Cars were crammed across the gravel, two with tires on the grass, one angled so badly across the drive that she had to maneuver carefully to squeeze past it. Music came through her closed windows before she had fully stopped the car, the bass reaching her through the glass and the seat and the particular vibration of an old woman’s patience being tested beyond its designed limit. Children she did not know were cutting through the yard, and one of them had kicked a ball directly through the center of the geranium bed she had spent all of April coaxing back from winter. The blooms lay scattered across the grass. The plant stems were bent at angles that she understood immediately were not recoverable.
Eleanor did not turn the car off right away.