Good Neighbors

by Sarah Langan

  “Rhea,” he said. Rhee-a. “I need to talk to you.”

  By now, she saw that Maple Street was watching. They came out in doorways or looked through windows. They looked at her like Gertie looked at her. Like Ella looked at her. Like FJ looked at her. Like Fritz looked at her. Like she was not a good person. She had done awful things.

  She was disgusting.

  * * *

  Maple Street witnessed what happened next.

  Fritz Schroeder got out of his car. He looked irritated and tired. Put upon. Later, they would learn that he’d spent the time away hiring a criminal lawyer, in case either the police department or the Wildes charged Rhea with perverting the course of justice. They’d learn that he’d intended to stand by his wife’s side, as he’d done in his limited way since the day he’d met her. But they didn’t know that yet. All they saw right then was his apparent disdain.

  Perhaps Rhea’d been thinking about it, planning it. Gertie liked to think not. She liked to think it was a fluke. A toss of coin that could have ended in a much better way. Hand in pocket, Rhea veered. Before she ever pulled her hand back out, Gertie knew beyond a doubt.

  The distance was close.

  Rhea pointed, just like all those years ago with her dad at the Calverton Shooting Range. Fritz saw. Despite that, he kept coming. They met in front of their house. 118 Maple Street. Close enough to touch. Fritz didn’t try to stop her.

  She was thinking about the divorce. How he’d take the kids. But they needed her. They needed someone who cared about playdates and whether their clothes were stained. They needed someone who cheered at soccer and lacrosse and who went over their spelling tests. They wouldn’t have any of that. He’d ruin them.

  She pushed the barrel of the gun up against his chest. Those watching would imagine meaning in what Fritz did next. They would define it as perfect trust, or as disbelief, or even as true love. This man had placed his life in her hands since the day he’d met her.

  “Rhee-a,” Fritz said. He moved the butt of the gun just left, so it was over his heart.

  She pulled the trigger.

  He fell back. Went down. It happened so fast that it didn’t feel real. Her ears rang. There was blood. Or water. Or perhaps the dense splatter from a black hole. She knew then that she had control over this. These people, her children and husband and everyone she’d ever loved, they belonged to her. With her mind, she kept them safe.

  The sound still ringing, her hands hot, she heard her son, FJ, scream, “Mom! No!”

  The boy was in the middle of the street, his eyes bloodshot. An autopsy would show his blood alcohol content at .3 percent, with lesions in his brain from chronic abuse. Like Rhea’s father, he’d been born with alcohol-induced epilepsy.

  Rhea pointed. He wobbled too much to run. Before he was able to get inside 118 Maple Street, she fired. A miss. He lurched, unable, somehow, to go inside. He headed for another house (which house?), but couldn’t decide. She fired again. It lodged in his neck and he went down, too.

  The next one. For this to work, she needed them all. Ella was frozen on the Wildes’ stoop next to Julia. Rhea pointed and shot. A miss. The second was perfect. Straight through Julia’s protective hand, to Ella’s head.

  Belly heavy and with a sore back, Gertie ran, placing her body between Julia and Rhea. Rhea charged to intercept her, loping and running on one good leg and one useless one. Panting, like two embattled animals, they deadlocked.

  For the first time, Rhea saw Gertie for what she was. She was a woman and a mother and a wife and a mediocre Realtor. She was nervous and damaged and she dressed trashy. She was an ordinary slob, who had never offered salvation. She was a friend. Like the ocean before a tsunami hits, the murk receded and everything became clear.

  The Black Hole was just a movie, and a crappy one, at that. Her thesis was slightly above average. Her father had been a drunk, not a saint. The sinkhole in the ground was just a hole. The kind that were happening more and more, all over the country. It was not magic. She was not so special, so extraordinary, as to have birthed it from the weight of her own feelings. Those feelings had not stolen the person she loved most, the only person who had ever seen her and still loved her. The person she’d wanted so much to protect and keep close that she’d crippled her: Shelly Schroeder.

