I like to walk the dog past her house at night. In the summer, the air is filled with the smell of cooling barbecues and honeysuckle. In the winter, I can feel every icy breath as it enters my lungs. I have come by here in all kinds of weather over the past year.
I know her, of course, from school events. Our kids have been in the same class in some years. And my house is only about a half mile from hers. When the dog was a puppy, I established a habit of taking long walks, of letting him drag me forward on seeming unending capers through town. So it would not seem strange if she or her husband looked out and saw me ambling past. Everyone who knows us knows I spend a lot of time strolling the neighborhood.
Tina, that’s her name. I think she’s especially compelling at night. She is not conventionally pretty, with a face that’s too narrow and a nose that’s too long. She has a distinctive, lopsided self-deprecating smile. But there’s a real honesty in her face. No pretense or bravado. It was such a relief the first time I noticed it. As if, when the world started to crumble, she’d be someone I could turn to who would not lie to me or herself but instead would take it in and square her shoulders, ready for what came next.
Her house has a small family room just left of the living room, and that’s where I see her through the window most nights. Sometimes she’s watching TV, staring at the screen in the near darkness as the light and shadows shift around her. On other occasions I’ve seen her reading, curled in a rather shabby looking chair, with only a small standing lamp lighting the room. Sometimes she has already fallen asleep when I arrive, often with her head dropped backwards and her mouth slightly open—a childlike and vulnerable pose—with the book forgotten in her lap. Other times I have stood and watched her nod off, her head tipping forward and then back up again as she catches herself before finally giving in. On at least one night her husband, Rick, came and stood in the room’s doorway. He didn’t go over to wake her gently but instead called to her from where he stood. Somewhat abruptly, too, given the way she snapped awake. Then he disappeared from the room and she eventually followed him upstairs, leaving the standing lamp on, as is her custom.
I watch her because she has become a kind of barometer for me, a measure of how settled and peaceful life will remain.
My wife, Marin, does not seem to worry about my long walks. “You two out baying at the moon again?” she might ask when the dog and I get home. She smiles at me fondly, used to my eccentricities. If this were still middle school, she would be the kind of person everyone would want to sit next to in the lunchroom. She is bubbly and fun without seeming to try too hard. People are always recruiting her for projects. I usually find her at the kitchen table, sorting through assignments from work or from the various activities she’s involved with in our town. She is beautiful, with a crown of brown curls and sleepy deep brown eyes. She kisses me and turns back to her work. “Sleep tight,” she calls, as I head upstairs.
We have socialized with Tina and her husband as part of a group, but we aren’t really friends with them. Long ago, we sat at the same table as Rick and Tina at a school ice cream social and Rick told a story about the time he and some friends stole a cow from a field and left it in the middle of their campus quad. Rick has wavy light brown hair and an unrelenting smile that challenges you not to smile back. He does something in IT and he usually dresses all in black, like a ninja. My wife laughed so hard at his story that she started gasping for breath and wiping the tears from her eyes. Tina turned to me and rolled her eyes, smiling her own weary smile. She did the same thing at the school carnival, when Rick and my wife dropped a large tray of pies he was helping her carry to the pie judging contest, then crawled around on the floor trying to salvage what they could, once again laughing riotously. “Always some new excitement,” Tina said quietly, watching them mop up lemon meringue.
Throughout my year or so of walks past Tina’s house, my feelings about her have changed. At first I was a little contemptuous of her, huddled alone in her nearly dark house with her wavy-haired husband who doesn’t seem to be home much. Because I’m not the only late-night prowler. Rick often goes out at night, taking the car on short drives. Running errands, gazing at the stars, getting high, having an affair? I have to wonder. Sitting in my own living room, I have seen his car cruising by, seemingly aimlessly, around our quiet streets. That’s when I began to question what Tina’s life was like.
What mistakes did she make to get herself here, with this guy who honestly seems like a bit of a dick? Couldn’t she have seen them coming? Those were my initial thoughts. But I relented a little as I got to know her rhythms and habits. She seemed like someone who was trying to catch up with her own world. I decided it’s possible to wake up one day and realize you’ve made a mistake but have no idea why or how. I’d bet that’s how Tina feels. You head off into the future, following the usual paths, and suddenly you are lost. Now with all I know, of course, I think of her as an ally, a friend, perhaps, even from afar. I have come to appreciate all we have in common, and what an important bond it is. The two of us, wry observers of the human comedy, no matter how often we might get knocked off our feet.
This shifting perspective on Tina is what I enjoy so much. I remember a line from a Carl Sandburg poem from school: “Night from a railroad car window/Is a great, dark, soft thing/Broken across with slashes of light.” Tina has been the evolving mystery—the dark, soft thing—and the way she looks to me is ever changing, based on the light in which I see her each time.
It is October when I head to her house one night on a mission. I am aware that she is out of town, visiting a younger sister in Ohio who just had a baby. I know because I overheard two women we know talking about Tina’s trip in the supermarket. I work at home, consulting on the minutiae of healthcare plans, so I have taken on the tasks of shopping and getting the girls to and from school. I do a pretty good job of gathering details on school gossip, the comings and goings of acquaintances and other news that I can use to entertain everyone at the dinner table each evening. So I know this night could be important.
My wife often pops out at night to run errands related to the kids’ school or volunteer boards she is on. It can often take her a while, chatting or discussing some important detail of whatever they are doing. On this autumn evening, she has stepped out to deliver some PTA paperwork to another mom, so there’s no one to know as I leave my empty house. The minute I get outside, I begin to feel lightheaded. The features of the streets between our houses seem to fade into the night air, passing me by without any effect or visible detail.
I get to Tina’s house and stand in the shadows of a tree across the street, as usual. I think there is a chill in the air and a light wind is rustling the leaf piles in the gutter. I look up and take in Tina’s house. As I had suspected, it is not Tina who is there tonight, it is my wife. She is standing in the living room with Rick, smiling as they talk, with her hands placed gently on his chest. They kiss, not like old friends, but like two people with an intimate association and a deep hunger for each other. He touches her hair, not with wonder but in a familiar, proprietary way. As they kiss, I know exactly how my wife’s mouth feels to him, how far her lips are open. I know what the scent of her makeup and her perfume and her perspiration are like in his nostrils. Although there is a great deal of passion in their embrace, they are moving slowly, savoring their chance. This is not their first time, in other words, maybe not even their tenth.
I realize I’m going to be sick. I let the dog lead me down the hill, out of sight of my wife and Tina’s husband. I find myself sitting on the sidewalk a few streets away from them. This is going to kill Tina, I think. I have come to know her so well, watching over her at night, wondering what she knows and what it means to her. I can tell she is a decent person and may not have known this was happening. I can imagine her feelings of betrayal, her sense of loss, her sense of being lost. I don’t know how she will recover from this. Maintaining control of myself, I hold my head in my hands and try to imagine what Tina will do now.
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