Читать книгу Wherever the Wind Blows Me... - Laurie Jr. Murphy - Страница 10

Strangely, I feel some inner longing trying to break through. Something familiar from another time. Something I can’t put my finger on. It’s disconcerting. Jill has taken up lodging in my head, an uninvited resident, snarling my brains. A resident with one name I have to erase, and another that I have to remember.

I want to mind the rules. Neighbors are neighbors, not friends. Otherwise, the next thing you know, they make comments about your comings and goings. No sooner did I have that thought, than that is exactly what happened! On the ninth week, Rod is outside playing with his son. He waves. Then he comments about how I take the garbage cans to the street late at night. The gravel driveway amplifies the sound, he says. So what? I think. There’s no garbage can curfew. There’s no law about the time of night you can take out your garbage. I don’t comment about his hammering all night long. Mind your business, I think.

If they know about my garbage can ritual, what else do they know? What about my schedule? My predictable schedule. Should they assume that I have no plans on a Saturday night if my car remains in the driveway? Will they talk behind my back on Sunday morning if I don’t go to Church? Should I start being more faithful about going to Church just so that they don’t talk? No, I think. That’s how Jill will control me. It’s already starting. But I should go to Church, I want to go to Church, but now I don’t know my real intentions. Am I going because I want to give them nothing to talk about, or because I really want to go? Does it matter? Does it count, with God, I mean, if I go to satisfy my own paranoia?

I feel conflicted. And crazy. They really are making me crazy. I don’t need this. I am going to do the exact opposite of what I think they think I should do, to defy their super-powers. This has gone too far. They are sucking the air out of my space.

Still, I wonder if there is any chance that she could be my friend. If she would like me. I feel so torn, twisted by my own sanctions. It is tempting to let her into my life. I feel embarrassed that I am so desperate to have a friend. I wish they never moved here. I was doing fine without them. My head hurts. My heart hurts.