old to be pulling stupid stunts like this. I mean, I love it, but what are you doing? Like, what’s the end goal here?”

“She—”

“I don’t wanna hear who started it,” he said, raising his voice slightly and giving her a wide eyed stare. The fact that his lips were curled into a faint smile said he was pretty much coming to her with a gun to his own head, and she respected that. Henry had always been on her side. “Just… end it! Okay? You two are stuck with each other until one of you moves away, and then what are you gonna do?”

“Celebrate,” Donna replied. “If she leaves, I win.”

Henry laughed and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Did you get the gift I sent you?”

Henry nodded and smiled, this time a bit more honestly. “Yeah. We both loved them.”

She’d sent him and his twin sister Christina matching framed photographs of them palling around lakeside, on a vacation the family had taken when the twins were seven. The photo was taken of them from behind, as they sprinted down a dock and jumped into the air to cannonball into the water. Donna was not surprised they loved it, and was even less surprised that Henry was so able to explain how his sister felt about it. If they’d said even two words about it, that would have surprised her.

“It’s getting harder and harder to buy gifts for you kids,” she said. “You’ve got lives, and jobs, and your own incomes, and you can just… buy yourselves the things you need. I was trying to… I don’t know.”

“Mom,” he said, reassuringly, “we love it!”

His tone of voice set off a whole other set of fears, and she was already upset enough that it just came pouring out of her. “I’m sorry,” she said, managing a weak smile. “I didn’t mean that to sound like I needed you to prop me up. Your grandmother used to do that. She’d get all self-deprecating as a ploy for attention. I promise, I wasn’t—”

“Mom,” he said, softly, “are you crying?”

Donna shook her head. “I mean, yeah,” she said, dabbing at her cheeks, “my eyes are a little misty, but I’ve been having a sinus thing for a couple days now, and… You know how it is. It’s the cold season.”

Henry nodded slowly.

“Anyway,” she said, taking one big sniffle and hoping it was enough to settle herself, “the point I was trying to make was that the August to December run of birthdays has always been hard to keep up with. It’s a little…” She almost said ‘easier’. “… less busy, this year, without your father and without your Uncle Bill. Still, I’ll be glad when January comes around again, and I can stop worrying about finding the perfect gift for everyone for a little while. Have you talked to your brother and sisters about Christmas yet? Do you know which weekend will work best for you guys?”

Her youngest made a throaty noise, and smiled tightly. “Mom, we’re all doing Christmas this year with our in-laws. We came to your house last year.”

“Oh,” she said, tapping her fingertips to her forehead. “God. You’re right. Ugh. With everything else that’s been going on, I just… Damnit.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit!”

“Whoa,” Henry said, laughing. “Mom, that’s more cursing in two seconds than I think I’ve heard from you in the last… well… ever?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said, and gave him a little smirk.

“That’s it,” he said, throwing up his arms. “My childhood is ruined.”

Her children might have relied on Christina to get through to her when they were trying to convince her of something, but none of them could make her laugh like Henry.

“I really hadn’t… I really hadn’t thought about nobody coming this year,” she said, soberly. “Even, you know, two years ago, Ollie and your sister were at home even if no one else was.”

“She’s married now,” Henry said, “and George’s parents haven’t seen their grandbaby much.”

“Well,” she said, “At least we’ll have Thanksgiving.”

Henry cleared his throat. “Uh, Mom, have you talked to Lennox? Or Peter? They’re… wanting to do Thanksgiving at Peter’s this year, since he’s a little closer for everybody.”

Donna just blinked.

“You know, a little more in the center of everybody. We all kind of moved north and west, for the most part.”

“I just talked to Lennox,” she said, not answering anything he’d said directly. “A couple weeks ago. He didn’t say anything.”

“Oh,” Henry said, visibly backpedaling, “I don’t think anyone had brought up the idea at that point. This is all kind of… happening quickly.”

Donna pressed her lips together and made a sound in her throat.

“Obviously,” he said, “you’re invited. I just think that, with everything that’s going on this year, Peter just thought this would be a good time to, you know, start to transition some family things to his place. That way, you aren’t having to do so much cooking and baking for so many.”

“I love cooking and baking,” she said, defensively. Then, very quietly, in the back of her head, she thought, don’t I? “I’m glad I found out before I got much further with the decorations.”

