Kent-Doolan1 Jussi Kent-Doolan Words: 4146
The Girl Next Door The girl next door is not a girl at all, but an old, senile, widowed, decrepit woman. I’ve never spoken to her personally but I can’t help but notice her when she lives right next to me. My parents and I share a property line with her, marked by her white picket fence painted when she first moved here, most likely with the dinosaurs. I’ve never heard anyone call her anything different than Mrs. Sherman, most likely because they had simply seen it on her peeling mailbox. No one in my town knows her first name, or rather there was no one old enough left to remember it, her generation was a dying breed in our neighborhood, she was one of the last of her kind, I think. The rest of her kind had either been toted off to nursing homes or unfortunately had died off. Mrs. Sherman was the last one standing. We’d been her neighbor ever since I could remember and I’d never seen any children, grand-children, or even friends visit her. She was always alone minding her own business. And for someone no one really knew, she was the most hated person on the street. Mrs. Sherman had an awful reputation for gardening all the time, which was alright in itself, but she loved to plant all of her flowers and shrubs along the front of her property where there was no white picket fence. Every time she tended the garden to weed, water, fertilize, or put new mulch in, piles of muddy debris were left behind on the sidewalk. Neighbors glued to their phones as they walked to their homes hated her, the neighborhood’s local dog walker hated her, more correctly, the dog’s owners, and the blind Mr. Bryson who lived just to the left of my house hated her too. Mrs. Sherman also had a nasty habit of returning whatever dinner dishes sporadic ‘do-gooder’
Kent-Doolan2 neighbors made her by throwing the contents back onto them, all the while screaming that when the day came she needed help wiping the grime off her ass crack they’d be the first ones she’d call. I was her 15 year old neighbor and I hated her. Mrs. Sherman had never done anything to me personally, honestly I had never talked to her before in my life, but I figured that if everyone else on my street had enough reasons to hate her that was enough reason for me too. On the other hand, being her neighbor, I had always seen her antics first hand. The day I finally met Mrs. Sherman was a Friday. I was on my way home from school, ready to hang out at the mall all weekend with my friends, when I saw the brown mounds dotting the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Sherman’s house. It was the end of a school week and I was feeling adventurous and thus decided to ride through them at super speed. At about the second mound mud flicked up my dress from the tires and I jerked at the cold attempting to steer with one hand and seal off the bottom of my dress with the other. I ended up laying half on Mrs. Sherman’s now squished flower bed, half on the sidewalk with my bike on top of me. My hair was dripping dirty water from the soaked flower bed and my shins and knees were a bloody mess. Mrs. Sherman came hobbling out of her house to stand above me. I was sure she was going to gripe about what I had done to her flowers but instead she lifted the bike off of me and rolled it to the grass of her front yard before easily setting it back down. “You best come to the side of the house, so I can hose off all that grime and see how bad you’re actually cut up.”
Kent-Doolan3 “I’m fine. I can do it myself at my house.” I stood up and reached for my bike when Mrs. Sherman grabbed a hold of my ear with her fingernails, dragging me around to the side of the house with surprising strength. “When one of your elders tells you to do something, you best do it and do it then. When I was a little girl you’d get taken back to the woodshed for back talking like that.” “Hey! Ow, Ow, Ow, OW! Let go of my ear, you old hag!” She finally let go of my ear and stooped to grab her water hose. I thought briefly of running but had an inkling that if I were to do so, I’d end up soaked anyway. She didn’t talk to me as she sprayed my legs and feet down, only indicating to lift my dress so she could get the dirt that had flicked underneath. Old woman or not, I wasn’t about to lift my dress and display my unmentionables for all the neighbors to see, whom I was positive were hiding behind their curtains enjoying my humiliation. When I didn’t lift my dress Mrs. Sherman sprayed the stream of water in the general area of my girly bits until the dirt stopped running down my legs. “There. I think you’ll live, you’re knees got the worst of it. You can go now.” She waved me off and began to roll her hose back up onto the peg hanging off the house. “What the heck was the point of that? I think I could have managed cleaning myself without every peeping tom in the neighborhood getting a show!” “No, you wouldn’t have. You would have marched straight into that house, tracking mud all over your poor mother’s house and carpet like the spoiled little brat you are.”
