the sound of metal dragging across the pavement of a patio waking
them in the wee hours of the morning. Even more disturbing was Mrs.
Landry’s appearance the day after these late-night diggings: her eyes were
bloodshot, her fingernails were caked with dirt, and, while her smiling
red mouth gave the pretense that she was enjoying the company of her
girlfriends at the local Club House, her eyes betrayed a strange mixture of
distance and detachment.
Like most things he coveted in his privileged life, when Buford
Landry first laid eyes on Amelia Thomas, he knew he had to have her.
He was awestruck by her pearly skin, the dewdrop color of her eyes, the
sensuous curve of her smiling scarlet lips. She was a woman unequaled
by any other he had ever met. Initially, she had brushed off his attempts
at courting her; she was clearly unimpressed by his average build and
somewhat bland features, and was certainly taken aback by his obscenely
hawkish nose and oversized ears. However, that summer in 1956,
Buford trailed after Amelia senselessly, hanging on every sound that was
enunciated by the girl’s perfectly shaped mouth and eager to take care of
her slightest distress. If it rained, Buford was there with an umbrella to
shelter Miss Amelia’s blonde curls from the downpour. If a lowlife made
a pass at her at the local pool, Buford bashed the bastard’s nose in. If he
found Amelia sitting in the park, staring aimlessly past the picturesque
scenery and quite obviously lost in troubling thoughts, Buford would sit
down next to her and distract her with stories of his misadventures as a
young boy at prestigious family affairs.
She didn’t quite know how it happened, but by the end of that
summer Amelia had lost herself in a love she knew would be impossible
to navigate out of. The couple got married the day after they graduated
high school. As a wedding gift, Buford’s parents bought them the biggest
house on Silhouette Lane, a quiet neighborhood where scatterings of
colossal sycamore and red oak trees cast shadows over the expanse of the
street. The newly wedded Mrs. Amelia Landry took up gardening as a
hobby while her husband went off to work each day, and before long the
backyard was a colorful masterpiece of petals and blooms admired by
many a neighbor and passerby.
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