“You put up decorations?” Her youngest pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah, I’m not doing this right. Peter was supposed to call you.”

“Yeah, well, Peter has been avoiding my calls,” she said.

“That apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” Henry said, giving her a pointed look. “I tried calling you twice yesterday, and you knew what I wanted to talk about.” He gave her a weighing look, and said, “Have you ever thought about taking a cruise? Going to St. Thomas with Grandma?”

“Have you met your Grandma?” Henry laughed, and before he could respond, she said, “No. God, she and I would do nothing but fight. I know she was a good grandmother to you kids, but I always hated visiting her when you were little. She still treats me like I’m twelve.”

“That apple didn’t fall far from the tree either.”

“Har, har,” she said, acidly.

“I’m serious, though,” he said, persisting. “Get out of that house. See the world. Or, you know, if you don’t want to travel, have you thought about getting a dog? Like Magda, but, you know, not a shitty little breed like—” He cut off with a squawk, as Deirdre leaned forward and slugged him in the arm. “Hey!”

“Peanut has a beautiful soul,” Deirdre said. “Don’t you dare!”

“I’m with Henry on this one,” Donna added. “You know I love you, Deirdre, but that dog is awful.”

The conversation went on for a bit, drifting to more mundane and less fraught topics, but the part that Donna kept coming back to in her head was the nagging underlying question. It was so fundamental, and such an ingrained part of her being, that she didn’t even really know how to begin to approach it.

She tried, though. Little by little, she started to pick it apart.

***

The Millers’ Christmas party was as close to a society event as Dayton ever got. It had been hosted annually at the beginning of December for longer than anyone could remember. Somehow it felt like the weather favored the Millers, as it was always on a perfect, crisp winter day. At some occasions, it had even snowed: slowly descending, picture perfect snowflakes slowly drifting through the air.

Donna had always looked forward to the party, spending weeks planning hers and Ollie’s attire to project elegant, effortless charm that just happened to be color-coordinated with each other and the season’s fashion. Not so this year. This year she dreaded the idea of making her first solo appearance.

Most, if not all, of the partygoers she had met after Ollie’s passing either at the funeral or the wake. It would not be a surprise to anyone when she turned up alone, and it was likely her last chance to get to play the widow card again. Maybe she should dress in black? No, that was too gloomy, and she had mourned long enough already.

Donna didn’t know why she was so hesitant. She never once thought she wouldn’t go; of course she would. As the date got closer, though, she spent a lot of time considering the guest list and how she would meet each of them now that she was on her own. How to engage people. This was a thing she found herself spending more and more time doing in advance, and with such a large guest list there was a lot to think about.

The other thing occupying more and more of Donna’s mental time was Magda’s… recreation room. Her masturbation habit had stabilized to… not every night but very nearly so, and good as it was, she found herself getting bored with what she could do to herself, alone and unassisted. She couldn’t get the sex machine out of her head.

Donna had snuck in a few more times, when she’d been certain Magda was gone, and had nicked a few more of the porn DVDs. Every time she had spent a long while looking wistfully at the machine, wondering how it was operated, and where on earth could one purchase such a thing.

Donna had surfed a few sex shops’ websites, but it had made her so uncomfortable, and the selection of choices so overwhelming, that she still didn’t own a single sex toy herself. Magda certainly did; Donna had gone through her venerable dick collection more than once, and contemplated on the purpose of some of the other appliances, but the machine was the main focus of her curiosity.

After hours of futzing around in her closet, she finally settled on buying a dress. She’d gone to two boutiques in town and ended up, however unlikely, finding something perfect at the mall, and she was sure some of the other women would recognize it, and its price tag, from the display window. It was dark blue, a color that was suitably solemn and yet not broodingly black, and which made her stunted form seem a tiny bit taller and slimmer. She liked how it flowed on her, and had accessorized it carefully. Her heart ached at thinking how she would have dressed Ollie to fit beside her.

Finding a dress did little to settle her in other ways. She was slowly coming to a boil, and a few days before the event she’d had an idea: she would sneak in when Magda had already left for the party, try the machine, then follow her to the party and nobody would be the wiser.

