He Said I Could Never Give Anyone a Family — Six Months Later I Was Pregnant With Twins, and He Turned White When He Learned Who My Neighbor Really Was

Chapter 3 — The Neighborhood Ghost

The cottage next door belonged to a man named Arthur Reed — a quiet veteran in his early sixties who walked with a cane and spoke to almost no one.

Julian called him the neighborhood ghost, and laughed about him, the way Julian laughed about anyone who did not perform importance the way he did.

Arthur had seen me, more than once over those three years, come home from an appointment with my eyes red and my shoulders down, sitting in my car in the driveway because I could not yet make myself go inside.

He had never asked me a single question about it.

He would lift a hand in a small, grave wave from his porch, and go back inside, and leave me my privacy, and I had been grateful for it in a way I could not have explained.