house of seven widows

My house still sits peacefully between a rock and a hard place - the Pizza King and the prison. I still haven't actually seen the Pizza King but I hear rumours about his existence. He has a new pizza restaurant in town, one with an authentic wood-burning oven that spreads delicious aromas around the market square. He also has an authentic Italian running the place. The King officially denied having anything to do with the restaurant or any stake in it, but the credibility of this statement is somewhat marred by the fact that his name is included in the neon sign of the restaurant.

The people in the Hard Place next door lead quiet, inobtrusive lives. My little apartment building, on the other hand, contains seven widows who keep track of what's going on. They all know that I'm single, work from home, don't own a car, that my landlord hasn't fixed the jammed window on my balcony and that I broke the lift on my first day in the house. I'm sure they have commented on the fact that I'm one of the few in the building who don't have a cute little flowery "welcome" sign on my door, only a severe "no junk mail" warning. The seven widows know my parents and my landlord and my landlord's grandmother.

So I have to plan a careful strategy for the day when I get a dog and start smuggling it in and out of the building to avoid the landlord's pet fine. Until then, I try to be chatty and friendly to stay on good terms with the widows.

The scary question remains though.

What happened to all the husbands?