The Quiet Neighbors
The house stood empty, accented by shredded curtains hanging on the front bow window like a poorly glued false eyelash. A rusty lawn mower was centered in front of the peeling garage door. The neighbors complained to the Township of Mulberry that the eyesore was bringing down the property values. Yet the old woman who owned it refused to sell, clean, or restore the deteriorating structure.
The residents of Mary Street kept a close watch on the house, peering in the windows at the mounds of trash that decorated the living room and at the cracks creeping across the kitchen ceiling, multiplying like the lines that form around a smoker’s mouth. The owner, Emma Richardson, sporting seventy-plus years of lines herself, was nowhere to be seen. People talked about how she liv