Kent-Doolan4 “First of all, you don’t know anything about me! Second of all, why don’t you clean up your disaster on the sidewalk and I wouldn’t have all this mud on me in the first place! And third of all—” “Oh my, there’s a ‘third of all’? I started to doze off after the first one.” I glared at her and she smiled back while bobbing her head and pointing a finger at me, as if she had just made the greatest joke and she was cueing me to laugh. After she settled down she continued, “You’d be surprised how much I know about you, Cassie, there’s not so much of a property line you know.” I couldn’t remember her every paying much attention to us before. I took the bait. “What do you think you know about me?” Mrs. Sherman squinted her eyes and bounced her head from side to side, as if admitting something was ‘so-so,’ “I see you come and go from your house every day, always stomping around, never a smile on your face, though you’re always laughing with your friends. You’re a very pretty girl but you ruin it with all that glaring and pouting. As for the disaster on the sidewalk, I’m always too tired to clean it up afterwards, I usually go in and take a nap. You know in all my 45 years that I’ve lived here, no one has ever just come over and cleaned it up themselves. You know why? Because they’re a bunch of clucking hens the lot of them, they love the drama too much, who else would they gossip about if I was a normal old woman who cleaned up all her messes? Oddly, I find it rather endearing that I’m their greatest source of gossip. Now, you’re all cleaned up now so get off my property Cassie.”
Kent-Doolan5 She walked past me, into the front yard. Her posture was oddly perfect, shoulders held back, head high, but she shuffled her feet as she walked, as if she was refusing to let old age have all of her just yet. As I walked back to the front yard behind her she climbed the steps to her house without saying another word. I grabbed my bike, and rolled it to my garage and went to get cleaned up before my parents went asking questions. Though I still hated Mrs. Sherman, I couldn’t help but let the hate be crowded out a little and give the extra room to respect of this old woman who paid far more attention than I had originally gave her credit for. The next morning I woke to the sound of a shovel piercing the ground over and over again. As it was only 7 I rolled back over and attempted to let the monotonous rhythm of the shovel lull me back to sleep. Except the rhythm wasn’t monotonous but rather glacially slow and sporadic. Making up my mind, I rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom to get ready to go help her. It seemed only fair I learn more about this woman as she seemed to already possess far more information than I would have liked anyone to know about me. After brushing my teeth I looked at myself in the mirror and saw what Mrs. Sherman had been talking about. I looked as though I wanted to punch someone. I relaxed my face and I seemed more pleasant, I liked it and decided to use that face from now on, but allowed my apparent mask slip back in place before I went out to Mrs. Sherman. “You make an early run to town or do you just have a massive store of shrubs and flowers in your garage that I don’t know about?” I nodded my head towards the group of shrubs and bushes sitting in their plastic containers, along with the already empty containers she had already planted, behind her.
Kent-Doolan6 She picked up the shovel and made a feeble attempt to continue digging. “Go back home, I don’t need your help.” I walked towards her and plucked the shovel from her hands. “I didn’t ask if you needed help so it’s not really helping you so much as taking over this glacially slow process you’ve started.” I dug the shovel into the ground sharply before throwing the dirt aside, then repeating this process. Instead of taking a break as I had intended Mrs. Sherman went to grab a bush from her stash and followed after me, planting as I dug the holes. After half an hour had passed I figured enough time had passed to make it look like I had actually come over to help and not just to snoop for information about her. “So what’s your actual name?” “Mrs. Sherman,” she said without looking up at me. I glared at the sky, “I meant your first name, what it is?” “Why do you care?” “Good point. I’d rather not even know than play this stupid game with you.” She made me suffer in silence for almost five minutes, but just when I thought she wasn’t going to talk anymore, “It’s Nel. Well, my actual name is Maggie but my husband always called me Nel. It was stupid really. When I was younger I used to get on these tirades of everything that we should do, all the places that we should go together before it was too late. And he’d always say ‘Whoooaaa Nelly,’ like I was a stupid cow or something, and then he’d say ‘You could travel all over the world and waste all that money and time before you realized that you weren’t missing anything to begin with. It’s not the places that make you happy, it’s the people Nel.’
