The Boy Next Door

The Walkers were forbidden from the start.

But that’s not why they were important.

My mother, brother, and I were sitting in our front yard that day, 9 years ago, when their shabby green sedan came driving up the street followed closely by a large moving truck. As they turned into the low-slung shingled driveway of the house next to ours, Mom sighed dramatically.

“Oh no.” she remarked, folding her hands over her chest. “I was hoping we could’ve avoided this.”

“What do you mean this?” my big brother Adam asked from the opposite side of the garden. He was 8, almost 2 years older than me, and already bored and restless with Mom's chore of the day; which happened to be planting her garden. Walking briskly over to the tall wooden fence, Mom peered over at the new neighbors while Adam and I peeked through the slats. I watched in amazement as 4 kids, and 2 parents, the mom obviously pregnant, pile out of the car like a mini circus act.

“This kind of thing.” Mom sighed, exasperated, gesturing towards the car and family.

“There’s one in every single neighborhood. I guarantee it. That one family that never mows their lawn and leaves toys everywhere. That one messy family that lowers the real estate value of the entire neighborhood and just our luck. They’re right here, right next door. Now Alexia! Pull the whole root up out of the ground, not just part of it.” Mom finishes her rant and then proceeds to lecture me on how to plant, water, and weed her precious garden. She gets distracted easily.

When she finishes, I resume digging, but absentmindedly, since my eyes are drawn to the family and their seemingly fairy-tale life.

“They look nice.” I commented, still digging.

Even still, I remember the silence then, and when I looked up at my mother, she was shaking her head at me, a strange expression that I had never seen before on her face.

“Nice isn’t the point here, Alexia. You are 7 years old, but you need to focus on what is important here. They have 4 children. Goodness gracious. Just like your father’s family; complete insanity.”

Let me tell you something. Our father had walked away, without a goodbye, leaving our mother with an almost 2 year old, a baby on the way, lots of stress and resentment, and luckily, her parents’ trust fund.

~

As the years proved, our new neighbors, the Walkers, were exactly as Mom had predicted. Their Christmas lights were put up right after Halloween and stayed hung until Easter. Their backyard was almost always a minefield full of toys, abandoned and scattered, along with an inground pool, a trampoline and a swingset thrown in.

Eventually, there came to be 7 children; 4 boys and 3 girls by the time I turned 16.

Alice, Max, Ashley, Megan, Mark, Eric and Jonathan, with ages of 19, 16, 14, 12, 12, 7 and 2.

~

In the 9 years since the Walkers moved in next door, Mom hardly looked out the side windows without huffing in disgust. It was clear from the start that we were NOT TO PLAY WITH THE WALKERS. After bringing over the obligatory “welcome lasagna” that we always made for our new neighbors, my mother did her very best to be UNwelcoming. She responded to Mrs. Walker’s smiling greetings with cool, curt nods and rebuffed Mr. Walker’s offers to mow, sweep or shovel with a sharp, terse statement, “We have a service.”

Finally, the Walkers quit trying.

Though they lived next door, and one kid or another might pedal past me on their bike as I watered Mom’s precious plants, it was oddly easy to avoid them. Their kids went to local, public schools, while Adam and I attended the only set of private schools in our small town of Greensborough, Iowa.

~

One thing my mother never knew, for if she did, she would not approve, was that I watched the Walkers. Outside my bedroom window, there is a small, flat section of roof with a tiny fence surrounding it. A trellis/ladder even hangs below. The perch faces the left side of their semi-large house. Even before the Walkers moved in, it was my special place to get away and think, and to watch the stars. Now it’s my place to dream.

I would sit up there after supper or right before bedtime, watching from my “balcony” and see through the softly lit windows as Mrs. Walker would wash the dishes or put the little ones to bed, reading to them and tucking them in; a tradition that my mother never did to my brother and I.

Over the years, I got more and more daring. I would sometimes watch during the day or after school, in plain sight as I tried to figure out which kid matched what name. It was hard most of the time, only because they all had tan skin, gray eyes and a head of dark, wavy brown hair, almost like their own species.

From my bedroom window, I could look into their yard, into their wonderful world, so far different than my own. They were my bedtime story, long before I knew I would become part of it myself.