Too quiet.
My wife, Carol, had been dead for six years.
Cancer took her slowly, in the kind of cruel way that teaches you the sound of pill bottles, oxygen machines, and fake optimism.
People in town said I was loyal because I still planted her garden every spring.
Tomatoes. Basil. Climbing beans that never climbed right.
They thought it was sweet.
They didn’t know some mornings I stood in that dirt with a hoe in my hand and hated every row because it reminded me she wasn’t coming outside with two mugs of coffee anymore.
The house next door had been empty almost a year.
Old Walter Petrov died, and his kids sold it to some rental company. Nobody kept up the grass. The mailbox leaned sideways. The porch sagged like it was tired of waiting.
Then one Tuesday evening, a moving truck pulled in.
