Watching the White Blossoms by Aaron Polson

The doorbell rang while Harold Curtis watched the white blossoms tumble from his wife’s favorite dogwood tree.  He sat in an old lawn chair on his back patio, and the sound of the front doorbell came to him through the open sliding door.  Harold’s age ravaged fingers tightened on the aluminum arm of the chair.  His knuckles went white.  Harold’s dentures clacked together as he set his jaw.

The doorbell rang again.  Enough to wake the dead, he thought.

“I’m coming,” Harold muttered, more for himself than anyone at the front door.   He stood with an awkward lurch and shuffled into the dining room, through the hallway, and to his foyer.  As he walked, he imagined no one might be at the door after all.  The neighborhood children had a penchant for pranks—ringing an old man’s bell and then scuttling off to laugh at him as he stood red faced on the front stoop.  The neighborhood had changed a great deal in the last sixty years.
   
Time was, a child wouldn’t think of pestering his elders. 
   
Harold wrapped his gnarled hand around the knob and pulled the door open.  He expected no one, so was surprised to see the chubby face of his neighbor’s daughter, Janie Dure, ten years old, wearing her Brownie uniform.  The girl held a clipboard against her chest like body armor.
   
“Hello, Mr. Curtis.”  Her voice was small, delicate. 
   
“Janie,” said Harold, raising his eyebrows.  His lips curled slightly at the edges.
   
Janie rocked back on her feet, almost stepping away from the door.  “Am I bothering you, Mr. Curtis?”  Her smile dropped to the ground, and her tiny fingers pressed against the back of the clipboard.
   
“Just watching the blossoms, Janie.”  He pushed one gnarled hand to the girl.  “’fraid I thought you were one of those boys.  The jokers.” 
   
Janie moved closer, pausing at the threshold, closed her eyes for a moment and stepped over.  The smell inside was always stale with hints of mildew and the age of things older than Janie’s grandparents. 
   
“Cookies, then, is it?”
   
Janie nodded and remembered her voice.  “Yes.  I wasn’t sure…”
   
The little girl’s words faded, but Harold understood.  Maggie was the one the neighborhood children loved.  She was the one with smiles and kind words, tubs of sweets and buttery hugs.  The house went quiet, rotting from the silence and shadows, when she died.  Harold began to rot from the inside after she died.
   
“She used to love the lemon ones.  What are they called?”  His eyes drifted to the back patio, caught in a brief swirl of white blossoms there. “She used to love a lot of things.”  He reached out with one hand and snatched Janie’s forearm.  The girl winced at the tight pinch, surprised by Harold’s quickness.
   
“Mr. Curtis,” she protested.  Tears—brewed mostly from fear—began to squeeze from her eyes.  With a few shuffling steps, he towed the girl to the sliding doors. 
   
“She used to love these blossoms, too.”  His voice was more of a growl, the grinding sound of stones pressed together.  Harold Curtis’s eyes were black, lost.
   
“Please,” she pleaded. 
   
“Oh.” His eyes dropped, finding his arm and the tight grip on Janie’s arm. 
   
When he released the girl, her arm bloomed white where his thumb had pressed into her skin.  She backed away.  His head sank to his feet.
   
“No cookies this year, Janie,” he muttered, but the girl was already gone.  Harold eventually lifted his head, and his eyes watched the lazy dance of blossoms as they broke free of the tree and wandered to the ground.