The Good Neighbor

by A. J. Banner

  “And when did you fly back?”

  “I was supposed to be there for two more days. When I got Sarah’s message, I called her back, but Pedra Ramirez answered and told me Sarah was in the hospital. I flew back right away.”

  “On a red-eye?”

  “Yes,” Johnny said. “How is this relevant?”

  My shoulders tensed.

  “You weren’t available to answer your wife’s original call during the fire,” Mr. Greene said.

  Johnny looked at Mr. Greene with a touch of regret in his eyes. “I spoke to her earlier in the evening, but yes, I missed her second call.”

  “In the middle of the night.” Mr. Greene stared at Johnny.

  Johnny did not flinch. “My colleague had just lost a patient to cancer. We were down in the hotel bar.”

  “Commiserating?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Female colleague, or male?”

  “Female,” Johnny said. “I didn’t hear my phone. What does this have to do with the fire?”

  Mild nausea rose in my throat, perhaps a side effect of the concussion. Johnny had told me the same story.

  “Covering all the bases.” Mr. Greene glanced at his watch, got up, and flipped the cover shut over the tablet computer. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

  I got up, too, and I must’ve been swaying a little, because Johnny wrapped his arm around my waist to steady me. “You okay? Need water?”

  “I’m a little tired.” I sat back in the chair as Johnny and Mr. Greene headed for the door.

  “I appreciate your time,” I heard Mr. Greene say in the foyer.

  “No problem,” Johnny said curtly. The front door creaked open and shut. I felt disoriented, my mind in a jumble. A fresh headache pressed at my temples. The fire wouldn’t leave my brain—the odors of burning wood and chemicals, Mia’s cries. The smoke. I thought of Mr. Greene’s questions to Johnny, about his whereabouts the night of the fire. He wouldn’t lie to me, never had. I trusted him more than I’d ever trusted anyone. He had been in the hotel bar, comforting a colleague, just as he’d told me. Besides, where else would he have gone?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Johnny loved to cook, but now every dog-eared cookbook, every note he’d made, every tomato stain on the pages had burned away. He’d made a quick shopping trip downtown, and on our first night in the cottage, he planned to try a Thai recipe from a new paperback he’d bought at the Shadow Cove Bookstore.

  “I’m rebuilding our library, one step at a time,” he said, opening to a peanut curry page. He laid out the ingredients on the counter. He’d had to buy new spices. Our extensive collection was gone—imported saffron, organic turmeric, sea salt. He hummed while he worked, his vain attempt at normalcy.

  I came up behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist. I needed to feel his solidity, his familiar warmth. We needed to hang on to the rituals of everyday life. The sizzling curry smelled like home, like an evening the previous summer, when Johnny had marinated chicken for dinner with the Kimballs, curried tofu slices for me. The tofu hadn’t been firm enough; it had crumbled and fallen through the barbecue grill. Monique had told me, You need meat for your libido, but as she’d spoken, she’d been looking at Johnny. What had she meant by that? Had she been suggesting that I couldn’t give Johnny what he needed sexually? At the time, the comment had barely registered in my mind. Why had it resurfaced now?

  “You don’t need to cook,” I said, squeezing Johnny around the waist. “We could’ve ordered takeout.”

  “I wanted to. I wish I could bring back our house, but all I can do is make food for you.”

  “Just be here with me. That’s all I need. But I wish you hadn’t accepted Eris’s dinner invitation. I’d rather be a hermit.”

  “We don’t have to go. I’ll cancel.”

  “No, don’t. She’s been so kind to us—”

  “We won’t stay long, then.” He turned off the stove, put the spatula on the counter.

  “Promise.”

  “Cross my heart.” He turned to face me, wrapped his arms around me. “I should’ve been there for you.”

  “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “But I feel responsible.”

  “You’re not.”

  He scooped me up, carried me down the hall and across the threshold into the tiny master bedroom, as if this was our honeymoon night.

  “Hey, what about dinner?” I said as he laid me gently on the bed.

