It changed, though. It changed and they stopped coming. Lester’s death was a tragedy that affected them all. But after the terse funeral held in the living room, during the close of which the police brought Simon unshaven and weeping in leg irons, they began to leave their condolences under tinfoil on the porch and written in cards bought at Woolworth’s and slipped through the mail slot. What Simon had done lost Betty two sons and her neighbors, and along with those losses the joy of what was once her home, her life. In its stead the house grew cold, it settled and groaned, and the walls cracked and colored.

Now, as the city spits Simon back into her life, Betty leans against the door and scans the house to see if anything has changed. As if crocuses will suddenly send their waxy fingers through the warped floorboards and bloom, as they do, early and violently in the otherwise gray and slow-coming spring; or honeysuckle dance through the heating vents, daffodils and tulips through the sink drain. But no. The living room which hasn’t lived up to its name still doesn’t. The drapes hang lifeless at the window margins as the morning spills over. Betty sighs and eases off the door, which after all, is not going to burst open with good news, or any news.

She shuffles back into the kitchen, unplugs the aluminum electric perc pot, takes a plastic bag from under the sink and shuts off the light. She places her shoes in the sack, puts on her coat and steps outside.