Part One
The street was quiet that Sunday morning, the kind of quiet you only get in a suburb where everyone's still nursing their first cup of coffee. I was twenty-eight, standing in my driveway with the recycling bin, watching maple leaves drift down two houses over.
It was the most ordinary moment of my entire life, which is probably exactly why I still remember it so clearly.
It was the most ordinary moment of my entire life.
Elias had lived next door for years by then. We waved from our driveways, traded quick hellos, and went right back to our own separate days. I couldn't have told you the color of his front door without walking over to check it first.
That morning, I saw him fumbling with four grocery bags in his trunk. One slipped, caught on his elbow, and nearly hit the pavement. I was walking over before I'd fully decided to.
"Let me grab those," I said.
"Oh, you don't have to."
"I know. Come on."
He didn't argue after that. I carried the bags up his porch steps and into a kitchen that smelled like old wood and instant coffee. He moved slowly and carefully, the particular way men move when they've been alone in a house for a long time.
The particular way men move when they've been alone in a house for a long time.
"Sit down a minute," Elias said. "Least I can do is pour you a cup."
I almost said no, because I wasn't really the coffee-with-strangers type. But something in the way he asked — like he half expected me to say no and leave anyway — made me pull out a chair instead.
"One cup," I said. "Then I've got to go check my gutters."
He laughed. A small, surprised sound, like it had caught him off guard as much as it caught me.