  “Dinner can wait.” He kissed me again, long and deep. I closed my eyes, and in my mind, the dim cottage bedroom expanded into our brightly lit suite on Sitka Lane. The ceiling became a glass skylight, revealing the brilliant constellations. Surely the heavens knew why two homes had burned down, why two people had died. In my imagination, I could undo the damage, resurrect the dead, turn darkness into light. Anything was possible.

  Almost.

  Somewhere in the distance, while Johnny and I made love, I heard his cell phone belting out a familiar, funky melody. He’d changed the ringtone again. The lyrics came to me as the song, by En Vogue, played over and over before the call kicked into voice mail: Lies, lies . . . using lies as alibis.

  Later, we ate off hand-painted ceramic dishes that had come with the cottage. We squished in next to each other at the breakfast nook, so much smaller than our dining table on Sitka Lane, the one with a large extra leaf for guests. We’d bought the oak table on impulse, on sale; one leg had been slightly shorter than the others. The table had tilted and jiggled.

  “I hope some of our furniture survived,” I said to Johnny. After we’d made love, he had checked his voice mail, but he had not returned the call.

  He took a deep breath. “The first time I went back there, the investigators were still checking for exposed wires, things like that. But we can go in now.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” I said.

  “After work, okay? Wait for me.”

  I nodded, although a different plan began to form in my mind. After dinner, we cleaned up the kitchen in a silent, well-practiced duet. Johnny rinsed the plates and I dropped them into the dishwasher. In this smaller space, which forced us to nearly bump elbows, I became more aware of the ritual.

  Then I faced the ordeal of unpacking, hanging my sparse belongings in the tiny bedroom closet. Had I been spoiled, lavish with my walk-in closet on Sitka Lane? Not that I’d sought luxury. The closet had already been there when I’d met Johnny—the shelves had been waiting to hold my favorite cotton pajamas, my soft jeans. Nobody had ever lived with him in that house, although I knew he’d been seriously involved with a woman once or twice. He remained vague about his past, sometimes brooding. It seemed his relationships had never lasted long, until he’d met me. There’s something about you, Sarah Phoenix, he’d said after we’d been seeing each other for a few weeks. Something permanent.

  I smiled at the memory. He’d wanted to move quickly, to become engaged after only a few months, but I’d been cautious, dating him nearly eighteen months before accepting his marriage proposal. His persistence had paid off.

  But I had to admit, I missed the sweater Nana had knitted for my twenty-fifth birthday. I missed her portrait of Miracle Mouse. Had any part of the painting survived? I hadn’t allowed myself to speculate. Another song played a soothing melody in my mind: Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

  Johnny had deposited the gifts from the hospital in the second bedroom, where I’d propped the Wonder Woman card on his temporary desk. A few friends had called—authors in my writing group, a couple of Johnny’s coworkers. The generosity warmed my heart as I sifted through a small bundle of greeting cards. We’re thinking of you. We’re here for you.

  >Near the bottom of the pile, I came across an unusual card. On the front, a cartoon clove of garlic roasted on a campfire, red-cheeked and wide-eyed, its mouth a jagged line of misery. The words at the top read, “Holy Toledo!” Inside, written in flamboyant script, were the words


  Dear Dr. Johnny McDonald,

  Try to think of this time as necessary preparation for wonderful things to come.

  The squiggly signature was illegible.

  Wonderful things? Necessary? Who would write such a thing?

  I showed Johnny the card. He sat at the breakfast nook, checking email on his laptop computer.

  “Who’s it from?” he asked, peering closely at the signature inside the card.

  “You can’t tell?”

  “Nope. But it’s in bad taste. Why would a fire be preparation for anything wonderful?”

  “My thoughts exactly.” I felt a strange turning in my gut.

  He ripped up the card and threw it in the recycling basket. “Forget about it now.”

  “Forgotten already.” I kissed his cheek. “I’m going to run a bath.”

  “I’ll join you in a bit,” he said, not looking up from the computer.

