“Very well, we’ll be good. I’m ordering the cheese curds, though, for us to share.”
I resolve to order the cheeseburger and fries, but when the waiter arrives, I chicken out and ask for a veggie burger and to sub a side salad. Connie squints and one-ups me, ordering a bowl of soup. She pulls up the batch of listings she’s forwarded to me on her phone: town houses and single-family homes on the outskirts in new developments. She’s glad James and I have decided to stay nearby once the house sells. I tell her I can’t even think about buying a new place until this one is off the market, though. If it means we’ll need to rent for a while, so be it. “Maybe renting is the way to go no matter what,” I say. “A nice one-bedroom where we can see the whole place at once if we stand in the middle of it.”
“Apartments mean more neighbors to deal with,” Connie says.
“Ah, but they can’t peek in if they’re in the same building. They could see us come and go, and that’s about it.”
The summer sun is shining brightly through the window, and Connie mocks me when I put my sunglasses on inside. “Have the detectives been by to see you lately?”
I shake my head, tolerant of their absence. I feel that pang that’s grown familiar—guilt at not mentioning what I saw in the house after James left. I consider telling Connie what James’s mother spotted in Rolf’s window, but I don’t trust her eyes more than my own. “You?”
“Nope, but no further trouble. Repainted that wall and that seemed to be the end of it.”
I search Connie’s face for accusation, but she hides it well if it exists at all. Her trust has allowed her to move on.
“That has got to be the fifth double-wide stroller that’s gone by today,” I say, catching sight of another mother maneuvering down the street, willing to distract myself.
“Lots more twins these days what with fertility treatments. Soon everyone will be born with a double.” Connie flares her eyes, risking spookiness.
I laugh, but I think of all the times I was alone, but didn’t feel that I was, and vice versa.
92
A COUPLE COMES to look at our house. We tell them what improvements are in process. We uncover the secret passages one by one and watch their wonder unfold. They ask us why we want to sell it so soon after purchase. “It’s too big for us,” Julie says. “I had some health troubles and we want something more manageable.”
I feel a spike of unease not telling them all of the other truths. They put in an offer right then for more than we asked. There will be weeks of busy work to be sure of the outcome. When we see the number they’ve written down on the slip of paper, though, we allow ourselves to feel relief. We walk them out. We tell them we’ll be in touch. We wave them off.
I stare into the grip of the front door. I am ready to turn my back on this afternoon. Julie takes my hand, though. We sit on the porch swing. The air is still. We don’t rock ourselves. We stay where we are.
We hear fireworks near the lake. It’s not dark yet. We search the sky for the explosions. We can’t find the light against light. The brilliance is lost without contrast. We hear the booms over the buzz of the interior.
We watch as those kids climb down from their trees and peek into the neighbor’s house. Maybe we feel responsible because we broke that first window. It showed them no one was watching. It let them know advantages could be taken. Maybe we watch those kids pull out cans of spray paint and leave words behind. Maybe they hurl rocks. Maybe they turn the hose on. Maybe they light fires and scale the outside of the house like a mountain. We wonder what the kids call this game. Is it a game? We consider phoning the detectives.
“Let’s not,” Julie says.
“And when they ask us if we saw anything?”
“We haven’t seen a thing.”