Day after New Year’s, I buried my husband Curtis, who should have died of shame but pancreatic cancer got him first. I was sixty-two and everyone I ever loved was dead. Any day, the bank would take our home of thirty-three years, a modest ranch with a sweet garden in the back. End of February, I drove south from downtown Austin, past the city limits onto curbless streets edging parched lawns, my truck stirring up the dust of a drought winter. I pulled into Cedar Elm Lane, where its namesake tree lorded over the Sunny Acres sign on the corner. Some wiseacre had painted an “F” over the “S.” A hodgepodge of trailers, RVs and modular homes were plopped willy-nilly on the lots, with pickups, mommy vans and low riders parked in the dirt drives. The skeletons of live oaks, molted in winter, were staggered along the street.
I turned into the only empty lot, graced by a single twenty-foot Mexican buckeye that promised pink, sweet-smelling blooms come spring. That was alright by me. Javier, the trailer park manager, met me wearing a white straw cowboy hat and crisp linen shirt with a bolo tie. “Nice and shady,” he proclaimed, indicating the one tree. A beat-up single-wide sat next door to my left about twenty yards away. Somebody had graffitied shithead, fuckface, asswipe, etcetera, on its butt end. The occupants had painted a rainbow of swirls over the mess like a foul-mouthed kid’s finger painting. That gave me pause. The breeze shifted and the brimming dumpster at the far end of the street made itself known. That too.
I clasped my hand around the locket on my necklace. It held a baby photo of my son Jesse pressed over a lock of his hair. Beyond the backyard lay a field of dry grass peppered with early spring bluebonnets, his favorite wildflower. Curtis and I had taken Jesse out to the country every year until his last, so he could marvel at their deep pink throats and grapey scent.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
“One problem, Miz Maggie. A friend of a resident put a hold on it.”
“Why’d you show it to me then?”
“They’re late on the deposit.”
I blurted, “I’ll pay six months rent up front.” The last of my money. Javier turned and stared at that lopsided trailer next door. I caught a whiff of dread.
Late March, I stood on the edge of the dry patch of clay that was to be my yard and watched Javier expertly back my new used Airstream onto the lot. The Texas sun fried the still air. A scorpion skittered under my trailer. Beyond the back lot, an ocean of bluebonnets waved their tall indigo heads and blew their sweet bubble gum perfume my way. I so wished Jesse were there.
Javier opened the door to my truck and swung his long legs onto the hardpack. The man never broke a sweat. “Alright Miz Maggie, d’you need help hooking up?”
“No thanks. I’ve been YouTubing Airstream how-tos all week.” I was not one to ask for help, even in the worst circumstance.
I retrieved my tools and eyed the shabby trailer with the crazy paint job next door. A faded Tacoma pickup, scratched and pockmarked, was parked out front. A half-built deck jutted out from the front door and on it, piles of slick auto parts were stacked up like cairns. I checked out one of the piles. Strips of leather, colored wire and rubber wove through the parts and bound them together. “What the heck are these?”
“Bennett Jones is one of our resident artistes,” Javier said. “He sells those sculptures here and there. Rich people buy them.”
There’s a sucker born every minute.
Said Bennett had carved out a sprawling firepit between our yards. “Isn’t that pit partly on my rental? Looks like the perfect spot to put my garden.”
“The previous residents shared the pit with the Joneses. People love coming here, gathering under the stars by the fire. Instant friends right by your front door.”
“It’s my yard. I’m putting a garden in.”
Javier pointed to the back end of my rental property next to a scrubby stand of mesquite.
“Why don’t you put it there?” he said. “By your storage shed.”
I walked over and scoped out the land. A soft breeze blew through the mesquite. It was convenient to the shed. But still.
I put in the tire chock blocks, dropped the hitch and hooked up the tank hoses. It was slow going in the fiery heat. Once the electrical was connected and the a/c turned on, I drove into Austin to get my kitty, Willie Nelson, who was keeping cool at my cousin’s. I brought Willie back to the Airstream to get used to the place. As I was carrying him to the trailer, my neighbor in the painted trailer peeked out the window.
After lunch, I sweated over setting up the poop tank hose. I would have killed for some ice tea. The modular to the right of me was empty, the occupants’ vehicles gone. I was screwing up my courage to ask the other neighbor for ice, when out he walked.
He wore a suede fringed vest over a vintage Hawaiian shirt, blue jeans, turquoise cowboy boots, and an old Stetson with a tie-dyed scarf serving as hat band. His beard, which he’d braided to a point, covered half of a pudgy, middled-aged face. His hair hung down his back in a long swinging braid. He’d decked himself out in man jewelry: leather bracelets on one wrist, thick silver and turquoise bands on the other. Around his neck a bulky turquoise bear hung on a strip of leather, what we gals called a statement necklace. He looked like the mutant son of a Deadhead and a cowboy.
“Howdy neighbor,” he called across the tattered lawn. A heavy, brow-beaten, hippie woman with long dirty-blond hair followed five steps behind him carrying a paper plate of cupcakes. Her voluminous poncho, pieced together from fabric scraps, floated like a jelly fish over tie-dyed harem pants. “I’m Bennett,” he said, “and this is Sylvie.”
“Welcome to Sunny Acres,” she said, eyes on the ground. She handed me the red velvet cupcakes, a few days past their prime.
Bennett held up a baggie containing a couple of fat joints. “You partake?”
“Sure, thanks.” I reached for the baggie and he yanked it back.
“Ten bucks a joint. Best shit in Shitty Acres.”
“So much for Southern hospitality,” I said. “Never mind.”