She had waited for a suitable moment for some time. Often she had almost acted once Magda had left for work, but after nearly being caught on her first break-in she couldn’t trust that.

Why leaving for the party felt more reliable than leaving for work, Donna could not say, but it did. The early evening before the Christmas party saw her peeking through the curtains and, once Magda was gone, sneaking into her house. She was grateful there wasn’t snow on the ground, as she climbed over the fence at the back corner of their yards and tiptoed over the frozen grass. The ridiculous excuse of a dog was so used to her by now it didn’t make a ruckus, even though it did come to greet her enthusiastically when she opened the door.

Donna scurried upstairs, and spent a full minute examining the machine in gleeful anticipation. She tried the controls, and squeaked at how the attached dick stabbed the air energetically. In a few minutes she’d be on the receiving end of that! She was already so worked up by the idea she was breathing harder. She examined the attached dick closely, then carefully detached it. It was beautiful, but it looked much too big for her. She wanted to start with something less intimidating; after all, it had been a long time.

One of the dicks was quite like Ollie’s. Donna stroked it evaluatively and suppressed a wave of longing. She found it funny she missed their sexual encounters so much; at the time she had come to think of it almost like a chore, something on her list of household jobs to do regularly, even as it had always been mutually enjoyable. Ollie had always been very insistent on making her come. Donna had sometimes thought it was too much trouble for the payoff. Now that attitude felt distant and incredulous.

She shook away thoughts of Ollie, and of how difficult it would be to find someone like him ever again, and carefully snapped the dick onto the machine. She considered putting on a DVD but was too impatient to choose, and so she just quickly tore away her pants and settled on the bed. She positioned her backside close to the machine, and shivered in excitement as she spread herself open. She moved until the tip of the dildo pressed into her, a feeling that induced a small whimper in her throat. This is going to be amazing, she thought…

…until she realized she couldn’t possibly reach the machine. She lay on her back, chest heaving already, and tried to reason through her excitement. There was no remote control or anything she could reach, nothing out on the bedside table. Nothing obvious.

Once upon a time, when confronted with a technical problem, she would have called upon Ollie and let him explain it to her. Over the past months, she had taught herself to figure it out, to work through problems on her own and see how things worked, and soon she set about calming her breathing and doing just that. She sat up a little and craned her head back and forth. Where was the lever she had used to test it just now? Could she reach it with her foot? Maybe…

Donna let out a yelp as the dick suddenly surged inside her. Just as quickly it was gone, and then back again, and she arched her back to it and moaned as it hit some wonderful spot inside her. It briefly occurred to her that she might need some kind of lubrication, but she couldn’t focus on it when the pliant silicone penis filled her again and again, and again. Her juices covered the toy quickly, and the air got heavy with her scent and the slick noises her pussy made.

“Oh fuck,” she mumbled. The machine was relentless, and just when she thought she needed to shut it off, that this was too much, it dropped the pace to something much slower. She was puzzled at first, then realized it had to be some kind of pre-programmed cycle. The slow penetration felt delicious, and she sighed happily and touched her clit. When the machine accelerated again, she was already quite high, and she was just about to come when the machine slowed again.

“Nooooo,” she whined, twitching in frustration. “No don’t stop now you stupid thing! I’m almost there!”

Her finger swirled on her clit, quickly ramping up to make up for what the confounded machine had taken away, and as if it had heard her whining and panting, the machine accelerated again after only a few seconds.

“Yess,” she hissed and pressed her head hard on the bed. “Just there, just there, just—”

Donna screamed when she came, tumbling over the edge to the agonizing abyss, and her hips jerked with her contractions as the machine continued, faithfully, to plow her. It hit a spot inside her that made her pelvis turn to lava, heightening the sensation to almost intolerable heights, and finally she was so overstimulated she had to crawl backwards, weakly, because she couldn’t remember where to turn the machine off.

She lay on the bed, panting, bare assed and upper body fully clothed, and doubted she’d ever be able to get up again. She had come so hard that her legs felt like jello. For an indeterminable time she lay there, dildo still whipping frantically in the air between her legs, and stared at the ceiling in awe. It felt like time had paused, for just a little while, and now was ready to resume again.

