Supper

The old man next door stood alone on his back porch and fumbled with the lock until the key fell between boards separated by age and forty layers of gray paint. He knocked, called up to his wife in the back bedroom. No window opened – she'd been dead two years. He called, I hopped the familiar fence separating mine from his. I knew, but he had to ask. I slid carefully, on my belly headfirst through damp ivy, until I was waist deep in dark. Evening sun through the slats separated an old cat, with new kittens, in the shadows. Tired and surrounded by six, helpless, wet and blind, she barely noticed me, finished eating the bloody sack, freshly ripped, that spilled her litter. Beside her I saw the key. I wanted to say, "I've found it." But it was too late. I heard a cane rap above, once on the glass, twice louder, glass breaking, then hinges, his footsteps in the kitchen. It was 5:30, suppertime, key or no.