  She’d made mistakes and then repeated those mistakes. She’d carried them, imagining that they accrued, an infinitely dense stain on her person. But there was no murk. There was no monster. There was only Rhea Schroeder. The woman who’d murdered almost her entire family.

  She’d seen patterns where they didn’t exist and forced their reiteration. Jessica. Shelly. FJ. Ella. Fritz. Arlo. Gertie. Larry. Maple Street. Any one of her actions against these people was unforgivable, and she’d committed all of them.

  “Please,” Gertie begged, a sentry in front of her own front stoop.

  “Help!” Rhea cried. But there was no changing course now. No possibility for redemption. She’d transgressed a very real event horizon. It engulfed her then. Thick and impossibly heavy, the unbearable wave of murk. It dragged her down and she gave up struggling.

  She cocked the trigger. Gertie gasped, her hands protecting her belly while Julia cringed behind her.

  Those watching would think that this decision was rooted in mercy, or because she only had one bullet left. She did it because she’d finally figured out how to go back in time and right all the wrongs. How to come out the other side, clean and new and as the loved, and adored, and perfectly special person she’d always wanted to be.

  In her mind, Rhea Schroeder was about to enter one of those perfect family photos people send out on Christmas. There was Gretchen, tall and bright. A laser of ambition. There was FJ, cheerful and sweet and searching so hard for some girl to raise on a pedestal and treat like gold. There was Shelly, a smart, pretty pistol who kept them on their toes. There was Ella, Rhea’s Mini-Me; serious and snappy and a little bit mean. There was goofy, successful Fritz, so grateful for this life she’d given him. There was a ghost girl from the Hungarian Pastry Shop, small and innocent, caught half in the picture, moving on with her life. There was her father, white-haired and jolly as Santa, always free to babysit. And in the center was Professor Rhea, devoted to all of them, the loves of her life. These were the Schroeders.

  Rhea put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

  From Obituaries, The Garden City News, August 3

  Maple Street will host a memorial service tomorrow for the Schroeder family at the Dunn and Nally Funeral Home from 9–noon. Those who’d like to send flowers are asked to donate instead to the Maple Street Recovery Fund.

  Fritz Henrich Schroeder (62) died yesterday from a gunshot wound outside his home in Garden City. A pillar of the community and longtime resident, he was the vice president of development at BeachCo Laboratories. He was known throughout the neighborhood as a committed father and husband who doted on his children and took them to visit his family in Germany every year. He was also a eucharistic minister at Saint Anne’s Church.

  Fritz Henrich Schroeder Jr., “FJ,” (19) also died from a gunshot wound. A popular student and “One of the best attackers the Garden City lacrosse team has ever known,” according to Coach Nolan, FJ was scheduled to attend Hofstra University in the fall on an athletic scholarship. The high school has decided to name the annual lacrosse MVP award after him.

  Ella Elizabeth Schroeder (9) also died from a gunshot wound. Ella attended Stewart School, where she excelled at reading and mathematics.

  Shelly Wyatt Schroeder (13) was discovered dead at the bottom of the Maple Street sinkhole. Authorities had been searching for her for weeks.

  Rhea Munsen Schroeder (53) died yesterday by suicide after shooting her husband, daughter, and son.

  They are survived by Gretchen Schroeder (20).

  Coverage of the Maple Street tragedy can be found on pages 1–5, 7, 11, 14, 16.

  From Newsday, August 4, page 3

  Filling of
the Maple Street sinkhole was completed today. The task took less time than anticipated, as much of the hole and excavation tunnels used in the search for Shelly Schroeder, whose body was found on Monday morning, collapsed. Likewise, cleanup crews will conduct less tar sand remediation than anticipated, as once those tunnels closed, much of the surrounding bitumen resorbed. Says sinkhole expert from Hofstra University Tom Brymer, “Climate change is happening so fast that it’s beyond our science. Right now, we can only witness what’s happening. We don’t yet understand it.”

  For more on the new preponderance of sinkholes, see page 18. For more on the Maple Street tragedy, see pages 2, 3, 6, 8, and 11.

  From Believing What You See: Untangling the Maple Street Murders, by Ellis Haverick,

  Hofstra University Press, © 2043

  Finally, we can look for evidence in the Wildes.