With the return of rational thoughts came a heightened sense of urgency; she was going to be late to the party! She had lingered behind to take advantage of this opportunity, but now she was far behind schedule. She hadn’t even put on her makeup yet, although that was probably a wise decision seeing how much she had sweated while the machine pushed her to that incredible bliss.

Donna labored to get up from the bed, forcing her legs to obey her. She turned off the machine, gathered her clothes and put them on again, and patted the coverlet carefully. There was a small damp patch, but maybe Magda wouldn’t notice. Maybe it would dry. Probably. The next time she should bring something to put under her—

Next time? she thought. Am I crazy? She was very convinced, very quickly, that there would be a next time. This would not, could not, be her only experience with this kind of earth-shattering orgasmic eruption: it was only a matter of time.

She was already by the back door when she realized she had left the Ollie-sized dick attached to the machine. She groaned, took off her winter boots again, and hurried back upstairs. She detached the dildo, ran to rinse it off at the bathroom, and wiped it absentmindedly with a paper towel while returning to the sex room. She put it back into the box. Then she stood, blinking, and stared at the box. She had no idea which was the one she had taken off the machine when she started. Why hadn’t she thought to put it aside? Why had she put it in the box with the others? She cursed herself and her habit to pick up after everyone, including, it seemed, herself.

It had been a big one, and so, with a sigh, she randomly picked one of the larger schlongs and shoved it back on the machine.

Forty-five minutes later she parked on the roadside near the Miller mansion. Technically it might not have qualified as a mansion, but that was what everyone in the town had always called it. It was a large country house, and if she hadn’t been so late, she could have parked right on its sizable front yard. Judging by the number of cars, half the town had already arrived.

She arranged her expression, checked her makeup and hair once more in her rearview mirror, and walked briskly to the front door. She didn’t wear heels. They would have helped her stunted physique but she couldn’t drive with heels, and knew she couldn’t stand on them for many hours no matter what the occasion. She straightened her posture, shook off her winter coat, and entered the party.

Everyone was there. Everyone. Easily two hundred people, of whom she knew nearly all. As usual, there was a flurry of activity at her arrival. There was a flurry of activity whenever anyone arrived. She imagined it was much like a heralding of old, but with less trumpets. Lots of people came over to say hello, and then nearly all of them immediately turned back around to go back to the conversations and groupings where they’d been before. A few engaged with her briefly, but they all seemed at least a little uncomfortable.

After it happened for the third time, Donna had the awful realization that all she’d done, since she arrived, was talk about Ollie. It was mortifying to realize she was so one dimensional. No, she thought, as she meandered toward the bar to get herself a drink, I’ve got two dimensions. Mom and wife, and now I’m no longer either of those things.

She spent the next hour among the pillar heaters in the vast canopy-covered garden that sprawled around the back side of the house. Not wanting to appear pathetic, she found a spot to sit on the edge of a conversation. She could feign attention to it, matching her laughter to the laughter of others, without much effort.

The longer she sat there, though, the less she understood why she was there at all. She hated big parties. She hated big crowds. Ollie had liked crowds, and parties, and socializing. Ollie could tell a fishing story about not catching a fish, and have the whole room dangling on every word. The man could spin a yarn, and he loved it. Donna had been content to be at his side and on his arm, to be seen and to laugh at his jokes.

She was getting a little tired of finding herself in this situation, learning all the ways in which she did and said things that weren’t in any way a reflection of her. She was exhausted by it, coming to the same conclusion over and over again that she had to live for herself, only to stumble into yet another trap she’d set for herself; another instance of her doing the exact opposite of that. It didn’t help that she didn’t have the faintest idea about what she really wanted for herself.

She looked down at the drink in her hand, her second of the night, and got frustrated. She couldn’t have any more if she wanted to drive home. Sure, she could call a rideshare, but then she’d need another ride back in the morning to get her car, and that seemed like such a stupid hassle…

…but it was too early to leave. She’d gone to all that trouble to pick out a nice dress, and put some effort into her appearance for the first time since the funeral, and all of that would have been for nothing if she crapped out in the first hour. Besides, she didn’t have anywhere else to be. All she had was an empty house, a house way too big for just one, waiting for her.

So, she got up, and went and got herself another drink. She nearly spilled it, stopping abruptly, when her eyes fixed on someone at the other side of the vast space these people humbly called their living room.

