“Turn around. Face the truck,” Stella says, her grip tightening on Mel’s foot. White-faced and sweating, Mel puts both hands over her mouth to keep the sounds of pain from escaping.

Rose staggers to her feet. Her front is a mess of blood and torn cloth. She turns and faces the truck.

“Put your hands on the fender. Assume the position,” Stella says.

Like anyone who has watched cop shows, Rose knows what the position is. She puts her hands on the polished red fender of Harley’s truck, spreads her feet a little wider than her shoulders, and waits for Stella to kick them wider, because that’s what she’s seen on TV.

“Gigi, turn around!” Mel squeaks.

Before Rose can respond, Mel cries out and Stella says, “Don’t even think about it.”

Rose’s eyes fix on the rich cherry-colored paint. Had she the ears of any proper animal, they would be turned to catch any noise from behind. What she hears is a crunch, a grunt, a gasp. Then Mel yelling, “Turn around! Turn around!”

Whirling, Rose sees Stella, close behind her, a concrete garden gnome held high above her head, ready to bring it crashing down on Rose’s skull.

There is no time to do anything but throw one thin arm up to protect her face.

Eyes squeezed shut, Rose hears rather than feels the awful crunch as an inanimate object strikes hard against flesh and bone. An exhalation of breath and a soft thump as a body hits the dirt.

Rose waits to wake up dead.

Finally, she opens her eyes. Harley’s ex-wife, Nancy, is standing where Stella had been, her eyeglasses flashing fire from the setting sun, her neat hair in place, her clothing pressed and tailored. Stella is lying prone, the garden gnome circled in one arm, the other outflung, her face to the ground.

“What did you hit her with?” Rose asks stupidly.

“A fifteen-pound box of kitty litter,” Nancy retorts. Rose sees the box, leaking litter, to one side of Stella. She wonders if Stella is dead, but finds she doesn’t care as long as the woman stays down.

Rose pushes away from the truck. “Mel…”

Nancy has moved and is talking with Melanie. “I’ve called 911,” she says. “They will be here shortly. I asked for an ambulance as well as police.” On cue, sirens sound a few blocks distant.

The setting sun is painting the world umbers, golds, and oranges, the colors of the autumn leaves. Blood runs down Rose’s forearm, more down the outside of her right leg. Wounds she must have gotten when she shinnied through the broken windshield. One of Mel’s shoes is dyed dark red. The knees of her skinny jeans are no longer artfully shredded but torn open, the skin beneath scraped away.

“Oh, Grandma!” Mel cries, sounding like a very young girl. “It’s so lucky you came.”