Chapter 28
A year later, almost to the week, the block had a cookout.
It was Linda Porter's idea. She'd started it in the spring β a monthly thing, last Saturday, everybody brings something, no agenda, no minutes, no committee. Just food and folding chairs and the particular chaos of a neighborhood remembering how to be one.
This one was in July. Hot, obviously. The kind of hot that used to terrify me.
I brought peppers. A whole tray of them β bells sliced for the burgers, jalapeΓ±os in a bowl with a little handwritten sign that said "Scott's trap peppers." The kid from two doors down saw the sign and pointed at me and yelled, "I'm not falling for it again!" His mother laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Walter Brooks was on grill duty, which mostly meant standing near the grill with tongs and giving orders. Diego Ramos had brought his whole family β his wife, his mother-in-law, three kids who immediately claimed the sprinkler.
And then there was the new family.
They'd moved into Gloria's old house in December, right before Christmas. I'd watched the moving truck from my window and told myself I'd go over and introduce myself, and then I didn't, because some part of me was still working up to it.
Their names were Claire and Ben. She was a nurse, he taught middle school math. They had twin boys, maybe six, identical except one had a chipped front tooth. And a golden retriever named Biscuit who decided within four minutes that the cookout was his personal event.
I was refilling the pepper tray when Claire walked over.
"You're Scott," she said. "The pepper guy."
"That's me. You're Claire. The new neighbors."
"The very new neighbors. Seven months in and I still get lost in my own hallway." She smiled. "Ben told me about β well. About what happened here. Before us."
I nodded. Everybody on the block knew. It wasn't a secret; it was practically local history now.
"I want you to know," Claire said, "we had no idea. About any of it. The house was just β it was in our price range, and the yard was good for the dog, and the twins needed a place with a street they could ride bikes on."
"You don't have to explain," I said. "It's a good house. It deserves people who actually want to live in it."
Ben came over then, with one twin on his shoulders and Biscuit's leash in his hand.
"Scott," Ben said. "Hey. We've been meaning to come by. We keep saying, this weekend, we'll go say hi to the guy across the β"
"You're here now," I said. "That counts."
The twin on his shoulders leaned down and stared at me. "Are you the hammer man?" he asked.
The table went quiet. Claire's face went red.
"Honey, no β we talked about this β"
"It's okay," I said. I crouched down so I was eye level with the kid. "No. I'm the opposite of the hammer man. I'm the guy the hammer man tried to visit."
"Did you win?" he asked.
"I kept my house," I said. "That's winning enough for me."
Ben shifted the kid to his other shoulder. "Listen, Scott. We love it here. The street, the people β Linda's already roped Claire into some kind of garden thing. We just wanted you to know we're β we're good neighbors. Or we're going to try to be."
I looked at them. Claire, a little nervous. Ben, earnest. The twins, already bored with the adults and eyeing the sprinkler. Biscuit, asleep under the table with his head on somebody's cooler.
And I thought about what to say. About Gloria's empty house filling up with noise again. About the way a street heals when the right people move into the wrong history.
"You'll be fine here," I said. "Long as nobody walks into my yard carrying a hammer, we'll get along just fine."
Ben laughed β a real one, relieved. Claire put her hand over her mouth.
"Deal," Ben said. "No hammers. I swear on the dog."
"Biscuit accepts," I said, and the kid with the chipped tooth giggled.
Later, after the food, after the sprinkler wars, after Walter burned exactly one batch of burgers and blamed the tongs, I sat on the curb with a paper plate and watched the twins chase Biscuit across Gloria's old yard β their yard now. The sun was going down. Somebody had a radio playing low.
Claire sat down next to me. "Thank you," she said. "For not making it weird."
"It was weird," I said. "It's just β it's a good weird now."
She smiled. "The house feels happy. I don't know how else to say it. Like it was waiting for us."
I thought about that for a long time after she said it. The house, waiting. Maybe that was true. Maybe houses know when they're done being battlegrounds.
The cookout broke up around nine. I walked home with an empty pepper tray and a full stomach, and the new AC hummed me to sleep before midnight.
No hammer. No heat. Just July, doing what July does, and a street full of people who'd finally learned the difference between a neighbor and an opportunity.