“Oh honey, you can’t cough up a few bucks for weed? You got a fancy hipster trailer and brand spankin’ new truck to tow it. What’s that, an F-250?”
“It’s used. I bought it with my hard-earned money.” That truck and trailer were all I had to show for my life’s work and the meager leavings after I sold our furniture and Curtis’s old truck.
“Duly noted, your highness.”
“Thanks for dropping by, but I’m kind of busy right now.”
“Man, I just come over to say hi to my new neighbor. See if she’s some kind of rich bitch slumming with the trailer trash.” His woman winced at this, but dared not open her mouth.
“Well, while you’re being neighborly, how about moving your firepit over a few feet to your yard. Otherwise, I’ll be taking it up with management.”
“Be my guest,” Bennett said. “I’d like to hear what Javier has to say about that. And here we was going to invite you to a barbecue this weekend. I wonder how your little pussy cat will taste with my homemade sauce on it.”
“Leave my cat alone.” I shook my hammer at him.
He laughed. “Take it easy, woman. We’re just kidding around.”
“Bennett, please?” his wife said.
“C’mon, Sylvie. Welcome Wagon is not welcome.” She trudged home behind Bennett.
At her stoop, she glanced back at me with a sad, wistful look.
I felt dizzy and could barely breathe. I hustled inside my trailer for a glass of water. That Bennett was a real charmer. Now I was stuck for six months––all Curtis’s fault. He might as well have burned our money in a bonfire. All the plans we made for our retirement up in smoke. All the lies he told me. The nights he didn’t come home, when I was sure he was having an affair. He was––with a deck of cards and a bunch of crooks playing Texas Hold’em.
Curtis used to be all blue-eyed swagger and muscle, with the tongue of a poet. The kind of man who makes you want to rip your clothes off in broad daylight. He’d had a thick head of hair, but it thinned out and turned white almost overnight after Jesse died. He grew a beer belly and a host of digestive complaints. I kicked him out when I heard he’d bet his business and borrowed against our house. I took him back when he got his diagnosis. He died Christmas day and I’d cried myself to sleep every night since, holding onto Jesse’s stuffed kangaroo. I’d sewed Mr. Roo back together so many times he looked like the Frankenstein monster.
The murderous heat and day’s exertion had exhausted me, but I stayed up late unpacking and decorating, while Willie sniffed around and found some good hidey-holes. I set out the last of my books: Austen, Kingsolver, Morrison, and a mildewed family Bible, alongside Curtis’s collected Shakespeare and a ragged copy of Catch 22. I hung pictures and rescued Mr. Roo from a box. He still smelled of Jesse and faint hospital odor, but I would never let him go.
The place felt good to me, small and compact, like a silver cocoon, where I could fall apart and come together again. I didn’t need a big house full of grievous memories. All I needed was a trailer, a garden, and a cat. Maybe a friend or two. I was done with love.
The next morning, I woke in a sweat, disoriented from a bad dream. I opened my eyes to see my cat bouncing on top of me in the cool womb of the Airstream. I got up to run a glass of water, but barely a drip came out of the faucet. I put Willie back in his carrier, pulled on a robe and went outside. The hose to the city water was disconnected. The left front tire of my truck lay flat to the ground. It was April Fool’s Day. Me and Bennett Jones were officially at war.
I headed to Javier’s office, housed in a small modular, determined to get on the waitlist for the next available lot. A line of people waited at the door to pay rent, including a neighbor from across the street who’d been spying on me from the porch of a nice old manufactured home. She looked about a hundred, but she wore tight capris on a Dolly Parton body and an old-school, bleached-blond Texas hair wig. She held an unlit cigarette in one hand and dragged an oxygen tank behind her.
“You’re the new gal squeezed up in that shiny tin can,” she said in a husky rasp.
“It’s very roomy actually––”
“You picked a fight with the wrong man, city girl.”
The other tenants glared at me. I was too stunned to answer.
Javier opened the door, wearing his bolo tie and a sport jacket over jeans. “Luke, your go,” he said to a man in painter’s overalls, first in line. I stood outside the door as Luke stepped in, waved his rent check and dropped it on Javier’s massive wooden desk. A rainbow-colored donkey piñata hung in the opposite corner. Javier handed Luke a plastic bat. The bleach blond lifted up her oxygen tank and pushed in. Javier held out his arm, “Miz Thorn, wait your turn.”
“Hit it!” Miz Thorn commanded Luke, who took a big swing and cracked the piñata. An eruption of candy spilled out and a green object arced toward me––I caught it right-handed. A lime.
“Good catch,” Javier said. Luke scooped up a handful of candy, saluted Javier and left.
“The Kisses are mine!” Miz Thorn announced, gathering up the little foil mountains.
“Rent, Miz Thorn!” Javier said. “And you better not be smoking next to that oxygen.”
She dropped a balled-up check on the desk. “It ain’t lit. I’m no fool.” She brushed past me and tsked. As she reached the end of the line, I heard her say, “Lock your doors. The Democrats are moving in.”
After the rent parade left with their candy hauls, I sat opposite Javier and surveyed his office. He’d loaded a bookshelf next to a dented file cabinet with an army of prickly succulents and hung some trippy Mexican folk art on the wall. He had a thing for armadillos.
“Heard you got off on the wrong foot with the Joneses,” he said. Hell, Bennett had gotten to him too. I filled him in on the flat tire and sabotage to my trailer.
He poured me a cup of coffee and set it in front of me with a carton of half and half.
“Now, young lady, I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” He swung his booted feet up on the desk. “We do things different in Sunny Acres––we all pull for each other.” He leaned back. “Miz Maggie, why don’t you try making up with Bennett. He appreciates a good Austin craft beer. Get him a six of Zilker Marco. Y’all will be best friends right away.” He leaned toward me. “You caught the Lucky Lime. You’ve earned a second chance.”
