Elizabeth Rosen

A Good Neighbor is Not a Choice

When Maggie rings my bell, I open the door wide and invite her inside. She takes the only stand-alone seat in the room and sits on the edge, straight-backed, hands in her lap. I take the couch and wait.

I know what this is about. Yesterday, we all saw her daughter, Maya, out removing the elaborate cursive A Child Is Not a Choice! from the narrow path that runs behind our houses. Several of us were already watching our kids’ soccer games in the mowed field when Maya came out with a bucket and brush and began to remove the slogan she’d chalked colorfully on the tarmac the day before. Texts had flown up and down the houses in our usually bland subdivision. We’d come to our windows. We stepped out into our backyards and raised hands to shield our eyes from the sun. We turned from the referee whistles and our own children’s attacks on the ball to watch the red-faced twelve-year-old scrub the graffiti from the pavement. We saw Maggie, too, standing in her backdoor, arms welded tightly across her chest as she watched. There was steel in the woman’s posture. Then, and now.

“I wanted to come by and apologize,” she begins. “When Maya asked if she could draw something for Right to Life Day, we thought she meant on our driveway, not on the public path. You can imagine our shock.”

I don’t need to. None of us does. What I am confused about is why Maggie should be the one going door-to-door apologizing. And why to me? I don’t think we’ve talked politics once in all the years we’ve lived next to one another.

“We made her clean it off during the soccer practice when the same people who’d had to walk over it would also see her removing it,” Maggie says, tucking one ankle behind the other, knees perfectly, elegantly, aligned. “But I’m also going to all the neighbors on the path to personally apologize.”

So not just me. I have to wonder what she stands to gain by making her child’s humiliation her own. It seems a step too far. It feels a bit martyr-ish. Particularly since her blue eyes are alive with purpose and resolve.

Maggie has not looked away from me once, not in embarrassment or to gather her words. She looks as put-together and pretty as she always does, a bit tired, yes, but glowing with single-mindedness. This is a woman who has always returned to her pre-pregnancy weight after six months, a woman who still wears mascara, no matter whatever else is happening in her life, and I notice that Maggie has nothing with her. She has walked out without a sun hat, or a set of keys. I wonder at that kind of trust, not locking the door behind her, not thinking that the sun will burn. But maybe, with all her children coming and going, a locked door wouldn’t be practical.

I glance down at my mom jeans, note the layer of dust on the TV screen. I know that if I were in Maggie’s house there would be no dust. Her Tupperware would be perfectly nested. I’ve seen it myself.

“Of course, we are proud of Maya for the strength of her opinions,” Maggie says, bringing me back from my thoughts of kitchen storage, “but we want her to understand that it isn’t right to make others feel uncomfortable with them.” I see her eyes slide to the dirty glass on the coffee table, see her putting theory into practice.

I pretend to be brushing something off the toe of my sneaker to hide my eyes. Maya tried to convert my son about a year ago, telling him that if he would only come to Jesus he would not have to worry about things. At the time, I was more concerned with what he was so worried about, so I never mentioned anything to Maggie about it.

I want to tell Maggie that coming by wasn’t necessary, that her point was more than already made. I want to touch her hand, to reassure her that she is a wonderful neighbor, an admirable parent, that we all think so. When I look into her face, though, I wonder if I have the right to tell her something so intimate. I wonder if we are friends, or just two women who share a French drain.

So instead, I tell her how much I appreciate her stopping by. I can’t think of a single topic to segue into, so for a moment we sit without speaking. Finally, I rise and lead her back to the front door. I watch her make her way down my driveway and head to the next house down the lane where she will go through the whole act of contrition again.

I know from experience that this thoughtful woman and her children, Maya included, will appear on my front porch in a few days with the Hamentaschen they baked for us to acknowledge our holiday. I will accept their gift graciously, because I know my children are watching, and I, too, want to be an example of what a good neighbor looks like. I will smile warmly at Maggie, and I will politely ignore the look of resentment on Maya’s face as I reach to take the plate she holds out. We will stand, briefly, on the porch and talk about the weather and the summer trips we are planning to the shore. The children will hang back, staring nakedly at one another. None of us will mention what Maya did, how it was corrected, or Maggie’s visit. We will, all of us, be good neighbors.

Elizabeth Rosen is a former Nickelodeon Television writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Glimmer Train, Pithead Chapel, JMWW, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, and numerous others. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Her story “Tracks” was the winner of the 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (literary/mainstream category). She is a native New Orleanian and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses gulf oysters and southern ghost stories, but has become appreciative of snow and colorful scarves.

web: www.thewritelifeliz.com | instagram: @thewritelifeliz

Elizabeth Rosen

A Good Neighbor is Not a Choice

When Maggie rings my bell, I open the door wide and invite her inside. She takes the only stand-alone seat in the room and sits on the edge, straight-backed, hands in her lap. I take the couch and wait.