  I found lavender salts in the medicine cabinet and filled the tub. As I sank into the hot, soothing water, my hair floating to the surface, I thought of a warm Sunday afternoon the previous summer, when I’d been upstairs cleaning the window in our bedroom. I’d spotted Monique in her yard, floating nude on her back in Mia’s plastic swimming pool. Johnny had been downstairs in his study, on the opposite side of the house. Had he seen her? Had she wanted someone to see her? Perhaps she hadn’t even thought about her nakedness. But I had felt uncomfortable, like an unwilling voyeur—and somehow physically inadequate compared to the voluptuous, sensual French woman on the block.

  Now, as I emerged from the bathwater, I heard Johnny speaking in a hushed tone in the master bedroom. I stepped out of the tub. Without pulling the plug from the drain, I dried my skin, wrapped myself in a towel, and tiptoed to the bathroom door, which I’d left ajar. Closed doors had always made me claustrophobic—even more so now. I could hear a little better from here, a few words drifting in now and then.

  “. . . as long as it takes . . . She can’t know . . .”

  I backed up, pulled the plug, and the water began to drain noisily away. I hummed to myself as if everything was okay, which it was, wasn’t it? My humming drowned out his voice, drowned out my own unsettling thoughts. Why had I eavesdropped? Sometimes Johnny lowered his voice if he received an important call in a public place. He was often on call for his clinic. But I’d never heard him speak in a hushed tone at home.

  As the water finished draining from the tub, Johnny strode in and took me in his arms. “Damn, I’m too late. I thought I would take a bath with you.”

  “I heard you talking to someone.” I looked in the mirror, still foggy around the edges.

  After a barely perceptible hesitation, he said, “Yeah. Work.” He stood behind me and caressed my shoulders.

  “You said ‘as long as it takes.’ And ‘she can’t know.’”

  “You heard all that?” His brows rose.

  “It almost sounded as if . . .”

  “As if what?” The fog began to clear from the mirror.

  “I thought you might be talking about me, trying to keep something from me.”

  “From you?” He laughed. “Hell no. A patient called about his dermabrasion treatments. He doesn’t want his wife to know.”

  “He’s embarrassed?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Poor guy.” I ran a comb through my wet hair.

  “Do you often eavesdrop on my calls?”

  “No,” I said. “It was just . . .” What?

  His hands dropped from my shoulders. “I wasn’t talking about you.” Did his eyes darken in the mirror?

  “I know you weren’t. Let’s start over. We could still take a bath. I could refill the tub, add some bubbles.”

  But he was already turning to leave the room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Johnny fell asleep easily, while I lay awake, every sound magnified—the whirr of the heater, creaks as the cottage settled, Johnny’s steady breathing. The wind whipped through the fir branches, and somewhere in the distance, a great horned owl hooted. The owl would’ve delighted Monique. Felix Calassis had inspired her interest in birds. She had once explained the words for owl in French. An owl with tufted ears was une chouette, while the general word for owl was un hibou. Her lips had puckered provocatively when she’d pronounced the words. Everything about her had simmered with sexuality, even her voice when she’d sung while working in the garden. Parlez-moi d’amour. Speak to me of love. I could see her, the way she’d sat on her heels, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, staring into space. She’d slipped into reveries. What unspoken secrets had she taken with her to the grave? What unfulfilled dreams?

  Eventually, I fell asleep and dreamed, too, of the house on Sitka Lane. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the familiar objects of home. We were happy and safe. Monique and Chad were okay. The fire, the deaths—it had all been a terrible misunderstanding.

  I woke in darkness and remembered where I was, in the cottage on Shadow Bluff Lane. Home no longer existed. Chad and Monique were gone forever. Why did I keep forgetting? With the realization came a devastating sinking of my heart.

  The faint smell of smoke wafted into my nose. The window was open, the curtain flapping against the screen. Not again. This can’t be happening. My breathing grew shallow, my hands curled into fists. The clock radio read 2:00 a.m. in blocky blue numbers. I reached for Johnny but he was gone. My fingers slid across a wrinkled bedspread, an empty pillow. Where could he be at this hour?

