Three Houses Near a Crossroad
Uploaded by atejada on Oct 05, 2001
On a tall slender post two signs peacefully announce that this is the inter- section of Willow and Hill streets. Actually Willow stops here, although some think' it continues down the driveway of the rusty brick house, straight ahead Late one summer, the pretty college sophomore who lived in that house with her brother and divorced mother, stopped using the driveway. The fraternity to which the boy belonged with whom she was riding was suspended after the accident. After that, one could occasionally see the same strange car parked exactly half- way up the driveway at different hours of the day. This lasted for about three weeks. Then the bereaved divorcee married her doctor. From that time on the car always moved up to the left port of the two-car garage; nevertheless she still had cocktails with her lunch, a habit acquired since her daughter's funeral.
The driveway was flanked by irregular rocks off which the elements had worn most of the white paint. The sounds of metal scraping against these rocks had become more frequent, and the house looked quite sad, almost out of its mind. In the evenings, there were often shrill laughs and painful screams. The house shuddered and grimaced, as windows, blinds, and sometimes shutters were closed.
Now the house has surrendered. It sits like a docile, rusty old dog, dead in a great shaggy nest of weeds and tired trees. No one has forgotten the morning when the driveway had an ambulance turn into it, gleaming in the early sunshine and driven by a man with bared eyes; when he had closed the rear door, the driver and his attendant backed the ambulance out into the street and drove up past the handsome row of houses, like Charon.
Across the street from the rusty brick house is another, much larger one. The woman who was married to the elderly, crippled investor had envied the courage of the woman who had lived in the rusty brick house. But poisoning one's husband could have many disastrous repercussions, aside from the fact that it demanded so much courage. When the envious woman and her husband had moved into the large house, it was yellow brick. Her hair was blonde; therefore the house was painted white. No one thought it would look right with its new color; however, everyone was surprised to see the attractive, cheerful aspect the house...