At the House of Bougainvilleas

In the yard next to my house, I often spy a small strange pretty woman watering her bougainvilleas. Trails of rosy pink and white intermingle along one side of her ancient house, where they drift down to the green of dewy grass. Cascading like delicate ballerinas, with thorns not showing from afar, they lend a semblance of grace and cheer to this old house. Unlike the flowers though, the thorns inside the house do not stay hidden - particularly when night arrives. Sometimes I have seen the woman snipping the stems of her pretty flowers. She lowers her face, telling me, when I greet her, “No speak English.” Though she tries to disguise it, I know from the bruises I see on her arms what must be hiding behind the large sunglasses she wears. I imagine she gathers her bougainvilleas to brighten the sadness of her situation. I picture the flowers in a vase sitting on the rustic table of a dining room I have never seen, but a room which must be as immaculate as the flower garden she keeps behind her house. Nightly the thorns of the house manifest themselves in the form of monstrous shouting from the brute who lives within. Today I walk over to the strange neighbor lady’s bougainvilleas. They are wilting, and I realize I have not seen her watering them since several days ago. The hideous screams from the house, as I recall, have also recently ceased. I peer over the fence of that couple’s house and notice a plot of freshly dug dirt. Has the little lady planted a new flower bed? As I contemplate this, a new thought – much darker than bright bougainvilleas - pricks my mind. April 7, 2019