JACLYN WATTERSON

REUNION

I was shouting at the garden boy—bloody lips, parchment skin—through the window as he darted between the dwarf pines.

You again, you again, I was saying.

And Geraldine, whose house is attached to mine on the left, stepped out and began shouting at me—Call the police!

Yes, I said, cranking the window shut. I will call the police immediately.

Crouching out of sight, I whispered to no one, I would sooner die than call the police. Like anyone, I wanted to live. The longer you fear a garden boy, the firmer his hold, and a garden boy can orchestrate a great many things. So I pulled a scab from my elbow, considered which opportunities were real, and ventured a peep out the window.

Some time had passed. The garden boy, in his cap and his boots, had tied a rope around Geraldine’s neck. He carried his knife in his hand and led her about the garden, showing her things which she thought wonderful—the dahlias had bloomed, the delphiniums bruised, and mourning doves strutted and cooed among the stones. The garden boy had imported a miniature cauldron, and it bubbled over a little fire he had built. My garbage can, lit from within, glowed purposelessly.

On her lead, Geraldine no longer clamored for the police. I slumped back to the floor beneath the window, and the doorbell rang.

Open up! Police!, a voice on the other side of the door was shouting. A pounding began.

Oh dear.

On four limbs I crept to the kitchen and retrieved my own knife—serrated—and slipped it into my sock as I had watched the garden boy do evenings past. And I slunk back to the door and rose to my feet, put on my mask, and opened the door. Two uniformed officers, batons in hand, masks uselessly drooping beneath soft chins.

They gritted their teeth and spoke my name. Accused me of calling them. How did they know my name?

Meanwhile in my front garden Geraldine pranced with the garden boy—both of them grinning. Geraldine exclaimed, but I couldn’t make out her words.

I watched the officers’ guns, holstered for now, and I said, No, I didn’t call.

The smaller of the two spoke into a walkie-talkie. Repeated my name. Said yes, he’d confirmed it—I had called the police.

In no time, more officers appeared and then more. Soon there were a hundred, a thousand, crowding the front garden and pushing into the house at the back, threatening the baby, who was wailing now.

I felt for the knife in my sock; the garden boy still gripped his in a sweaty palm. Geraldine loped after him on her rope, and at last I could hear her exclamation—The police have got to enforce the rules!—but she was trailed by numerous officers, fingering the hem of her dress and blowing with their lips into her ears. Batons still were raised.

My opportunities, as always, were limited, but the garden offered grounds and occasion both. I dashed out the front door between the first two cops, and slid my knife seamlessly into Geraldine’s neck just beneath her ear, as an officer, unmasked, licked it. Together, then, the officer and I dragged Geraldine toward the glowing garbage can.

Neighbors have got to look out for one another, she babbled.

The garden boy, still gripping his knife, let go his rope, and put his hand in mine. Later, we would sit at the same table, both eating the flesh of animals—but now we only gazed in rapture as Geraldine, bioluminescent, babbled on and on and on and on.

Jaclyn Watterson lives in an attached house in Queens, New York. Her first book, Ventriloquisms,won the 2016 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and was published by Willow Springs Books in 2017. She is currently at work on a novella.