The house is on a narrow street where everybody knows everything and pretends they don’t.
Everybody was kind.
Everybody stared.
And then there was the man next door.
“Difficult.”
It was the way he looked at me.
That was the word I kept hearing.
“He keeps to himself.”
“He doesn’t like noise.”
“He never comes to anything.”
But the strange part wasn’t that he was cold.
It was the way he looked at me.
Then Eli noticed him.
Not every time. Not long. But enough.
I’d be carrying groceries or dragging a trash bin to the curb, and I’d glance up and find him standing at his mailbox or at the front window, staring at me with something I couldn’t place.
Not anger.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
