I don’t mean to watch her. That’s the thing everyone always says, isn’t it? I don’t mean to, but there she is, every morning at exactly 9:03, front door creaking like it’s clearing its throat for her, and out she comes with that magnifying glass on a string like she’s some kind of suburban detective. The lawn’s not even big. You could cross it in four sensible steps. Yet she treats it like unexplored territory. She kneels - slowly, ceremonially - right near the hydrangea, and peers at the grass as if it’s just whispered something rude. Ants, probably. Or a leaf that doesn’t belong. Yesterday it was a pebble. I know it was a pebble because she held it up to the sun, frowned, and then put it back exactly where she found it. As though it might escape. Sometimes she mutters. Not talking, not praying - auditing. “No, no, that wasn’t there,” she said last Thursday, and I nearly dropped my mug because who was she saying it to? The lawn? The past? Me? I was inside, obviously. Just near the window. Coincidentally. She pokes the ground with a knitting needle. A knitting needle! Like she’s testing a cake for doneness. I’ve lived here twelve years and I’ve never seen her knit a single thing, but that needle knows that lawn better than the postman knows the mailbox. She lifts blades of grass individually, checks underneath, replaces them. There’s care in it, I’ll give her that. A tenderness. The kind you reserve for something you don’t quite trust. And the bags. Little plastic bags in her cardigan pockets. Evidence bags, I assume. Once I saw her put something in one - brown, crumbly - and label it with a pen she keeps tucked behind her ear. I couldn’t read what she wrote, but I imagine dates. Times. “Appeared overnight.” “Smelled suspicious.” She took it inside and didn’t come out for an hour. I spent the rest of the day wondering what was happening to that bag in her kitchen. The odd thing is, the lawn looks perfect. Lush. Green. The envy of the street. Which makes me think it’s not about what’s wrong with it, but what might be. Potential chaos. The idea that something could be there without her knowing. I understand that, actually. Not that I inspect my lawn. I just… observe hers. She hasn’t noticed me yet. Or maybe she has, and I’m on a list. “Across the street. Curtains. Always pretending to water plants.” If she ever turns that magnifying glass my way, really looks, I don’t know what she’ll find. Probably nothing. Probably just another thing that wasn’t there yesterday.