  Gertie Wilde seemingly suffered no ill effects. She carried her third child to term and delivered without complications. Professionally, she continued in real estate, recently earning a Women of the San Fernando Valley Award in 2040.

  Arlo’s career was revived by all the attention, particularly after the police department issued a statement in support of his character. He sold a final album, Blood Arrow, and went on to teach songwriting at UCLA. He died of hepatitis in December 2037, an infection he contracted from intravenous drug use.

  Gertie continues to live in the house they shared in Van Nuys, California. I visited her there. The house is a split-level ranch. There’s a white picket fence, but the lawn is untended. Squatters occupy many of the surrounding houses, now that temperatures regularly reach 120 degrees.

  Gertie sat across from me on an old couch and spoke between her grandchild’s squawks. The child is a two-year-old boy, belonging to Julia Wilde, who lives in nearby Sherman Oaks. Julia works as a social worker for foster children. Larry Wilde dropped out of college to found a video game company in Montreal. Both children declined my requests for an interview, but Larry sent this email:

  Dear Sir,

  Thank you for your interest in my story. It is not mine to tell. It belongs only to a girl who fell a long time ago.

  Sincerely,

  Larry Wilde

  Gertie wore a low-cut shirt and chunky silver necklace with silver eye shadow that matched. Despite all this time on the West Coast, her Brooklyn accent remained thick. I asked her if she believed Arlo had harmed the Maple Street children and she denied it. I asked her how she could be sure.

  “You’re the only reporter still schlepping this story of Arlo’s guilt. Nobody else who’s investigated the case agrees with you. But you’re so loud about it that people believe you,” she answered. “You kind of remind me of Rhea.”

  I asked her to clarify.

  “You know what’s scary? It’s not outside.” Gertie pointed at her heart. “It’s in here. That’s what scared Rhea.

  “When I think about Rhea, sometimes I remember this old woman who lived in the apartment next door. She could hardly walk and she was alone most days. One time, I was just too tired. I wasn’t myself and I hadn’t recovered from my breakdown. But Larry didn’t care about that. He was just little. Less than three months. He had spells. And there’d been a snowstorm, so Julia couldn’t get to daycare. We were stuck for the second or third day in a row. Sometimes it’s just like that. A messy scream of a day. And the thing about Julia was that she was always so worried about me, trying to help and scared I’d fall apart. But then, that made her anxious and difficult, too. It’s hard coming from the other side of that, when you’re the mom but you don’t have such great tools to reassure. You feel bad, and that makes you feel ungenerous.

  “I got so frazzled I frightened myself. I went next door to Mrs. Cotton, and I knocked and as soon as she answered I started crying. I looked a mess. She followed me back and she sat and watched while I tried to calm the kids. Entertain them, at least. I wasn’t any good at it. I had no experience with it except what I’d made up or read in books. Mrs. Cotton was too old to do anything. She just sat. She hardly even talked. I probably should have fed her. But then it got late and Larry cried himself tired and Julia finally relaxed. I made her some tea and we sat. She hadn’t done anything. Just been a body in the room, same thing she’d have done at home, but it helped. I had a witness, I told her that day, that I’d been scared I was going to do something bad to them. I acted like it was the most shameful confession in the world. I was sobbing. And she looked at me like I was crazy. We all have those days, she told me.

  “After that, she came for every storm. I loved her. And then she moved to a nursing home in Poughkeepsie.

  “I think about that lady sometimes, when I think about what happened on Maple Street. I won’t pretend to be as smart as her, but Rhea and I were alike in a lot of ways. The difference was, I wasn’t as scared to show people my mess.”

  Gertie broke here, to feed her grandson. She then cranked the generator and turned on a static-riddled screen. Reception on the West Coast is better than most other parts of North America. The child watched, transfixed.

  I asked her whether Larry had moved to Canada for a reason.

