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I march around the front of the house and thump the bin onto the porch, whirling with my hands on my hips to decide where to start, my chest heaving as I struggle to control my angry breaths.
A car drives past slowly, windows rolled down to check out our lights, then another. And beyond them, the warm light shines from the windows of the houses across the street, most of them trimmed with single strands along their eaves and occasionally around the doors and windows.
Damn right we don’t fit their aesthetic.
But as I stoop to unlatch the lid of the bin, I pause, then straighten. That had been a long list of names on the petition. Most of the street, I would guess. Do I really want to antagonize all of them by doubling down?
If it were just for me, YES.
But I don’t want their disdain to bounce back on Evie.
I push the bin aside with my foot and slowly head back into the house, picking up the petition, reading through the names. Do I want to make this a list of enemies my first month in our house?
My eyes fall on the final name on the list, and my breath catches. The neat black letters strike me with the force of a gut punch.
The final signature belongs to Henry Hill.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Henry
IwatchConnieandWalt march up Paige’s front walk, and I pause, stuck between the kitchen and the living room with a hot bowl of soup in my hands.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have signed it. But when they knocked on my front door yesterday, I had to agree that their requests were more in keeping with the tone of Orchard. And furthermore, I’d told Paige all of this. I told her before she even bought the house.
Yes, Evie’s excitement over each new feature was hard to resist.
But the rubbernecking traffic is annoying, and it will only escalate to miserable as the word gets out and more and more people crowd Orchard.
A glance to the street and the cars already rolling past firms my resolve.
We deserve to have our peace and quiet.
I sit on my sofa, eat my soup, and listen to the silence in my house. It’s been louder this week.
“Everything okay, Henry?”
I look up at Leigh who I have once again failed to notice come into the office.
Too distracted by thoughts of Paige. Of her smothering her laughter in the bathroom. Thoughts of the satisfaction I felt when I signed that petition. Thoughts of how satisfied I tried to feel as I watched the neighbors march it to her door.
Thoughts of how that moment wasn’t satisfying at all.
I’m trying to label the feeling I’ve had since watching them arrive and leave instead, and I’ve narrowed it down to one I don’t like: shame.
“Henry?” Leigh prompts me again.
I shake my head, embarrassed. “Sorry. A lot on my mind.”
“You’ve been pretty distant this week. Anything you want to talk about?”
I’m about to say no out of habit, but I pause. I’ve got a trained psychologist sitting in front of me, someone whose job it is to make sense of behaviors that don’t make sense to the rest of us civilians.
“Can I ask for your opinion on something? Your professional opinion?”
She leans back in her chair, her posture relaxed. “Sure.”
“I’ve been having issues with my neighbor. We’ve had a few disputes about her aesthetic choices.” Leigh’s lips twitch at this but she says nothing, and I continue. “However, lately we’d been getting along. A truce of sorts. We’ve even broken bread together, as it were.”