Magda. As adults who both frequented this same party year in and year out, Magda and Donna had developed an innate ability to simply be elsewhere from each other. It wasn’t often that Donna came face to face with her at all, which was surprising when she thought about it, but much more surprising was that she was wearing the dress! Donna’s dress! Solid blue, sleeveless, with the tiny white dots! She gaped, in stunned admiration, at how different the blue fabric looked around Magda’s slim waist, how it made her look so elegant she looked almost royal, with her hair done up and her delicate neck showing.

Donna glanced down at herself. All feelings of how the dress made her look thinner and taller vanished. She looked like a box. A sturdy box of Christmas chocolates, perhaps. Why had she gorged on all the Girl Scout cookies herself? Why hadn’t she been at the gym in months? It wasn’t like she had anything else to do. No matter how often she went, though, and no matter how hard she worked, no amount of gym would change her stupid stature. She was short, and fat, and ridiculously curvy, and try as she might, there at that party, she couldn’t channel the feeling into a rage towards Magda.

No doubt Magda had picked the same dress to spite Donna. Donna had often tried hers on in her bedroom, trying to accessorize it just so. Magda had probably seen her at one of those fitting sessions, but it wasn’t Magda’s fault that she’d looked good in a potato sack and Donna didn’t. And why had she wanted to look good in the first place? It wasn’t like she was hoping to hook up.

She scoffed at her inner narrative, and wondered how out of date it was to call it hooking up. Perhaps the term had been valid back when she herself had been valid in the dating scene.

Donna had gulped down her drink to drown her growing confusion. Car or no car, she needed another drink, preferably a double, so she turned back towards the bar.

The drinking helped, somewhat. She had a bit more fun. She got out from under her shell, and talked a little bit more. Not much, but not none, and she managed to talk about other things than her late husband. She drifted around the party, looking for friendly faces and avoiding Magda, and generally found that there were three groups: couples, single men, and single women. On another day, she might have laughed at herself for having such an obvious observation, but the depth of it came when she realized that she was no longer part of the first, was not interested in the second, and still didn’t feel like she belonged to the third.

Despite her disinterest, the single men seemed interested in her. Men a few years older than her, and men quite a few years younger than her, gave her glances as she walked by like she hadn’t gotten in twenty years. She kept reaching down to touch her left hand, to brush her fingertips on the ring Ollie had given her, but that didn’t seem to slow any of them down. They all knew. She had thought it a ridiculous idea to try to hook up in a party like this, but apparently the men thought differently.

She’d politely declined a half dozen drink offers by ten o’clock, and one of them caught her just before eleven.

“Here,” Frank said, managing to swap out the glass she’d been sipping from with a fresh one in a window of only a few seconds where she didn’t have her hand on it. She’d put it down to lean to the side, raising her leg to scratch an itch on her calf, and needed her free hand to balance. Four seconds tops. “Brought you a refill, cus I’m such a nice guy.”

Donna saw her sipping drink moving away from her, and knew she had to be done drinking for the night. “No,” she said, suddenly very aware of how many drinks she’d had.

Determined, she remembered. Frank and Ollie had been friends, and Frank had often visited their house once upon a time. Once they’d discussed Frank’s womanizing manners over barbecuing. Frank had boasted how he was determined, a go-getter, and how it was needed to show the ladies who’s in charge. Ollie had laughed and rolled his eyes, and Donna had smiled politely, thinking it was a stupid thing to say. She had never once imagined she’d be at the receiving end of Frank’s ‘charm’.

“Come on,” Frank said, and grabbed Donna’s arm. “Someone said there’s gonna be some fireworks outside. You should come see.”

Donna shrugged his hand off and stepped to the side. “Really, Frank,” she said, going for the stern tone that always made her kids snap out of it. It felt ridiculous to use it with a grown man, but Frank was being startlingly pigheaded. “Fireworks? Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

“Donna, bella… Bella Donna,” Frank said in an exaggerated Italian accent, clearly trying to change gears. “I miss Ollie as much as you do, he was like a brother to me! But he’s gone, may he rest in peace, and you, Donna…” He paused to look her over from head to toe with a smirk. “You are a fine woman, and you still have some mileage left in you.”