“I am not buying that bastard any overpriced Millennial microbrew.”
“You’re a stubborn woman, aren’t you? How’s that working for you?”
At home, I started digging a compost pit to burn off my frustration. I tried brainstorming about my future––how to live life as a widow without two sticks to rub together. Curtis and I’d talked about traveling, maybe getting an RV or visiting the Australian outback. I’d always wanted to see Europe and go on a spa vacation with girlfriends. Take painting classes. But that cost real money. Nobody was jumping to hire a sixty-something widow. I needed to snag a job at a grocery store, teach a cooking class, or do light bookkeeping. Maybe all of that. I thought about my deejay days when I was a local celebrity of sorts. I had backstage VIP passes to see everybody from Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson to Emmy Lou Harris and Billy Joe Shaver. Men were dropping at my feet. You think it’s going to last forever, and next thing you know, you’re old, lonely, and living in a crappy trailer park next to an asshole.
I sensed someone watching me. I looked up to see Sylvie staring out her window. When our eyes connected, she disappeared. I was sure Bennett had forbidden her to talk to me.
That week, I began to dig my garden and amend the clay with bags of manure and mulch. My compost would not be ready for weeks. I wished the stink would blow Bennett’s way. I loved messing in the dirt, getting sweaty and filthy, and watching the green shoots come up. I planned to eat fresh salad all summer long and put up my surplus of fat zucchinis, tomatoes and habaneros for winter. Curtis had been a hot pepper man. Couldn’t go a day without them. I planted all Jesse’s favorites too: sunflowers, cherry tomatoes and Jack and the Bean Stalk pea pods. From the time he could walk, he loved playing in our garden. He helped me water and pull weeds. I used to picture myself in retirement as a sun-wrinkled grandma entertaining his kiddies in my back yard. Leukemia killed that dream.
A week later, another of my truck tires went flat. Then someone broke into my shed and stole some tools and winter boots.
In May, the rains came down hard. Willie and I were stuck in the Airstream for days. I watched out the window as half my garden washed away. On the opposite side of the trailer, the great bank of oaks and cedar that ringed the trailer park held up the inky belly of sky, bloated with rain. In June, the monsoons abated and the heat rocketed. On the weekends, Bennett held loud, raucous parties around the firepit. Week after week, he waged war, heaping bad juju on me any chance he got. Javier was right. I should have bought that beer.
The end of June, Bennett started whipping up a batch of his redneck art piles on his deck. Down at the dumpster unloading garbage, I overheard Miz Thorne bragging to a couple of gossips that he’d gotten a big order from a gallery. Back at my trailer, I poured a coffee for me and one for Curtis. Revenge had been more up his alley.
Around three a.m., after the trailer park fell asleep, I put on a black hoodie and leggings, carried out some old towels and blankets, and quiet as a ninja, wrapped up six of those ugly ass sculptures. One banged against my leg and I hopped around cursing silently. I jammed them in my truck bed, put the F-250 in neutral and coasted as far down the road as possible. I switched on the lights and engine and headed to meet Curtis’s ancient Uncle Harold halfway to Leander, where he lived in a shipping container and kept another full of old appliances and scrap for his fixit business. He waited at the appointed juncture wearing his trademark greasy overalls, a Rangers hat and a perpetual quarter inch of white stubble. We transferred the cairns to his truck.
“I never pegged you for a life of crime,” he said. “What’s a goody two shoes like you up to with this junk?”
“I just need you to hold on to it for a bit. It’s insurance. Believe it or not, they sell this stuff in art galleries.”
“I swanee, there’s no one dumber than a modern art collector. Oh, looky here.” Harold held up Bennett’s leather and turquoise bear necklace.
“Oh shit. That’s his good luck fetish.”
“Well, it’s mine now. Mebbe I’ll win the lottery.”
“Rub it three times and give it back. It might come in handy.”
“Maggie May, Curtis’d be damn proud of you.”
“I know. This was his idea.” Curtis gave better counsel dead than he ever did alive.
The next day, Bennett went on a rampage. He tore through my shed. We both called Javier who came down to referee. I let Bennett into my trailer. He banged around and looked in all my cupboards. Poor Willie couldn’t find a safe place to hide so he jumped out a window. “Unlock your truck,” Bennett demanded. Javier looked at me and shrugged sympathetically. I complied. Sylvie stood out by the pit, wringing her homemade caftan and crying quietly. “Satisfied?” Javier said.
“I know she’s behind it.” Bennett stormed off to his trailer, probably to get drunk.
Sylvie walked up to Javier and me. “I’m so sorry, Maggie. He’s real upset. That stuff is worth a lot of money to us.”
I cringed when she said “us.” Making Sylvie suffer was not my wish.
My eyes roamed over to the curse words on their trailer. “He does have enemies, doesn’t he?” Sylvie followed my gaze and nodded her head.
The next day, I walked the bear necklace over to the trailer when only Sylvie was home. “I found this in the road,” I said, “over there,” pointing to where the road led out of Sunny Acres.
“He’s going to be so happy to have this back, Maggie, you have no idea.”
On my first July 4th in Sunny Acres, my ripest heirloom tomatoes, along with my prized poblanos and cilantro, disappeared. As I picked what was left in my garden, Bennett made Sylvie cook chili on the firepit with the fresh ingredients I’d grown. She gave me a desperate look. I sped off in my truck to meet a book club friend in Austin for the fireworks, murdering Bennett in my head a million different ways. On my return, a plastic container of chili waited for me on my front step.
