By Theresa Konwinski
Like mechanical figurines in a Swiss bell tower, the widows emerge one by one from their Gerald Brothers Custom Built Homes to retrieve today’s mail. They never wait long after the mail truck has passed because of a suspected rash of thefts from their mailboxes.
Alice Donner receives an appeal from the American Heart Association and an offer for a roof inspection. Evelyn Stevens peruses a letter from the gas company which explains how easy it is to set up “auto-payments.” She will never do this because she doesn’t want the gas company to have her bank account information. Marilyn Beck looks for a birthday card from her son, but instead, receives an explanation of benefits from her supplemental health insurance. Genevieve Aubert sits on her front porch in a wicker chair with flowered cushions and reviews an offer for a forty percent discount on a trip to France, her home country. Her eyes fill with tears.
Where are the cards and letters? Marilyn yells down the street. There used to be cards and letters.
No one sends cards and letters anymore, Marilyn. Everything is e-mail, Alice yells back.
Bills and junk mail—that’s all there ever is, Evelyn chimes in.
Well, I think someone’s stealing my cards and letters, Marilyn grouses.
We could go to France for forty percent off, Genevieve murmurs. No one hears her. One tear winds its way down her cheek, though the other widows don’t notice. They’re studying the mail they have in their own hands.
Then one by one, the widows walk back up the sidewalks across manicured lawns, beside perfect flower beds, retreating into their custom-built mausoleums. Genevieve drops the vacation offer to the ground and closes her front door.
The vacation offer postcard is picked up on a breeze and cartwheels out into the gutter.
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Theresa Konwinski is a writer from Whitehouse, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in the Ohio Bards Anthology (Local Gems Press, 2023 and 2024), and short stories have been published in Bewildering Stories (online journal, 2023), and Anthology of Chilling Crime Stories (Flame Tree Publishing, 2022).