Guilty

Gail Lorne loved her new home. It was a duplex, but that was alright. Cheaper that way, and Gail didn’t mind sharing a wall. She lived a quiet life now that her partner, Tiff, was gone.

She suspected that maybe her neighbor did, too.

She made herself some tea—since she’d retired from teaching she’d switched to tea instead of coffee—and began scrolling through emails on her iPad. They were mostly coupons for various stores in the mall. Tiff had always been so careless with their email. There were a few late condolences about her passing. Gail swiped through those quickly and sent back concise responses.

Soon her shih tzu, Cookie, began to paw at the front door to be let out. It took her a few minutes—bad knees, you know—but Gail got up from her chair and opened the door. Cookie darted out and Gail followed her, watching her from the shared porch.

“It don’t bite, do it?” Gail hadn’t seen her neighbor sitting on the porch swing, so she jumped when he spoke. “Sorry,” he said. “Din’t mean to scare ya.”

Gail took a deep breath and shook her head. “It’s alright. And, no, Cookie doesn’t bite.”

“Good girl.” he drawled. He patted the empty seat next to him. “I’m Harvey. C’mon and sit, lookin’ like Cookie’s gonna take her sweet time.”

Gail perched herself on the edge, then scooted back a little. “Thank you. I’m Gail.”

“No need to thank me, s’yer swing, too.”

They sat quietly for a few moments, just watching Cookie sniff around the flowers. “Those are lovely marigolds,” Gail noted.

“Yes ma’am, they are. My wife planted ‘em some thirty years ago, when we bought this place. ‘Course she’s gone now, so my grandbaby Cici takes care of ‘em now. She’s got a green thumb on her, jus’ like her Gammy.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Sure is. You got any? Grandbabies, I mean.”

Gail laughed. “Oh no, never wanted kids. My wife did, but we settled on Cookie.” She nodded at the little dog. “We had her probably fifteen years before Tiff passed.”

“Sorry to hear ‘bout that. I’m sure she was a fine lady.” He said.

“She was a good woman.”

Cookie started to poke around some foliage, and Harvey pointed to her with his cane.

“Yer gonna wanna get her away from there, there’s a snake in that bush.”

Gail whistled and Cookie toddled up the steps to her.

“I didn’t know snakes lived in bushes.” She said.

“They don’t, usually. This one only does on account of it’s got—whatchacallit—a vendetta against me.”

“Snakes don’t hold vendettas against people.”

“Thissun does. Been trying to get at me for ‘bout ten years now.”

“They live that long?” Gail asked.

“Yep.”

“What did you do to it?”

He sighed. “I killed her babies.” He shook his head. “I’m not proud of it. She made a home in a pile o’ leaves I put off rakin’ up. One of her little ones slithered a little too close to Dee—the wife—an’ scared her nearly to death. So I took a match, stood by ready to put it out with the hose. Burned ‘em all up.”

“Good riddance,” Gail said. “Snakes give me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Nah, Cici looked it up for me, juss’ a common garden snake. Not even poisonous.”

Gail sucked in her cheek and thought for a moment. Then she said, “How come you haven’t killed her yet?”

“I reckon I deserve it. I won’t stop her, if she wants to nip me she’s got the right to.”

“More than a nip.” Gail said. Harvey shrugged.

“Either way, she and I ain’t got much time left in the world. One of us’ll go, and then the other. Just the way of things.”

Gail sat with him for an hour more, just talking to him. Learning and getting to know her neighbor. Soon it was time for lunch, and she made them cucumber sandwiches and tea. Harvey made a face when he sipped it, and asked for some sweetener. Gail thought that was funny.

When she went to bed that night, she thought about Harvey and that little snake. She wondered if it meant anything. She liked it when things in life came together that way, had some sort of lesson to teach you. Then Cookie began to sniff at the chest at the end of the bed, and Gail forgot all about it.

The next morning she got up early, an old habit from her years teaching, and stood at the window. She watched the bush the snake hid in. Someone could really get hurt, she thought. What if Cici or Cookie were to get bit? Surely Harvey wouldn’t want that.

So she resolved to end the whole thing. She went to her kitchen, got her biggest knife and marched herself down the front steps with determination. It always fell to her to put an end to things that needed it. Ever since she was a child and she’d pushed Terry Gooding out of that old oak tree, she’d taken it on herself to get things done. This was no different.

She picked up a few rocks and tossed them into the bush. The leaves shook with the impact, but nothing came of it. So she picked up a few more and threw them a bit harder. This time she heard a little hiss.

“That’s right, girl, c’mon.” she said to the snake, but mostly to herself. She weighed the last stone in her hand. She had to be quick.

Harvey, who’d been watching from the window, hurried as best he could to get to the porch. “Stop!” he called, but it was too late. Gail had let the rock loose and the snake had launched. Gail swung the knife down and cut it clean in two.

“No!” Harvey cried. “How could you?”

Gail put the heel of her slipper over the snake’s still wriggling head. “She was dangerous.”

“She wasn’t, she wasn’t!” Harvey put his head in his hands and sunk down onto the porch swing. Through sobs he said, “Yer sick, woman. There’s somethin’ wrong with you that you would hurt somethin’ that never done wrong by you.”

Gail shook her head. “Don’t be so emotional Harvey. It’s just a snake.” She picked up the halves and tossed them into the bins at the curb. “There, see? Now it’s over.”

With no small degree of pride over what she had just done, she walked back up the steps to her home. She left Harvey to cry on his swing.

“People are weak.” She said to Cookie as she passed her in the hall. Cookie only sniffed the air in response.

Gail looked down at the knife in her grasp. “What to do with this, now?” she turned it over in her hands a few times. After a while she elected to put it with the rest of her treasures in the chest at the foot of her bed. Gail smiled and shut the chest, finishing it all. Of course, she always thought it was the last time. And then it would happen again—someone would need her help, and the chest would thump and creak in the night, hungry.

And Gail was always so eager to fill it.

The next day, as she let Cookie out, she tried to strike up a conversation with Harvey. He only sat on the swing, rocking back and forth gently. He would not meet her gaze.

“Come now, Harvey,” she said. “It was just a stupid reptile. It was probably going to die soon anyway. What’s the big deal?”

He rested his hands on his cane in front of him, keeping his eyes forward. The swing creaked as he swayed.

“We had such lovely conversation the other day, and now I suppose you’re going to deny me altogether?” Gail asked. Harvey didn’t respond. Cookie finished her business and hurried up to the front door.

Gail pursed her lips. “Fine.” She opened the door. “Silly old man.”

As she took her first step to reenter her home, Harvey gasped loudly. She looked back at him to find him clutching his chest, clawing at the buttons of his shirt with one hand, and gripping his cane with the other, holding it so tightly his knuckles were pink and white.

She watched him for a moment in fascination. “Is it your heart, Harvey?”

He couldn’t respond, but it didn’t matter anyway, for soon he went limp, and his body relaxed and fell sideways onto the swing.

Gail sighed and pulled out her cell phone, dialing 911. When she’d given the dispatcher all the necessary information she hung up, pushed Harvey’s now slightly cooler body upright and sat beside him.

“I guess you were right, Harvey.” She said. “One of you goes, then the other.” She ticked her tongue. “Ah, well. We all make mistakes, I won’t hold it against myself.” She patted Harvey’s knee.

“It’s only human.”