Gemotions

The oak's demise was a spectacle, a theatrical collapse across the property line. Margaret watched from her kitchen window, arms crossed, a thin smile playing on her lips. It was almost… poetic, the way it had splintered, a slow-motion disaster. She’d always found old Mr. Henderson’s upkeep of his yard to be woefully inadequate.

A branch, she noted with a detached coolness, had landed squarely on the gazebo she’d always considered gaudy. Well.

The ringing of her phone cut through the quiet. It was Mrs. Henderson, her voice trembling. Margaret let it go to voicemail. No, she thought, she would not be rushing over with casseroles or platitudes.