She had thought about knocking on the door herself and had been afraid — of being wrong, of being rude, of Julian, who had started giving her a look over the fence that she didn’t like.

So she had watched, and worried, and waited, feeling foolish and powerless, the way older people are so often made to feel when they try to raise an alarm.

And then I had shown up in the driveway, a big frantic man rattling a chained gate, and Mrs.

Harris had seen her chance to finally hand her worry to someone who could carry it.

If she had not come across that lawn — if she had decided, one more time, that it wasn’t her place — I do not know how that day ends.

I do not let myself think about it for long.