GOODBYE
NEIGHBORS
barn-like, office building, built to replace a nineteenth-century house that, I remember, had a long porch along the front.
One afternoon, when I was about eight years old, I was gazing from the window of Mom’s Rambler station wagon as she puffed on a Salem cigarette and leisurely maneuvered up the avenue. As we approached the red light at Lane Avenue Mom
decelerated to slo-mo, and I caught sight of two people standing on the porch, as solid as you and I.
The woman looked to be in her mid-forties, short and delicately boned. She was wearing a gray, turn-of-the-last-century skirt that flared at the bottom, a wide belt, and a high-necked shirtwaist blouse, her brown hair pulled up and twisted into a knot. She stood at the top step, her eyes focused on someone or something across the street. Behind her a young man poked his torso out of the front door, bending sideways for a better
view. He was about nineteen or twenty, and wore a brown suit, a stiff-collared white shirt, and a brown bowler hat, his eyes wide with surprise. I could feel their nervousness and apprehension. When the light changed to green, Mom pulled away, and the old house and its Edwardian-era occupants got smaller and smaller in the distance until they disappeared from view.
A week later, Mom and I drove by the same spot. The house was gone, demolished to make way for a new era.
© Medium Gail, MediumGail.com