Sylvie wasn’t half bad. I felt sorry for her––overweight, half out of breath, under Bennett’s thumb. I admired the way she dressed in hippie skirt-pants and flowy tunics sewn from scraps. She had an original style. If ever a woman needed a gal pal, it was Sylvie. As well did I. No one but Javier would give me the time of day in Sunny Acres. Frankly, I was tired of talking to the cat.
One morning at sunrise, the sound of Bennett’s truck heading out woke me. Before the heat became intolerable, I whipped up my buttermilk biscuits. While they baked, I ran around the trailer, gussying up the place. It looked good, ready for my first guest. On second thought, I put Mr. Roo in the cupboard above the bed. Not for shame. Some things are sacred.
I set the warm biscuits on a plate, walked next door and knocked on Sylvie’s door. She opened it and I held up the biscuits. “Baked fresh from scratch. Made jam too. Come on over.”
She looked around, made sure the coast was clear, then stepped outside and followed me to my Airstream. Inside, she took in a sharp breath and scanned the interior. “This is the neatest, prettiest trailer I ever saw. And it smells so good in here.” I’d bought the trailer off a young couple starting a family. They’d renovated it, adding amber wood paneling curved to fit the domed ceiling, bronze vintage lights and wooden window shades. But it was the skylights and sound system that sold me. Gillian Welch sang softly over the speakers. Sylvie asked, “How do you keep it so nice?”
“No husband,” I said. We laughed. “It’s easy to keep neat because I don’t have much anymore. I sold what I could and gave away the rest.”
“Javier said you’re a widow.” No goddam secrets in Sunny Acres.
I nodded and busied myself getting the plates down. No need to tell her that he was my ruin, the reason I was stuck in this shithole. I could’ve used some sympathy, but Curtis hadn’t been dead seven months and if I spoke of him, I might come apart.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Sylvie said.
She ambled around oohing and aahing over this and that. I kept the Airstream tidy and clean, using every nook and cranny for storage. Sylvie admired the curved shelves that held my precious books and a few dozen albums I couldn’t part with. She studied the photos of Jesse hung on the scant wall space.
“My son. He passed.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie.” On a low shelf, stood his Lego minifigures. “What are those?”
“Jesse made them. That’s our family.” Mini Jesse wore a cowboy hat and held a keyboard guitar, Curtis a motorcycle helmet and hammer. Jesse had given me long red hair, bell bottoms and a microphone. “That kid got us to a T. He was a whiz at Legos from the time he could walk.”
“He sure liked cowboy hats,” Sylvie said.
“He didn’t want people to see his bald chemo head. His favorite nurse, Malik, called him Jesse James, the Lego Outlaw.”
Sylvie picked up Jesse’s Rubik’s cube. “Bennett can’t even do these.”
No surprise that. And no sense bragging about what a genius Jesse was. He could solve that cube in minutes, no matter how crazy Curtis scrambled it.
“Y’all have kids?” I asked.
“We tried. Bennett’s got a son somewhere. The boy’s mama took him away and cut ties. Broke Bennett’s heart.” His baby mama was no fool, but I knew what it was like to lose a child.
“I really wanted to give him another,” Sylvie said. “But I miscarried every time.”
“Oh Sylvie.” I squeezed her hand. “What’s Bennett up to?”
“The usual. Gone to Dallas a few days.” Meaning he was out doing whatever illegal shit he did to stay afloat.
“What did he say when you gave him back his bear necklace?”
Her eyes fixed on my photo wall. “He don’t believe you found it in the road. He’s real upset about his sculptures. If you know anything, Maggie––”
“––I’ll keep my ears open. Come sit over here.” I pointed to the built-in banquette. I’d found a sheepskin throw at a yard sale to lay over the couch, which served as seating for the pull-down side tables.
Sylvie squeezed onto the couch behind the drop table. I served our little breakfast. “Maggie, this is the best coffee I ever drunk.” She went on about the biscuits and jam until a faded polaroid on the wall by the table caught her eye. “Are you the pretty girl with the wild hair behind that microphone?”
“Yep. KOKE’s first lady deejay. They called me Maggie May. Helped put Outlaw Country on the map. Had to make coffee and do the secretarial but it got me on air.” In the last months of Jesse’s life, they held my job open. Once I returned, they took me off the air and stuck me on office work and ad sales. I was forty-three. They wanted someone younger and hipper, someone not carrying the dregs of grief.
“I love the music you play out in the garden,” she said. On cue, James McMurtry’s raw voice filled the trailer.
I’d taken to putting my phone on speaker when Bennett’s truck was gone. “I can’t live without my music.”
Willie scratched at the door. “You’re not allergic, are you?”
“No, Bennett is. I wish we could have a kitty.” I let Willie in. He jumped on the couch and snuggled against Sylvie. She petted him tentatively. “His fur is so soft.” Willie crawled into her lap and it looked like she might cry.
We sat quietly enjoying our repast. Didn’t take much coaxing for her to accept seconds.
Sylvie buttered a biscuit with intense concentration. “You know, deep down, Bennett’s a good person,” she said. “He’s so smart and such a great artist. I really don’t know what he sees in me—except he does like plus size women.” She winked and we both giggled.
I wondered why she couldn’t see what a bully and lowlife thief Bennett was. Better to keep that to myself. “Sylvie, you’re an artist too. Look at the clothes you design.”
“I make my own ‘cause it’s cheap and I can’t fit into nothing else.”
“Well, they’re one of a kind. Those harem pants and tunics with the renaissance sleeves. It’s upcycling. That’s in now. You could sell that stuff.”
“I do. My sis and I’ve been copying ‘em to take to craft fairs and concerts.”
