That was why he wanted his new home to feel simple.
Quiet.
Safe.
For years, Jake and his wife, Lena, had rented apartments too close to highways, too far from family, and too full of thin walls. Their last place had been above a bakery that began mixing dough at four in the morning. Before that, they lived beside a man who practiced trumpet badly and emotionally every Sunday afternoon.
So when they finally bought the pale blue house at 84 Stonebridge Drive, Jake had felt something in his chest loosen.
Ashford Hills was the kind of neighborhood real estate agents described with words like charming, established, and family-friendly. The lawns were trimmed. The sidewalks were wide. Children rode scooters in slow loops under maple trees. At dusk, porch lights came on one by one like a string of warm stars.
Lena loved it immediately.
“This is the one,” she whispered the first day they toured it.
