If they do, it’s unlikely they’ll see the shabbily dressed woman walking the far side of the alley in the near dark.
Watching.
The low-rent housing owned by Evelyn and her brother was a motel before a new highway rerouted travelers.
For years, nightly strolls sent them following the aromas of chicken frying and spaghetti and cookies just out of the oven.
No longer.
Huddling near kitchen windows brought up fragments of flashbacks from a tragedy Evelyn has tried to forget.
And with her brother gone, she now keeps her distance.
Besides, “my babies,” as Evelyn calls the children, are the real reason the landlady spies on her tenants. So she tells herself.
Pony-tailed girls clutching dolls and their mothers’ aprons. Helping set the table. Their brothers in play coonskin caps watching Davey Crockett on TV with their fathers.
Images from the 1950s that Evelyn imagines she sees through those windows.
This Christmas she’s planning to visit “my babies,” hoping to be welcomed to the families’ festivities.
Perhaps she can help out in the kitchen. If Mommy lets her.