“Well, you’re a fashion designer and you should be proud.”
Sylvie blushed. “Maggie, can I help you with your garden?”
I loaned her a straw hat and put her to work pulling weeds and picking cukes. The squash vines were spilling over and the garden sent up a tart green scent. I tore us some fresh mint to chew and started staking tomatoes. Sylvie sang country tunes and sounded pretty good. Soon we were harmonizing on Dolly and Joni, Lucinda Williams and Kasey Musgrave songs. The creamy mesquite blossoms spun their honeyed perfume around us. The afternoon heat revved up to tropical. Sylvie sat down to catch her breath on one of the stumps I’d set around the garden. I went in for lemonade.
As I returned, a Jimmy careened around the curve, kicking up a storm of dust. It pulled up in front of Sylvie’s trailer. She heaved herself off the stump and scrambled as fast as she could toward her place. One of Bennett’s sketchy pals got out of the truck. I recognized him from the firepit circle, a skinny guy with dyed black shoe polish hair and tattoos crowding his neck. He shot me a venomous look and turned his slow, mean voice on Sylvie.
“Consortin’ with the enemy, fatty?”
“We was just picking vegetables, Rondo. Bennett’s not home.”
“He owes me.”
“He’ll be back tomorrow with your money.”
“I’ll be back to get it. Tell him I was here.” Rondo glared at me one last time before getting in the Jimmy. He swiveled onto the road, leaving us inhaling dirt.
“I hope that creep don’t say anything to Bennett about me hanging out with you.”
“He sure didn’t like me,” I said.
“He wanted your lot. It was supposed to go to him.”
“No wonder Bennett hates me.” I walked the lemonade over to her. “This’ll clear your throat.”
She drank it. “Thanks. You make lemonade like you do everything else.” She handed me the glass. “It’s not your fault. Bennett just needs to know you like I do … I better say goodbye.” She started toward her trailer, turned back and threw her arms around me. It felt like being held by a warm cloud of patchouli and cinnamon. I didn’t want to let go. “Maggie, this was the best day I’ve had in years.”
She walked away and on impulse, I called out, “Maybe Rondo took the sculptures. He looked pretty mad.”
She turned around and grinned. “I’ll bet he did. I’m gonna text Bennett.”
As soon as she said it, a chill of fear went through me. I was playing with fire now.
The next morning, Sylvie did not emerge from her trailer. The Tacoma had showed up overnight. I went to work out in the garden. Mid-morning Rondo skidded around the bend, parked next to the Tacoma and disappeared into the Jones’s singlewide.
In minutes, Bennett burst out of the trailer carrying an armload of Sylvie’s clothing scraps and piles of tie-dyed cloth. He dumped it in the firepit ash with Sylvie on his tail, pleading for him to stop. He looked straight into my eyes with pure meanness. Sylvie scooped up the filthy fabric pieces in her arms and cried.
Rondo strode out of the trailer straight to my garden, picked a fat, ripe Early Girl and fast-balled it at my head. I dodged but it splatted against my shoulder.
I hustled into my trailer and slammed the door. I smashed my fist into my mattress and had a good cry. How did I ever think I could win at this game? I never meant for Sylvie to get hurt. I was piling up enemies by the minute.
When I went outside, Bennett was sitting on his deck cleaning his guns. He picked up a handgun, aimed it my way and feigned shooting me. I made myself breathe deep and do some work in the garden until he went in the house. I’d be damned before I’d let Bennett Jones think he could scare me.
I let myself into my trailer and screamed into a pillow. Poor Willie jumped up from his nap and scrambled to hide in the bathroom. My heart pounded. I started opening storage cabinets, but I could not remember where our guns were. I looked up to the heavens and implored my dead husband, “Curtis, where are they?”
I swear, the door to a storage cupboard above my bed popped open. Inside, I found the plastic bin labeled “CURTIS.” I pulled it down. On top lay one of his T-shirts I’d rescued from the dirty clothes after he died. I held it to my face and inhaled. I closed my eyes and remembered Curtis slipping his arms around me in our kitchen. “Looks good. Cooks good,” he’d said. It was one of the few moments when we let go of our grief. We’d been on our feet long enough to make some kind of a life again. I had my work, my walking group and book club. Curtis had gambling.
I dug deeper past file folders and an old watch. At the very bottom lay the purple box holding the Ruger he bought for me; a hard case housed his Sig. Curtis started taking me to the shooting range after our honeymoon. “You need to learn to protect yourself, girl. If anyone messes with you, you make ’em regret it.” At the range, he pressed against my back and held his hand over my gun hand while I aimed. “Just don’t shoot me,” he whispered.
I opened the box containing the Ruger; it needed some love and I was ready to give it. I aimed it through my window at Bennett’s empty chair on the deck. “I’ve got a gun too, Bennett Jones, and I bet I can outshoot you.”
I spent some productive time with the Ruger, getting it back into shape. It was a sleek, semi-compact with a flashy purple belly and smooth profile that kept it from snagging if you needed to draw fast.
Early morning, someone knocked on my door. I stuck the Ruger in the back of my jeans and cracked it open. “To what do I owe the honor, Miz Thorne?”
“Lift up my tank, city girl. And call me Wanda.”
I stepped down and hauled up her oxygen.
Inside, she sucked in the air. “Smells like money.”
“Hardly. Don’t have a pot to pee in.”
“Alrighty, I guess I’ll tell Bennett you made off in the night with his doohickeys.”
“He already searched here high and low.”
“Honey, I don’t sleep good, but I sure loved watching your antics at three a.m.” She wandered around picking up things and eyeballing my shelves.
