The Casserole Nobody Asked For

Margaret Ellison hadn't spoken to her neighbor Deb in three years — not since the property line dispute, the lawyers, the cold silence that settled over Birchwood Court like January frost. They waved sometimes. Barely.

Then Deb's husband had a stroke on a Tuesday morning.

Margaret heard the ambulance from her kitchen window. She watched the gurney. She stood at her counter for a long time afterward, staring at the phone, rehearsing arguments for why this wasn't her problem. They weren't friends. There was history. It would be awkward.

She made a casserole anyway.