The New Neighbor Mowed My Lawn the Week My Divorce Went Through novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Fourteenth

"Never," Tyler said.

He said it loud, on his own front walk, with forty people behind him holding paper plates.

"Never," he said again. "I never looked, Lena."

"Your blinds have been open for-"

"Inside," he said. "Please. Let me tell you inside."

I looked past his shoulder at the court.

The whole street stood motionless, with hot dogs halfway to mouths and children staring.

Marlene Hosler stood at the end of the tables with her clipboard flat against her chest.

"Fine," I said.

He took my wrist, carefully, and walked me up his steps and in through his front door.

He did not shut it behind us.

He left it standing open, and I understood that it was his rule.

The kitchen light was on.

It was a bare ceiling fixture, and it threw a hard yellow circle over the table and the floor.

He set the bun down on the counter and turned around.

"I moved in on March twenty-first," he said. "A Saturday. I carried a mattress up the stairs, and I hung my blinds."

"I stood in the bedroom," he said, "and I could see your bedroom window across the yard."

"I know. I watched your van," I said.

"The first night, I shut them."

"Tyler," I said.

"Let me say it." He rubbed his face with both hands. "I shut them because there was a woman across the yard who was married."

"I could see the top of your headboard," he said. "I shut the blinds before I saw anything else."

"I never opened them," he said. "Not once. Not one night."

I stared at him.

"Seven weeks," he said. "I'd come up at night, and I'd lie on my back in the dark."

"I knew you were in that room," he said, "and I would not look."

"Why?" I said.

"Because you were somebody's wife."

"I was not-" I said.

"I didn't know you weren't. I didn't know anything." He took a breath. "On April fourth your husband came for his golf clubs."

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