Neighbor Lady.

When I was a boy I would look through my bedroom window and stare at the neighbor lady standing in her kitchen. Never questioned where she was from. Never wondered what she was like as a young girl. Didn't care that she was a waitress. Single mom with two kids. Didn't care that she let her daughters watch R rated movies. I watched those movies too. This lady had eyes that made me sad. That's all that I knew. So I'd stare. R rated movies or not.

Sometimes I would laugh at the way she pressed buttons on a microwave. I don't know why. I wasn't making fun of her. Her long fingers dancing across those buttons just made me laugh. The kind of fingers that could scratch your back real good, you know? But, when she'd take those fingers, brush her hair out of her eyes, and look outside to find the moon, I'd stop laughing real quick. She wasn't a joke to be laughed at. And I'd never want her to think that. Her sad eyes might hear my voice, misunderstand, and think me cruel. I wasn't cruel. I was just a boy.

This neighbor lady made me think of the time I caught my mom climbing a tree. I was afraid she might fall and hurt herself.