Summers, I spend a lot of time on my back porch from where I have a clear view of my neighbor’s yard. I am able to view the comings and goings of a couple with whom, I in fact, have never exchanged more than a few words in passing. Nevertheless, observation and imagination have provided me insights into these people’s lives.

He, it is clear, is a serious fisherman in possession, as he is, of a state-of-the-art fishing boat with all the electronic gadgets necessary, I suspect, to ensure fishing success. I observe him with his wife whom he embraces as he is about to go off on one of his multi-day fishing trips. He has built his wife heart shaped flower gardens in their front yard that he dutifully tends, weeds and prunes.

In the last few months, though, I haven’t seen the wife, a fact that has me, as I sit here in my lounger, conjuring different scenarios that might explain her absence. Maybe she’s experienced a debilitating illness that has her bedridden or perhaps she’s been institutionalized for mental issues (she’s always appeared a bit unusual) or maybe the neighbor’s attentions toward her were feigned, were means of establishing a potential alibi for her disappearance, that in fact murder had occurred and she was buried in the basement; the adult sons who came by to see mom told she had gone off to live with her sister in Florida.

It’s becoming clear to me I need to find other ways of occupying my mind.