“You should have left her be,” she said, not looking up from her plate. “She has lived on this lane for thirty years, and she has never asked for our hands to carry her burdens.”
“There is something in that bag she does not want the neighborhood to see,” I said, sitting down opposite her. “The way she pulled it back. It was not normal.”
“Everything is a puzzle to you since you retired, Robert,” Anna said, her tone softening as she looked at me. “You are looking for mail weight in every grocery sack.”
Before I could argue, the distant whine of a heavy engine echoed from the end of Oak Lane. It was followed by the sharp, metallic squeal of air brakes.
I stood up and moved back to the window. The white municipal garbage trucks did not run on Tuesdays, but this was a smaller, gray commercial vehicle with no markings on the cab.
The truck stopped directly in front of Barbara’s driveway, its diesel engine idling with a low, bone-shaking rumble that vibrated through our kitchen floor. A young man in a clean orange vest stepped down from the passenger side.