“Mileage?” she blurted. Donna didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. Frank had a garage, and she could vividly picture him patting some pile of garbage on the hood and using that same exact phrase.

“Frank, she said no.”

Donna’s head snapped to the side. Magda stepped up beside her and swatted Frank’s hand just as he started to reach for her arm a second time.

Frank’s lips curled into a smile, as he looked from one to the other.

“Magdalena,” he said and bowed his head a little. “How long has it been?”

“Not long enough,” she replied, scowling. She stared at Frank with such force Donna was surprised the man didn’t burst up in flames.

“Don’t be like that,” he said, affably. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

She said, evenly, “You’re drunk, Frank.”

Frank’s smile, somehow, got even sleazier. “We can do that thing you like.”

A small crowd behind them had quieted and turned toward them, which gave Frank momentary pause, and instead of quipping anything back Magda just grabbed Donna’s arm herself and pulled her off.

“That pig!” Magda hissed, under her breath. “That… that insensitive prick!” She turned towards Donna, who stumbled on the steps to the back garden, and grabbed her arm to help steady her. “How much have you had to drink, anyway?”

There was a sound behind them, and Magda pulled her further into the shadows. She let go, and Donna stood, nursing her elbow and watching in bewilderment as Magda paced back and forth and hissed furiously.

“Fucking vulture! Ollie is hardly cold in the ground, and he’s…” She shook her head. “He did the same thing after Leo, you know. Sniffin’ around. Inviting himself to dinner.”

“He did?”

Magda didn’t seem to hear her, eyes focused somewhere in the past. “I knew the brakes were coming up. Leo had talked about it, he told me, but… and then the funeral was so expensive and I didn’t have the money. I…”

Then she blinked, seeming to realize who it was she was talking to, and the color drained from her face.

“Why am I telling you this? Oh God, why am I telling you this?! You must be loving this. Ohh, just loving this.”

Donna, who was too astonished to do anything else, shook her head.

“I did what I had to do, okay? He has this way of… of… tricking you into thinking it has to be that way. He had me… trapped for a while. God, I’m glad I got rid of that loser! I’ve regretted being with him, but it was such a difficult time, money was so tight, and I hated to work long hours, and if I had to take the bus I’d never see my kids awake. I hardly did even with the car, and I hated, I hated that they were always eating dinner at your place. Hated it! Made me feel such a crappy mom! But I couldn’t tell them no! I wasn’t around to cook for them! I… was… never… there!”

Magda paused to draw a breath. Donna didn’t know what to say, so she just grasped the first straw her inebriated mind could come up with. “I didn’t mind,” she said, and when Magda turned to stare at her, she elaborated. “Having Laurie and Lennox over. I had to cook for the masses anyway. What was two more? Hardly nothing, and they got on so well with my kids. They change the dynamics. Without them there, mine would fight so much more.”

Magda made an exasperated noise. “Great. Just great. Would you—would you do me a favor and call my mom? Tell her she was right all along? She always said I couldn’t do it on my own. Even said I should consider Frank for keeps.” Magda bristled with rage, and then… shrank. She looked at Donna, and then towards the house, and depleted right before Donna’s eyes. “Anyway… I… just think you should stay away from Frank.”

Then she turned to go.

“Wait,” Donna said and the pleading in her voice astonished herself. “Wait, Em.”

She hadn’t called Magda by that name since they were twelve. She couldn’t imagine what compelled her to drudge it up from the depths just then, but it stopped both of them in their tracks.

“I never thought you weren’t handling it,” Donna said to Magda’s back. “I was always astonished how you could juggle all that so easily.”

Magda considered this, then sniffled and turned back towards her. “It wasn’t easy.”

“No, I…” Donna had no idea what she was doing. “I can’t imagine it was.” Then she blinked, and said, “No, that’s not true either. I’m starting to think I could imagine how hard it was, and I… don’t want to.”

Magda sniffed again and said, “”I’ve had enough of this pretentious shit for one more year. Hell, maybe more. Do you…” Their eyes met. “Can you drive?”

It felt like she had something caught in her throat, so Donna just shook her head.

The drive home was quiet. Donna kept stealing glances at Magda’s profile, looking quickly away if the taller woman turned to meet her eye. She pulled into her driveway, and they both lingered before opening the door.

