Mrs.

Alvarez from two houses down stood there with a covered casserole.

She was seventy-eight, sharp-eyed, and one of the few neighbors who had known Arthur longer than I had.

“I thought someone might be here,” she said.

I let her in.

She set the dish down and looked around the room with the expression people wear when they recognize the furniture but not the silence.

“He was a good man,” she said.