Kent-Doolan7 Unfortunately he was right too, God put me here for a reason, not there. If I traveled the world, I’d only be able to say I traveled the world and who cares if I traveled the world or not?” “Well wouldn’t your husband care? You could have gone with him right?” “That cheap-o wouldn’t have paid for any vacation or trip like that. But that’s ok, I’ve been perfectly happy right here, just where I am.” “Well I don’t agree then I guess, I want to travel all over the place when I get older and I’m trying to talk my parents into taking a vacation to Mexico on my winter break.” I didn’t mention the part where they had already said ‘no.’ “You’ll understand when you get older. Right now life seems like you have to have your whole life planned our or you’ll get to do nothing, but life will just take a hold of you one day and you’ll probably forget about all those trips you wanted to take. But for your sake, I hope you don’t, I hope you get to take all those trips if that’s what you want to do, Cassie.” Her addition made me smile to myself. My parents would just smile whenever I told them my dreams, like I still had so much to learn about life and I wasn’t old enough to understand their concerns. But I liked what Nel had said, it made it seem actually possible and not only a childish dream. “Well, I’m done with this for today Cass, I’ve got other work to do, just leave everything where it’s at and we’ll finish it another time.” She dusted off her overalls and went inside her house without so much as a ‘goodbye’ or ‘thanks for your help.’ I didn’t mind though, I was just focused on the ‘we’ in that sentence. ***
Kent-Doolan8 Over the months we fell into a routine Nel and I. I took to cleaning up her gardening disaster on the sidewalk early enough in the morning that no one ever knew who was doing it. Which, in turn, inspired a new round of gossip about the cleaning vigilante running around their neighborhood. And almost every day after school and on the weekends especially, I was over at her house taking over for whatever she happened to be doing that day, or I tried to at least. I learned my lesson the first time she did the dishes when I was still over at her house doing my homework. I walked over and thrust my hands into the soapy water to help while she was drying a pan. The water was searing. “OW! OW! OW!” I howled and howled, holding my wet hands between my legs until they stopped stinging. Mrs. Sherman just stood there, attempting to hold in a laugh. “What the heck is wrong with you? Why would you do dishes in water that hot?!” “I never asked you to help me do the dishes, you’re the one who just stuck your hands in there as usual, assuming everyone needs you. You’re not the end-all-be-all you know?” “Well fine then, last time I try and help you with the dishes, go ahead and burn yourself for all I care!” Or the time she told me to make her bed with the new sheets she gave me. I flopped on the bed trying to reach the other corner as sharp spikes dug into my stomach and legs, “OW! What the--?” I sprang off the bed and lifted the white stain sheet and saw the little springs sticking out of the mattress. “Nel!” She yelled from downstairs, “What do you want?” I was used to her often hostile demeanor, she was a hot and cold as they came.
Kent-Doolan9 “Come here a minute!” I heard her stomping up the steps, muttering to herself, most likely about what a bossy brat I was. When she came to stand beside me I pointed at the springs. “What?” “Do you sleep on that every night?” “Yeah, it’s still a good mattress, you just have to know where to lay.” “Well, that’s stupid, come on, we’ll go to town and get you one of those remote control ones, I’ve always wanted to try one of those.” I started to take off the rest of the stain sheet and went to move the mattress. “Cassie, I said its fine! Leave it alone and just put the goddamned sheet on there!” I stopped and stared at her. She looked at the ground, “Just leave it, please Cass.” She turned and went back downstairs. I stood still for a moment and stared at the springs sticking up before deciding that if she wanted to be miserable while sleeping what did I care? She could be miserable. I yanked the stain sheet back down over the springs and then yanked the new sheets over the top. There were many situations like this, where I just didn’t understand her desire to be miserable sometimes. Often times I would rant about her behavior to my friends at school. Which, in turn, they would tell me to stop going to that “creepy ladies house” and I wouldn’t have to watch her weird behavior. But I couldn’t stop going. I spent more of my time at her house than I did at my own. There was so much more to Nel than everyone else thought. I wasn’t a little kid around her, we had our disagreements but she never made me feel inferior oddly, if I
Kent-Doolan10 asked a question she didn’t try and sensor it for me, she just gave it to me straight. Despite all the time we spent together, I was still missing a piece of Nel’s puzzle, I wasn’t getting the whole picture. The day we were painting her back porch railings was the day I found the courage to ask about her husband who had died 6 years before. I blurted out, “How did your husband die?” To which she replied, “I killed him Cass, he gave me no choice.” My first reaction was to knock her over onto the ground and run for my house screaming ‘help!’ all the way before she could grab me. But what stopped me was she didn’t say it meanly, like she simply did what she had to do. She said it with great remorse and her shoulders sagged for the first time since I had talked to her in her front yard. I still scooted a little farther away from her and painted a rung farther down the porch. She didn’t seem to notice or she just didn’t care. “Did he try to hurt you?” “No, Cass, he never laid a hand on me in all my life.” “Did he cheat on you with a younger girl?” “No, Cass, he never cheated on me.” “Then why the heck did you kill him?” Nel slammed her paint brush back into her bucket and splashed paint all over her and the porch. “I just—…he just--…. It was so…I couldn’t…” I said softly, “Is he the reason you make yourself miserable?” She whipped her head around to meet my stare, “What makes you say I’m miserable?”