My chest tightened. “You didn’t tell Bennett?”
“That would’ve been fun, but not as lucrative. What’s it worth to you to keep my mouth shut?” I was starting to understand why nice people kill.
“I don’t have anything. Just my pitiful social security. I swear.”
She picked up Jesse’s Rubik’s Cube. “I’ll take this as a souvenir then. Can’t wait to see the look on Bennett’s face.”
“You can’t take that!” I leaped toward her, grabbed the cube and stubbed my toe on the oxygen tank. “Ow!”
“Whoa, girlie. You better give me something better.” That woman could make a hornet look cuddly. She waited a few seconds, then headed for the door.
“Wait Miz Wanda! You like guns?”
“No darlin’. I love ‘em.”
I hated to let go of Curtis’s Sig. But it was either that or my truck. I had to buy time until I formulated a plan for the stolen objets d’art.
“Bye honey,” she said, the gun case pinned under her arm. “Nice doin’ business with ‘ya. I’ll be back soon for more.”
I drove straight to the shooting range and shredded some bullseyes. The only thing that would’ve made that more fun were cutout targets of Bennett and Wanda.
Javier dropped by that Thursday. “Listen, yesterday Bennett said, ‘Wouldn’t Maggie be upset if she came home and her little cat was gone.’ I’m sure he was just blowing hot air.”
“I’ll kill him if he lays a hand on Willie.”
“I’ve got a vacancy down by the roller rink. At least you’d be far from Bennett.”
“You mean put up with the late-night disco parties––barfing, fighting and fucking in the parking lot? No thanks. Tell me this: why aren’t you standing up for me against him?”
I’d never seen Javier lose his cool but he looked plenty pissed off. He said nothing, just headed for his car. I ran after him, “Wait, I’m sorry, Javier. I know you’re looking out for me.”
He opened the car door. “You never bought him that beer, did you? Probably too late.” Inside, he rolled down the window. “You better not have taken those sculptures. If I find out you did, it’s adios.”
It wasn’t fair, after everything Bennett had done, but I held my tongue.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I’d fallen for Willie at the kill shelter after Curtis took ill. His mama had thrown him out in an alley, the flea-bitten runt of the litter. Some beastie tore up the scrappy little thing. I saved him from execution and paid a fortune to the vet. I thought Willie might cheer up Curtis, but bringing that kitty home was as much for my sake. He cleaned up good and I brushed him till his silvery fur glowed. He dropped the feral act after he realized we were on his side and started cuddling between us at night.
Curtis had been sleeping in his truck when his health bottomed out. I scraped and borrowed from family to buy time with the bank so we could stay long enough in the house that he could die at home.
In the end, after Curtis lost his words, he mouthed “Willie” and I brought the little guy to him. Willie snuggled up to Curtis and put his paw on his chest. Best cat in the world.
Curtis died in my arms. I’d loved him for thirty-four years and hated him the last few. When you are midwife to someone’s passing, hatred feels like a cowardly emotion. My anger at him remained. And my love.
I drove around Austin, looking at some of the fancy trailer parks, but nothing felt right. When I got home, Sylvie was waiting. The Tacoma was gone.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“With his brother in Austin.”
“I’m so sorry about what happened to your fabric. I feel terrible about it.”
“He’s got money problems. He’s got to take it out on someone. I’m pretty mad at him. I’m gonna stay with my sister.”
“You said deep down he was a good man.”
She looked hard at me. “He’s got it out for you.”
Inside the trailer, Willie eyed me suspiciously. He’d been skittish since the night I went crazy looking for the guns. “I’m sorry, Willie. Everything’s going to be okay. We’re going to find another home soon.” I leaned down to pick him up, but he ran into the bathroom.
The next morning was already a scorcher at sunrise. I thought I better keep Willie inside, both for the weather and Bennett. I was headed for a doctor’s appointment in Austin. “You stay, Willie. Stay in and stay cool.” I opened the door carefully, eyes still on him and tried to slip out but he shot through the opening.
When I got back, no Willie, but the Tacoma was back in its spot. I checked the shed, the only place with a kitty door. No Willie there either. I put on my boots and jeans to search for him. As hot as it was, I armored up in case of an encounter with a snake or wild animal. I stuck my new best friend, the Ruger, in my belt, and grabbed a baggie of chicken pieces. Willie loved my chicken.
I combed the fields and woods where he liked to hunt, calling his name with no luck. I bargained with God to shave a few years off my life, take my truck, whatever, but bring Willie home safe. I prayed to my mama and daddy, my sweet baby boy, and my dead husband to lead me to him. Curtis was probably playing Hold’em in Hell, but I was taking help wherever I could. I feared I was wasting my time. Surely, Bennett had finally made good on his threat.
I pulled the Ruger out and headed back toward the trailers. The last several yards I was so jacked up I lunged into a sticker bush, tore my T-shirt and scratched my arms pretty bad, but I could hardly feel it. I was panting, my heart and lungs strained from running around in the hot sun––I had not thought to bring water.
I could hear voices arguing. I came up behind the back of Bennett and Sylvie’s trailer and took cover, sticking my head out enough to see they were both on the deck in a tug of war over Sylvie’s suitcase. Bennet yelled, “Don’t leave, woman, you’ll regret it!”
Sylvie yelled back, “You can’t even say you’re sorry!”
I slowly circled in front of them, gun pointed at Bennett. “Sylvie,” I said in a rough, low voice that sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away, “go inside the trailer.” She did not move, frozen in shock.
“Wai … wai … wait, whoa Nelly,” Bennett said, holding his hands out as if that would stop me. “What the fuck are you doing, woman?”
“What did you do to my cat?”
