I thought, Is he bored? Is that what he thinks when he looks at me in the morning? Is this it?
I didn’t know. I’d never asked.
The next morning, I watched him make coffee. Humming “Moon River.” Badly. He poured his coffee into his PROFESSOR BEAKER mug.
Out the kitchen window, I could see Vanessa’s back porch. She was sitting out there in a short white robe with her coffee. Watching our house.
When Irvin walked out to his car, she waved at him.
He waved back.
Just a wave. A neighborly wave. The same wave he gives Mrs. Pratt across the street.
But I stood at the kitchen window, and something inside me went cold and hard.
After that, Vanessa stopped pretending.
She leaned over the fence to talk to Irvin whenever he was in the yard. Always in something low-cut. Always laughing too loud at whatever he said. Always touching his arm.