Kent-Doolan11 “All the things you do, is that why you do them, because of your husband? Because you killed him?” She stared at me and looked…disappointed. I wasn’t sure if that was because I had just agreed that she had killed her husband or because I wasn’t getting why she killed her husband. Nel grabbed a hold of the still wet railing and hoisted herself up before stomping into the house. I sat there for a while and looked after her even after she had already disappeared. I gathered the paint supplies and put the plastic wraps over them when I felt tears slipping down my face. I sniffed and wiped my eyes, getting paint on my face. I cried as I walked across her yard and into my house. I didn’t go back to Nel’s house for almost three days before I decided to ask my mom what she knew of the death of Nel’s husband. Which turned out to be quite a lot. She told me that Mr. Sherman had a massive stroke 6 years before and had never recovered from it. In fact he became a vegetable, my words not hers, he lived on life support for just under a month before Nel made the decision to take him off. Mom said that she and my dad went to the funeral but didn’t try to talk to Nel or even give their condolences. Mom said it looked as if she was ready to jump into the casket and bury herself with them, so they decided it was best to leave her alone, she had enough to deal with on that day. She said Nel sat by herself at the funeral staring at Mr. Sherman, as everyone had the general consensus to avoid her like the plague yet be there to show their support. I knew Nel wouldn't want me to know about her husband. I knew she wouldn't want me to look at her with pity, it was another three days before I had the courage to go back over to her
Kent-Doolan12 house. She was planting flowers behind her house next to the porch steps and she had finished painting the railings. Nel glanced up at me as I towards her and then went back to her work. “Well. Look what the cat dragged in. Didn’t reckon I’d see you around here again.” “I’m sorry I’ve been aw—” “Are you gonna tell me what’s on your mind anytime soon, or do I have to figure it out on my own Cassie?” “I know how your husband died now.” “And now you feel all sorry for the old lady who thinks she killed her husband.” “No ma’am, I was only curious why you thought it was your fault, since he was kind of a vegetable right?” Nel stopped digging holes for her flowers and sat on the back steps before waving me over too, “It was my fault, not that he had the stroke but that he only had about a week on life support. Granted, the doctors had declared him brain dead, but I’d seen miracle cases happen before, where people beat the odds despite all that was thrown against them. We’d been going through a rough patch for weeks then.” Nel laughed without humor and kept wringing her hands as she talked. “You’d think after so many years together we’d be past the fighting and bickering, but we weren’t. I wanted him to fix up the house and he didn't like me getting any new technology that would make anything easier. Said we were old and retired and had nothing better to do and if we didn't stay active and let machines do our work for us that we’d end up not being able to do things for ourselves at all one day and need someone to wipe our,” Nel made air
Kent-Doolan13 quotes, “butts. There was always something we were fighting over, and it felt like he was getting bossier and bossier each day I was with him, more set in his own ways.” Nel stood up and paced back and forth in front of me while gesturing with her hands. “The doctors told me to take my time getting ready to unplug him, to prepare myself. But the day I decided not to continue life support anymore, I was stewing over everything we’d been fighting about. He’d always been overbearing with every decision we ever made, but for once, I was the one with all the control. I signed the papers and took him off of life support and then he was gone. It didn't hit me until days afterwards what I had done.” Nel stopped pacing before me and I watched as she began to come apart before me. It was like watching the sky shift and contort before it lets loose a storm. Her shoulders hunched over for the first time since I had met her and they began to shake as tears made a path down her cheeks. “I killed my husband, chose to end his life, because he wouldn’t stop arguing with me, because he wouldn’t just mindlessly agree with me on everything, because he was stupid enough to still care what happened to me. And I killed him for it on an impulse without even saying goodbye one last time, kissing his cheek, or holding his hand. I just stood there and watched as they unplugged him. His heart was still beating and he was still warm, and I just stood there.” She wrung her hands some more and then sobbed into her hands. Cautiously I approached Nel. We had never hugged before, it wasn’t in either of our natures, but I wanted to be there for her now and prayed she would let me. I wrapped my arms around her shaking shoulders and hugged her to me. She took one of her hands from her face and placed it on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Nel.”
Kent-Doolan14 “I know Cass, I know sweet girl.” I hugged her tighter.