“I didn’t do nothing to your little pissant cat. Why would I waste my time on him?”
“You’ve been telling everybody you were going to kill Willie.”
“Who told you that?”
“You said I’d be upset if I came home and found my cat gone.”
“Well fuck, I was right, wasn’t I? You are very fucking upset. But I did not touch your stupid cat. I haven’t even been here.”
“I am going to count to ten and then I’m going to aim for your foot and hope that’s what I hit unless you tell me where Willie is.”
“You think you can hit me with that little lavender lady gun?” I pivoted left and blew up the farthest of his scrap turd piles masquerading as art.
“Oh shit,” Bennett said.
“One, two, three—” I counted.
“He’s telling the truth, Maggie, he’s been gone since yesterday,” Sylvie called out.
“—six, seven, eight—”
“Bennett, you are telling the truth, right?” Sylvie pleaded.
“—nine, ten.”
“Yes!” He jumped back. I shot the deck where his feet were planted the moment before.
“Maggie, stop!” Sylvie yelled. “Put your gun down. Please. I swear he did not hurt Willie. I would never let him hurt Willie.”
I kept my gun trained on Bennett.
“You swear, Bennett. You swear now,” Sylvie begged.
“Yes, yes, I swear, I never got around to fucking with her cat. I have no idea what happened to him.”
“Please, Maggie.” Sylvie walked toward me.
“Are you nuts, woman?!” Bennett yelled at Sylvie. “She’s got a loaded gun and she is nuts!”
“No, you’re not, are you, Maggie? Please, put the gun down.”
Sylvie walked closer to me. I couldn’t believe she would risk her life for Bennett. I slowly eased the gun down on the ground and collapsed. She got down on her knees and folded me into the soft pillow of her body. I wept in her arms. “Please, I have to find Willie. My husband’s dead. He’s all I’ve got left.”
A voice yelled, “Bennett! Do I need to be calling the authorities?” Across the street, old Wanda Thorne stood on her porch, cradling a sawed-off like a baby, a cigarette in her other hand.
“No ma’am,” Bennett answered. “Just some friendly target practice.”
“Alrighty. Keep your powder dry.” She stepped back inside.
Sylvie patted my hair. “It’s okay, Maggie, we’re going to help you find Willie.”
“Hell, if I am going to look for the fucking cat! And you’re not going out there either.”
“Please, please help me,” I begged. “I’ll give you back your precious art junk. Just please tell me where he is.”
“I knew it!” Bennett yelled. He jumped down off the deck and was on me in a second, hands squeezing my neck. I tried to pull his hands off, but I was choking, my body pinned under him.
“Bennett, stop, you’re gonna kill her.” Sylvie used her body weight to push him off me and he fell on his side. They lay there panting while I gasped for air. Sylvie gave me a most sorrowful look. “Maggie, I trusted you. What have you done?”
“What do you expect? He slashed my tires, messed up my trailer, stole from me. He’s made my life a living hell. Do you blame me?”
“Where are my sculptures, woman?”
I reached for my gun. “Help me find my cat and I’ll give them back––or I’ll shoot off your little peepee.”
“Deal. Okay? Deal!”
We clambered up and brushed ourselves off.
I went inside my trailer to grab a water bottle. I put the gun down in case I got riled again, but the anger had drained from my system. Bennett seemed to be speaking truth. No telling where Willie was.
We split up and fanned out, Sylvie in the direction I’d loosely covered before and Bennett headed to Cedar Elm Lane. The light stayed with us. I could hear their faint voices across the field calling Willie. Soon, Sylvie screamed she found him. I ran toward her voice.
A rusty animal trap gripped Willie’s leg tight. He was bleeding badly. I dropped down to the ground, stroked his head and promised to free him. I pressed on the springs but they would not budge. Sylvie tried standing on them to no avail. Willie screamed in pain. He’d already torn his leg trying to pull free.
Sylvie nudged me. I looked up and saw Bennett galumphing toward us through the high grass like a giant unleashed from a fairy tale, his skinny legs naked between his cowboy boots and Bermuda shorts, tattooed arms flaring out from his Hawaiian shirt, one hand hoisting a tool box, the other arm balancing him like a ballerina. For once, I was happy to see him. He threw me a towel and started barking orders. “Cover his eyes!” He spritzed some WD-40 on the springs and did some hocus pocus with wire and pliers.
“You sure know your way around that trap,” I said.
“I did not put that here, I swear. You want your cat free or not?”
“Yes––please.”
Bennett popped that sucker and we freed Willie’s leg. I wrapped him in the towel and ran to my truck. I looked back and saw Bennett on his knees, his arms around Sylvie’s legs, his face buried in her skirt.
Willie lost his left front leg. He was a smart, brave little guy and I knew he’d manage without it. I could barely leave my trailer for two days. I lay in bed and watched my three-legged cat work out how he would move through the world for the rest of his life. The second morning, Sylvie knocked on my door. She refused to come in. “You lied to me, Maggie. You used me.”
“I’m sorry, Sylvie. I was freaked out and angry at Bennett. I never intended to hurt you. I’ve wanted to be your friend from the start. Still do, if you’ll ever forgive me.”
“You promised to give those sculptures back. If you don’t do it in twenty-four hours, I will not stand in the way of my husband’s revenge.”
I called Uncle Harold. My salvation resided in his hands. He said he’d be there before nightfall. I dragged myself out of bed and drove off to check out a trailer park. They were few and far between, and pricey, what with developers buying them up and building condos for the rich techies who were taking over Austin. I returned late afternoon after a fruitless search and found Uncle Harold sitting with Bennett on his deck under an umbrella, smoking weed and passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth. They were laughing and trading tall tales like old war buddies, the redneck sculptures arranged in an audience around them.
