“I was ashamed,” I said. “I don’t know. I was scared. I thought maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe you’d agree with her,” I whispered.
He stared at me.
Then he got out of bed. He didn’t say anything. He just walked out of the bedroom. I heard him go down the stairs. I heard the door to the garage open.
I lay there in the dark, terrified.
He came back two minutes later. He was carrying a shoebox.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. He put the shoebox in my lap.
“Open it,” he said.
I opened it.
It was full of things. A stack of papers. A folded-up note on pink paper. A ziplock bag of cookies, still sealed, gone stale. The chemistry history book, still in the bookstore bag with the receipt. A bottle of wine, unopened. A printout of text messages.
“Every single thing she’s given me,” Irvin said quietly. “Every note. Every gift. I didn’t eat the cookies. I didn’t drink the wine. I didn’t read the book.” He pointed at the printout. “And those are her texts. I printed them out. I didn’t answer most of them. The ones I did answer, I said thank you and that was it.”
I picked up the pink note. It said, in loopy handwriting, For my favorite neighbor. You deserve someone who appreciates you. — V. With a heart.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
He sat down next to me on the bed.
“Because I didn’t want to make you feel bad,” he said. “I knew what she was doing. I’m not an idiot, Jan. I’m goofy, but I’m not an idiot. But I thought if I told you, you’d be upset, and you’d worry. And I didn’t want you to worry. So I just kept saying no. And I kept putting everything in the shoebox. In case.” He swallowed. “In case you ever needed to know I wasn’t hiding anything.”
“In case,” I repeated.
“I’m a chemist,” he said. “I keep records. It’s a sickness.”
