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The women stared at the debris, stirred up by the storm. Twigs and branches were gnarled into each other, like a giant’s bird’s nest resting on the front lawn. Or what once was. A tree had toppled across the road.
“What can be taken will be taken,” Leslie observed.
Ann looked at her friend. “What the hell does that mean?”
Leslie, surprised to be challenged, particularly by Ann who was basically meek, said, “Isn’t it obvious? Anything can happen.”
“Anything, yes.” Ann kicked at brambles. “What a mess.” She looked around. Leslie did, too. “I guess other houses have it worse. The ‘taker,’ as you put it, was more greedy in other places.”
Leslie frowned. “What ‘taker?’”
“I don’t know. It was your idea – didn’t you say if someone can take it, they will.”
“I said, ‘what can be taken.’”
Ann walked to the storage bin, a unit purchased years ago and set on one side of the yard. She came out with a rake. “Would you believe?” she said. “This thing wasn’t affected at all.” She hit at the pile of debris, breaking, separating. “I’ll get a big trash bag from the house. I’ll have to call about the tree. Goddam money again.”
“I’ll help,” Leslie said.
“Anyway, if something is to be ‘taken,” there has to be a ‘taker,’ right? Who’s your taker? God?”
“What?”
“You can’t go around saying dumb shit like that – ‘what can be taken will be taken’—when it doesn’t make sense, when it sounds like goddam wisdom or something.”
“I don’t know why you’re so angry.”
“You don’t know?” Ann gave the debris a vicious thump with the rake and looked up. “Cause you get away with stuff. You spout that pseudo wisdom or philosophy or whatever the hell you call it and people nod their heads.”
“Ann—what’s got into you? Why are you attacking me?”
“You need to be attacked. You’ll go home now to your peaceful yard, your look-at-how-great-I am life, couched in ‘I hate to boast but—‘”.
Leslie’s mouth was literally open, as in the cliché of gestures: her mouth fell open.
“You’ve always felt this way?”
“Look, are you going to help me or not? This is a mess. Yes, I’ve felt that way. I’m tired of this one-way admiration relationship. I’m taking it away. I can do it, right, according to your playing Sophocles or God or somebody.” She laughed. She looked up at Leslie, as though at a stranger, then got back to her raking. “I can remove my ‘friendship,’ and so I am. Sorry. I have work to do.”
Leslie, stunned, finally walked away. “I’ll call later,” she said, but there was no response.