“I can take you back to get your car tomorrow, if you want.”

Donna felt her eyes misting up, seemingly for no reason, and said, “I… yes, thank you.”

The truce between them felt fragile. They got out of the car and eyed each other over the roof.

Magda said, “You know, Donna, I…” She sounded rushed, like she wanted to get it out quickly, before she’d change her mind. “I have a key to your house, too. Ollie gave it to me years ago. I can give it back, if you… ”

Donna nodded slowly. Her mind was too drunk and tired to see all the implications, but it didn’t stop trying. “No,” she said, brain very fuzzy, “no. That’s good. If I fell and hurt myself, who else would even notice?”

Magda just blinked, staring ahead in thought, and before she could say anything more Donna started toward her front door. Getting out of her dress and into bed was challenging, and she laid awake for hours afterwards.

***

The car ride, the following morning, was very quiet. For about eighty percent of the trip.

Magda had appeared at her doorstep at an hour that was both ungodly and probably wise. Donna surely wasn’t the only one who’d needed to leave her car at the Millers’. Every year there was a veritable parade back to the edge of town for everyone who’d left a vehicle behind and caught a ride home. Getting there early enough to sneak back out without being noticed would save her from being gossipped about just that little bit extra.

Or, at least, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be gossipped about. She couldn’t really remember much of the very end of the night. For all she knew, she might have made a complete fool of herself, and no amount of getting there early would change what people said. She didn’t think she had, but it was possible.

She didn’t know what to make of Magda bringing her coffee. It felt like a peace offering. She had fuzzy memories of the two of them talking… about dinners maybe, but she couldn’t be sure it had been as… cordial… as she remembered. Surely not, right? But then, the drive to be snarky toward Magda felt like it was entirely in her brain and not in her gut, regardless of how early the other woman had shown up. Donna had already been awake, as part of an effort to get her internal clock back under control. She’d had to set alarms for everything on her tablet. Alarms to wake up. Alarms to cook. Alarms to start winding down. It was dull and boring, but it was the start of putting herself back together.

So, not being entirely sure of where she stood, but definitely being sure that she was at least somewhat in Magda’s debt, Donna sat in the passenger seat and sipped her coffee while periodically casting furtive glances at her chauffeur.

For her part, Magda seemed content to just drive. It wasn’t until they hit the bridge over the interstate that something seemed to break loose.

“I wasn’t sure if you heard me last night,” Magda said, as she shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. Donna just blinked at her as the pause dragged on, but the other woman seemed focused in the distance. Eventually, she added, “I, uh… I have a key to your garage. The side door, there.”

This time, it only took a couple seconds for Donna’s now-sober mind to get there. “Oh,” she said, coloring quickly. She couldn’t quite summon the indignation to ask why that information was being shared with her like she didn’t already know. She knew. “Um…”

“Yeah, so… uh…”

Donna cleared her throat. “I see.”

“I don’t,” Magda said, rushing, “I don’t mean to, like… like I’m not trying to threaten you with—”

“No,” she replied, “I know, I just—”

“What I’m trying to say is, like, it’s okay that you have one for my—”

“I found it in the drawer,” Donna said, babbling. “Ollie had it.”

The taller woman nodded, frowning, and said, “Leo gave him one forever ago, but then I had to change the locks about ten years ago, and I don’t know why but I couldn’t imagine not giving Ollie a copy.”

“Why did you have to change your locks?”

Magda slumped and sighed, explosively. “There was this guy, at work, and he…”

***

“—wanted me to cut the whole thing down!”

“What?!” Donna cried. “Why would they send that to you? I thought everyone knew I was the one who butchered it!”

“They never liked me,” she said, staring bitterly into the distance, “and they love you. You’ve always been the gold standard for the neighborhood, and this was just the excuse they were looking for. One more step on the paper trail.”

“Wait, what paper trail? Like, to get you kicked out? But that’s—”

***

“—and I’ve just been exploding in every direction, and I hate it,” Donna cried. “I hate it! I’m so sick of being tired, and sad, and miserable, and having my kids look at me like I’m not the adult anymore? It’s awful! I hate the way I’ve been acting! God, I hate myself sometimes!”