She had left her trash bins out on the curb again, one of them tipped over with a plastic milk jug spilling onto the gravel.
My gaze drifted past the car to her side porch steps, where a small patch of overgrown clover struggled against the gravel.
A bright, solid shape sat in the weeds right beside her bottom step.
It was a garden gnome, about fourteen inches high, made of heavy cast concrete with a distinct chip on the tip of its pointed hat.
Only it was no longer the faded red and forest green that my late husband had painted thirty years ago.
The entire figure had been covered in a thick, glossy coat of bright blue latex paint, applied so thickly that the details of his beard and belt buckle were almost entirely filled in.
The blue paint was sloppy, with dry runs pooling around the circular concrete base on the gravel.
I stood very still, my hand resting on the cold edge of the porcelain sink.
My gnome had vanished from my front flower bed in April, and I had searched every inch of the yard before assuming a neighborhood teenager had taken it.
Now it sat five feet from Monica’s porch, glowing like a plastic toy in the morning light.
I watched the side door of her house, wondering if she was looking back through her kitchen blinds.
I pulled my cardigan tight against the damp October breeze and walked across the asphalt of our quiet street to where Frank sat on his front porch. He was wearing his usual plaid pajama pants under a heavy canvas work jacket, his eyes fixed on the house next to mine.
“She has had my twelve-foot extension ladder since the middle of July,” Frank said before I even reached the bottom step.
I leaned against his porch railing, my gaze drifting back toward the blue gnome sitting by Monica’s steps. “Did you ask her to return it?”
“Three times,” Frank grunted, rubbing a calloused hand over his chin. “She says she needs it for her gutters, but her gutters are completely clear. I can see them from my roof.”