“Hey,” Bennett called out. “How’s Willie the Gimp?”
“Better. Taking some good drugs for the pain.”
“Well, if you got any extra––” I gave him a dirty look. “Just kidding. So, is it true you’re Maggie May, the deejay?”
Harold winked at me. He’d been doing some free public relations. “That’s what they called me a hundred years ago.”
“I was a big fan. Used to listen to you on my Walkman under the covers after my parents went to sleep. You’re a legend.”
“Only in Travis County for a hot minute.” Last image I wanted to picture was a pimply teenage Bennett raising a boner from my voice on the radio.
Bennett shook his head in disbelief. “Maggie May. Living next door. Fuck me dead.”
After that, Sylvie brought me groceries and sat on the bed snuggling Willie. She was still angry, but when we sang together, her heart softened.
In late September, I heard a banging on my front stoop. I opened the door to find one of Bennett’s oily cairns with a card propped up against it. “Party tomorrow night at 8 by the fire pit.” I went in my shed later for potting dirt and there were my winter boots and missing tools. Somehow, my voice had reached across time and struck a truce between me and Bennett Jones. But it did not make us best friends.
I couldn’t decide if I was ready to go to a party. In my half-sleep that night, I heard Curtis say, wear that green ruffly country dress. He loved me in that dress.
After our son died, I crawled into Jesse’s bed and stayed there for months. Curtis fended for himself and slept alone. He’d go to work and bring food back, but I could hardly eat. I’d dip into Jesse’s Lego bucket and reminisce or play the junior keyboard we gave him for his birthday. Often, I woke with Curtis spooned around me in that kiddy-sized bed, my neck wet with his tears. He begged me to come back to our bedroom. “I can’t have sex now, Curtis. That’s the last thing on my mind.”
“Not that,” he said. “I just need you to come back to me.” I did not. I was selfish in my pain. I guess it was my fault he joined the poker club. He needed something to do and somewhere to go where people would treat him like a man and he could forget his grief.
He’d been with me all these months, helping me make my way in Sunny Acres. Maybe it was time for my heart to forgive.
The next day, I went out and bought a couple six packs of Zilker Marco and dropped them off to Bennett. He answered the door and looked at me funny, like I was from another planet. “I heard you like this beer,” I said. “I never thanked you for saving Willie.”
“You’re welcome, Maggie May. You know Sylvie would leave me if I touched a hair on that cat. And Javier would kick my butt.”
I laughed. Damn fool me. Now I needed to buy a good bottle of red for Javier.
I showered and washed my hair, put on the green dress and my cowgirl boots, and joined the circle around the firepit. Sylvie patted the stump next to her, shining in a patch of moonlight. A shower of sparks blew up in the air and Bennett raised a can of Zilker Marco to me. Miz Wanda Thorne, of all people, handed me a joint. I bogarted that jay with a breath so deep and long the entire circle applauded. Somebody pulled out a guitar, so I went into the Airstream and grabbed Curtis’s beat-to-shit ukulele. Sylvie and I wowed the partiers with our sisterly harmonies, my smoky alto weaving under her sweet soprano.
As the jokes and songs trailed off and conversations quieted to whispers, I leaned my head on Sylvie’s shoulder, closed my eyes and fell into a dream. Two little Mexican girls pulled me along by each hand, calling, “Abuela, Abuela, come see.” My hands belonged to an old woman, liver-spotted and knotty-fingered. My hair hung wild, a mass of wiry gray sticking out of my straw hat. Kids ran to join us from all directions swinging their baskets. An endless garden grew under our bare feet and spread down Cedar Elm. Sweet potato vines stretched up to the trailers, next to giant corn stalks and tomato plants bejeweled in ripe gold and red fruit. The little girls giggled as their small brown fingers tucked juicy cherry tomatoes in my mouth. We meandered from garden to garden, filling baskets with fat squash and peppers, leafy herbs and greens, Sunny Acres finally living up to its good name. Neighbors waved and clapped for us. No, for me. I was the mother of these gardens.
I woke to see the sun peel away the dark and paint the sky and low hills scarlet and orange. Hidden in the trees, a choir of birds sang their holy call and response. The silhouettes of willows and linden glowed a rosy gold. A bed of hot pink and yellow purslane I’d planted on the edge of my garden lit up like Christmas. Nothing like a sweet dream and a Texas sunrise to crack your heart open.
Bennett lifted a kettle off the coals with a potholder and poured me a cup of cowboy coffee. He held up a flask, “Hair of the dog?” I nodded yes. Sylvie walked around the fire to kiss Bennett’s ugly mug. He wound his arms around her and kissed her cheek.
Javier joined us, all spruced up in a white Mexican wedding shirt and pressed khakis. He looked undeniably handsome, his kind eyes and caramel skin warmed by the early light. He sat on the stump next to me. “You sticking around? I got a wait list.”
“I thought it was adios for me.”
“The powers that be have granted you another chance.”
“Don’t fuck it up,” Bennett called out.
Javier reached out his coffee mug and tapped it against mine. “Welcome to Sunny Acres, young lady. Rent due next Friday. Come on by and take a whack at the piñata.”
And thus, I stayed.
Lauri Maerov’s essays and fiction have appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Kalliope, Raleigh Review, Another Chicago Magazine (ACM Fiction Prize winner), Marco Polo Arts, Bright Flash Literary Review, and the anthologies Every Woman Has a Story (Warner Books) and Unsnare Time’s Warp (Main Street Rag). She is a 2025 graduate of Queens University’s MFA in Creative Writing program.