  “The thing is,” she said, leaning forward. “Everything’s falling apart. The heat’s so bad I can’t walk in my own neighborhood. Long Island’s pretty much underwater, so I guess nobody over there’s worried about white trash like me and Arlo lowering property values anymore. Everybody smart moves to Canada. I wish Julia would go, but she’s loyal. She won’t leave those foster kids. And I won’t leave her… People talk about how the children of Maple Street suffered after what happened, like it’s evidence of what Arlo did. But except for those poor twins, the Rat Pack turned out [okay]. They get together every year. They have a ball. Sam’s family keeps complaining about how he stopped playing sports. Who cares? He was the youngest kid to start an LGBTQ club at Garden City Middle School. Dave turned out okay, too. He’s a family therapist. Charlie followed Julia out to LA and makes vegan desserts. They’re gross but he makes Julia happy, so what does my opinion matter? Lainee manages offices. Larry’s earning coin in Montreal… The kid could buy all of Garden City if he wanted. What’s left of it.

  “The thing is, the world’s breaking up. Fifteen years ago, we all saw it coming. We still do. Maybe there’s even something we can do about it. But it’s so much easier to invent boogeymen. That’s all we were to Maple Street: boogeymen.”

  I asked her how she could be sure, 100 percent beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Arlo Wilde had not molested the children of Maple Street, many of whom were now suffering significantly.

  “The question is: What evidence would prove to you that he didn’t?” she asked.

  I left soon after. I think we can clearly read this evasion as an admission of guilt.

  From Interviews from the Edge: A Maple Street Story,by Maggie Fitzsimmons,

  Soma Institute Press, © 2036

  “I remember being scared that my parents were going to be taken away. I thought it was my fault. I don’t remember the murders. I don’t even remember getting hit or being in the hospital. I guess it traumatized me. But I’m not haunted. I don’t have flashbacks. The only thing is that I’d never set foot back on Long Island. I can’t even say the name of that street out loud… Okay, I’m traumatized.” —Larry Wilde

  “Your first real best friend is almost like a romance. I still miss her. Every day.” —Julia Wilde

  From “The Lost Children of Maple Street,” by Mark Realmuto, The New Yorker, October 19, 2037

  It’s apparent that the Maple Street murders captured the American imagination, but the reason has nothing to do with the spectacle. It’s got nothing to do with the parents, who acted predictably, if horrendously. Nothing they did was remarkable.

  We remember this story because of the children of Maple Street, who did the unexpected.

  In our national discourse, we assume that we’ve taken wrong turns in our lives, and it is these forks that define us. There is Rhea, and
her Jessica Sherman. There is Maple Street, and its brick. There are the Wildes, and their flight from Brooklyn to a hostile land. There is our national chaos, each election worse than the last.

  But what if these forks represent nothing? What if there are no patterns, except those we invent? What if we can reach through our own murky histories, and come out cleanly on the other side?

  What if, like the Rat Pack of Maple Street, we can break the cycle?

  I’ll close on this quotation from Grace Paley:

  The kids! The kids! Though terrible troubles hang over them, such as the absolute end of the known world quickly by detonation or slowly through the easygoing destruction of natural resources, they are still, even now, optimistic, humorous, and brave. In fact, they intend enormous changes at the last minute.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s been a while, so I have a lot of people to thank. First to JT Petty, because nobody else would ever do. Thanks to my girls, Clem and Frances, for inspiring what I do. Thanks to all the people who took such good care of my girls over the years: Carole Langan, Susan Knisely, Kate Petty, the folks at Union Temple Preschool, The Co-op School, Wonderland Avenue Elementary, and of course, Marlene Winston.

  Thanks to my dad, for holding down the fort, to my brother, Chris, for helping him, and to my uncle Michael, for keeping me in the loop. Thanks to my mom. I wish she was here.

  Thanks to Stacia Decker, the smartest, steadiest hand I know. Thanks to Loan Le. I am so lucky. You know what I’m doing better than I know what I’m doing.

  Thanks also to the team: Sarah Self (always), Hilary Zaitz Michael, and Circle of Confusion. Antonio D’Intino, your enthusiasm is contagious, and you time it exactly when I need it. Lawrence Mattis, it’s warming to have the first person to visit after Clem was born also steer my career.