  I got up, pulled on my new robe and slippers. The cottage emitted unfamiliar smells—mildew and a hint of stale perfume. Strange shadows slithered across the room, and furniture shapes elongated, alive. Maybe the smoke was coming from a neighbor’s house or from the forest. My heartbeat quickened. I broke out in a sweat. “Johnny!” I called. No answer.

  In the living room, I found no sign of him. He wasn’t anywhere in the cottage. He’d vaporized into thin air. I peered out the kitchen window, across the gently sloping garden, toward the street. Near Eris’s house, a single streetlamp flickered, casting a triangle of feeble light. The odor of smoke came from somewhere across the road.

  Johnny’s car still sat in the driveway. He’d left his cell phone on the nightstand, but his rain jacket was missing from the hook beside the door, his running shoes gone from the mat.

  I found a flashlight in a kitchen drawer, pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans, socks, and sneakers. Out on the porch, in the cool air, I swept the beam across the yard. Crickets clicked in the underbrush, and I could hear the distant rushing of the river. No sign of Johnny, and no response when I called his name.

  The night wind swirled around me, prodding me with chilled fingers as I followed the flashlight beam down the driveway, along the road toward the white Victorian. As I climbed Eris’s driveway, the flashlight beam dimmed. The house loomed ahead of me in silence, the windows black and ominous, a single beacon of light on the porch. If Johnny had come here, a light would be on inside the house. The smell of smoke receded behind me now, so I turned around and retraced my steps.

  Had he gone into the woods? Out for a midnight run? Maybe he’d woken up and couldn’t get back to sleep. When I was halfway back to the cottage, the flashlight battery died, leaving only a sliver of moonlight to show me the way. The odor of smoke still drifted through the air, earthy and woody, different from the caustic smell of the Kimballs’ fire. I followed the gray curve of the road, and as I approached the driveway, a shadow moved on the porch.

  “Johnny!” I called out. I tapped the flashlight, flicked the switch on and off. Nothing. “Johnny,” I called out again. The shadow moved off the porch and into the woods. Had I imagined someone there?

  I ran up the driveway, nearly tripping over my own feet, my heart pounding. I burst in through the front door, turned on the porch light with trembling fingers. The light spilled out across the grass. Nobody there.

  “Johnny!” I called out again, my voice high-pitched. Eris’s house r
emained dark, but on the other side, a light came on in the neighbors’ window. I thought I heard voices carried on the wind. A figure advanced on the road, coming from the direction of the A-frame house. I should go back inside, I thought, and call 911, but then the figure waved at me.

  “Sarah!”

  It was Johnny.

  Had he been at the neighbors’ house? Visiting Theresa?

  “Yeah, here!” I shouted back. I nearly collapsed with relief.

  As he jogged up the driveway, entering the circle of light by the porch, I could see that he’d put on jeans and a T-shirt beneath his rain jacket. All while I’d been asleep. Usually, I was a light sleeper. He could wake me by sneezing or coughing. But he’d remained utterly silent, or I’d slept more deeply than usual. Perhaps the concussion had altered my brain chemistry.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, my teeth chattering in the cold. “Where were you? What’s going on? Where’s the smoke coming from?”

  “I went to investigate,” he said, a little breathless. “What are you doing up?”

  “I wondered where you were. Where’s the fire?”

  “Neighbors’ house.” He ran up the steps and hugged me, ushering me inside. “The smoke’s coming from the fireplace, that’s all.”

  “Did you talk to the neighbors?” The blood rushed loudly in my head.

  “I saw the smoke coming from the chimney,” he said. “That’s all it is.”

  “At this hour?” I peered out the window at the light still shining through the trees.

  “They must stay up late.” As he brushed past me, a subtle, strange smell rose from him, the slight odor of a chemical similar to paint thinner. Then it was gone. The light in the A-frame house winked out, plunging the forest into darkness.

  CHAPTER NINE

  By the time I woke in the morning, Johnny had returned from his run. I sat at the breakfast nook in my pajamas while he made bagels and cream cheese. The neighborhood appeared safe, benign, the trees benevolent, wrens chattering in the underbrush. No smoke rose from the neighbors’ chimney.