Barbara moved to this garden apartment complex three years ago, after the death of her husband of forty-seven years, when she realized she had neither the energy nor the inclination to maintain by herself the spacious Colonial they had shared for so long. Reserved by nature, she has never gotten to know most of her neighbors here, but she is quite fond of the young couple in the left upstairs apartment in her building, Sam and Lisa.

She has always enjoyed the sight of them walking, holding hands, fingers interlocked, or arms encircled about each other's waist. Lisa so lovely, with her long, flaming curls and luminous green eyes; Sam such a striking contrast, standing half a head taller, with long dark hair and light brown eyes. Their anachronistic beauty appeals to Barbara's secretly romantic soul. They remind her of figures on a medieval tapestry; a knight and his lady. Their youth and passion always make her smile nostalgically and remember herself and her dear Frank.

Both Sam and Lisa have always been kind to Barbara. They always smile and greet her when they see her, and on several occasions one, the other, or both of them have helped her carry her bags of groceries from the parking lot to her kitchen counter. Afterward, she has provided tea for Sam or coffee for Lisa, and enjoyed chats with both.

Today, however, something is very wrong. A couple of hours ago, Lisa stalked out of the building. Barbara's friendly greeting died on her tongue as she took in the determined set to Lisa's chin, her clenched jaw, the unmistakeable traces of tears, all of which proclaimed she did not want to be approached. For the first time since they met, Lisa did not greet her neighbor. Didn't even make eye contact. Just kept striding purposefully past her, tightly gripping the handles of a beat-up duffel bag. "They've had a spat", Barbara had thought to herself. Young love; such a roller coaster ride!

While she pruned, transplanted and fertilized, Barbara had waited expectantly for Sam to come bursting out of the apartment in pursuit of his lady. But he hadn't come down. Things had been quiet for the first twenty minutes or so after Lisa left, then from the open window Barbara heard a seemingly endless crashing and clattering. Barbara is very concerned about her young friend.

She had thought about going up and knocking on his door to try to calm him, but hesitated when she remembered a doozy of a fight she and Frank had a couple of years into their marriage. She had fled to her mother's, and Frank had vented his anger and pain on their possessions, damaging the majority of them beyond repair. Once they reunited, after realizing they simply couldn't be without each other, Frank had confided that when he'd been in that destructive rage, Mother Theresa herself could have come to his door, and he would have punched her face in. So Barbara had decided to wait at least until the commotion stopped.

It has been quiet up there for about fifteen minutes, and Barbara has been trying to work up the nerve to knock on Sam's door and be there for her young friend. She sweeps dead leaves and flowers into a tidy little heap while she tries to work up the nerve. Gradually, she becomes aware of an odor that sends a chill through her. Something is burning.

Dropping her broom, Barbara runs into the building and races up the stairs. She pounds on Sam's door yelling, "Sam! Sam!" No response. She tries the knob, opens the unlocked door, and stops for a shocked second, taking in the destruction in the kitchen that is visible even from the entry.

Characteristically unflappable in an emergency, Barbara recovers herself. She whips out her scented cotton handkerchief from the pocket of her slacks and holds it over her mouth and nose to protect them from the smoke emanating from the kitchen. Running into the kitchen, she spots Sam's unconscious body slumped on the floor against a cabinet. Moving quickly to his side, she takes in the wicked slashes on his hand and wrist, the pool of blood on one side of his body, the heart with the name Lisa drawn in blood on the other side. Placing her index and middle finger on his pale neck, she feels for his corotic artery and a sign of life. The pulse is faint, but definately there. She takes a deep breath and hold it, stuffs her hanky back into her pocket and pulls Sam away from the cabinet. Standing behind him, she maneuvers her forearms under his armpits and drags him out of the kitchen, across the parquet floor of the living room to the landing outside his door. She braces his body against her legs and holds him with one hand while she slams the door on the rapidly growing smoke and flames with the other.

She gasps the clearer air into her bursting lungs, and wonders how she is going to get Sam downstairs to safety all by herself, when thankfully, she hears the vestibule door open and the familiar, heavy tread of Bob the mailman. "Bob!" she screams. "Up here! Help!"

She hears a thud as the burly young man drops his mailbag. In a moment he is at the landing. Effortlessly, he swings Sam's limp body, still trickling blood from his mutilated hand and wrist, over his shoulder. He calls out behind him as he disappears down the stairs, "Call 911!" Silently thanking her creator for Bob's deus ex machina appearance, Barbara runs down the stairs and enters her own apartment, dashing for the cordless phone on her coffee table.