The Wonderful Mrs. Macleod

I'm sure that every kid who grows up in a packed neighborhood like mine has a neighbor like Mrs. Macleod.

She was a wizened old bird, half-deaf, tended to her yard all day. We lived on a street of duplexes and townhouses. Mrs. Macleod was the only one attending her little patch out front. She had daisies, and snapdragons, and all sorts of oddball flowers mixed in together. In any other patch, they all would have overtaken the dirt, like weeds. Ah, but not that patch: not with little Mrs. Macleod patrolling it. I'm sure, positive, certain, that anyone in a little neighborhood like that will have a neighbor like her.

I liked the old gal.

She gave out candies on Wednesdays, so it was hard not to like her. Every kid on the street would pop by for a sweet. She always had hard candies.. no chocolate, no licorice. She had suckers, and gumballs, and sour things that tasted like roses. They were cheap, but good. Each kid got 2 candies each. They prolly could have gotten more at home, but were lured by the idea of a virtual stranger handing it out for free. Not to mention that Mrs. Macleod seemed to get in flavors that no one else did.

There was no danger, no danger at all, in letting little distanced Mrs. Macleod give out candies on Wednesdays. She was harmless; she was also the longest resident of the street – 25 years – so, we all knew her, and knew about the candy. She was a lively wee thing, kindly, and patient. She never asked for help with her yard, though, I imagine that if our parents had paid more attention to us, we would have been sent over on the weekends to help her to weed her cucumbers. Her back began bowing, at some point, so, really, we should have been there for her. We really just wanted the candy. We didn't stay to talk; with her half-deaf, the fun of the conversation would have died, even if we weren't likely to ignore her because she was elderly.

Mrs. Macleod never complained when little Jenny Major picked her best tulip to give to me. I thought that was amazing. I mean, she should have been pissed, right? I had pushed that childish guilt out of my mind, thinking, "She's prolly too blind by now to SEE a tulip…" Ah, but how would she weed, if she couldn't see? I didn't think too far ahead.

After the flower incident, I stopped going to see Mrs. Macleod. I figured that sooner or later, she'd get mad at Jenny, Jenny would say it was for me, and Mrs. Macleod would be mad at me as a result.

I was 10 when Mrs. Macleod killed herself.

It was a strange day – Halloween; some kids toddled in, ahead of their lagging parents. The tots were chasing Mrs. Macleod's cat, Barty. In went the kids, finding Mrs. Macleod upon her kitchen floor, sprawled in a way that her skirts were flipped up, revealing her big white panties. They screamed; in went the parents, following in on the discovery. The official cause of death was poisoning; I forget what of, precisely. All that I know is that they said that she ingested it with candy.