I know what this is about. Yesterday, we all saw her daughter, Maya, out removing the elaborate cursive A Child Is Not a Choice! from the narrow path that runs behind our houses. Several of us were already watching our kids’ soccer games in the mowed field when Maya came out with a bucket and brush and began to remove the slogan she’d chalked colorfully on the tarmac the day before. Texts had flown up and down the houses in our usually bland subdivision. We’d come to our windows. We stepped out into our backyards and raised hands to shield our eyes from the sun. We turned from the referee whistles and our own children’s attacks on the ball to watch the red-faced twelve-year-old scrub the graffiti from the pavement. We saw Maggie, too, standing in her backdoor, arms welded tightly across her chest as she watched. There was steel in the woman’s posture. Then, and now.

“I wanted to come by and apologize,” she begins. “When Maya asked if she could draw something for Right to Life Day, we thought she meant on our driveway, not on the public path. You can imagine our shock.”

I don’t need to. None of us does. What I am confused about is why Maggie should be the one going door-to-door apologizing. And why to me? I don’t think we’ve talked politics once in all the years we’ve lived next to one another.

“We made her clean it off during the soccer practice when the same people who’d had to walk over it would also see her removing it,” Maggie says, tucking one ankle behind the other, knees perfectly, elegantly, aligned. “But I’m also going to all the neighbors on the path to personally apologize.”

So not just me. I have to wonder what she stands to gain by making her child’s humiliation her own. It seems a step too far. It feels a bit martyr-ish. Particularly since her blue eyes are alive with purpose and resolve.

Maggie has not looked away from me once, not in embarrassment or to gather her words. She looks as put-together and pretty as she always does, a bit tired, yes, but glowing with single-mindedness. This is a woman who has always returned to her pre-pregnancy weight after six months, a woman who still wears mascara, no matter whatever else is happening in her life, and I notice that Maggie has nothing with her. She has walked out without a sun hat, or a set of keys. I wonder at that kind of trust, not locking the door behind her, not thinking that the sun will burn. But maybe, with all her children coming and going, a locked door wouldn’t be practical.

I glance down at my mom jeans, note the layer of dust on the TV screen. I know that if I were in Maggie’s house there would be no dust. Her Tupperware would be perfectly nested. I’ve seen it myself.

“Of course, we are proud of Maya for the strength of her opinions,” Maggie says, bringing me back from my thoughts of kitchen storage, “but we want her to understand that it isn’t right to make others feel uncomfortable with them.” I see her eyes slide to the dirty glass on the coffee table, see her putting theory into practice.

I pretend to be brushing something off the toe of my sneaker to hide my eyes. Maya tried to convert my son about a year ago, telling him that if he would only come to Jesus he would not have to worry about things. At the time, I was more concerned with what he was so worried about, so I never mentioned anything to Maggie about it.

I want to tell Maggie that coming by wasn’t necessary, that her point was more than already made. I want to touch her hand, to reassure her that she is a wonderful neighbor, an admirable parent, that we all think so. When I look into her face, though, I wonder if I have the right to tell her something so intimate. I wonder if we are friends, or just two women who share a French drain.

So instead, I tell her how much I appreciate her stopping by. I can’t think of a single topic to segue into, so for a moment we sit without speaking. Finally, I rise and lead her back to the front door. I watch her make her way down my driveway and head to the next house down the lane where she will go through the whole act of contrition again.

I know from experience that this thoughtful woman and her children, Maya included, will appear on my front porch in a few days with the Hamentaschen they baked for us to acknowledge our holiday. I will accept their gift graciously, because I know my children are watching, and I, too, want to be an example of what a good neighbor looks like. I will smile warmly at Maggie, and I will politely ignore the look of resentment on Maya’s face as I reach to take the plate she holds out. We will stand, briefly, on the porch and talk about the weather and the summer trips we are planning to the shore. The children will hang back, staring nakedly at one another. None of us will mention what Maya did, how it was corrected, or Maggie’s visit. We will, all of us, be good neighbors.

Elizabeth Rosen is a former Nickelodeon Television writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Glimmer Train, Pithead Chapel, JMWW, New Flash Fiction Review, Atticus Review, and numerous others. Her fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Her story “Tracks” was the winner of the 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (literary/mainstream category). She is a native New Orleanian and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses gulf oysters and southern ghost stories, but has become appreciative of snow and colorful scarves.

web: www.thewritelifeliz.com | instagram: @thewritelifeliz

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