I called Pamela next even though my stomach tightened at the thought of her voice.
Straight to voicemail.
Her message was short and crisp.
“You know what to do.”
I stood on my own porch, locked out like a burglar, and felt something settle heavy in my gut.
This wasn’t a mix-up.
This was planned.
They had waited until I left town. They had packed my things. They had changed the locks. They had dumped my life beside a dumpster like I was an expired appliance.
My mouth tasted like rust.
I walked across the lawn to Simon’s house—my neighbor of eight years, retired and nosy as a cat. Simon noticed everything. He knew who got packages. He knew whose kids visited. He knew which cars were new and which marriages were unhappy.
If anyone had seen what happened, it was Simon.
I knocked three times. Sharp. Deliberate.
Footsteps came slow and cautious. The door opened only a crack and Simon’s weathered face appeared, his eyes flicking past me to the pile beside the dumpster.
“Simon,” I said, forcing the words out, “do you know what happened? All my stuff is out here and I can’t get into the house.”
His expression tightened. “Sorry, Otis. I haven’t noticed anything unusual. Maybe some kind of mistake.”
A mistake.
My jaw clenched. “That’s forty years of my life sitting next to the garbage. Someone changed my locks. You had to have seen something.”
Simon’s gaze darted away, focusing somewhere behind my shoulder. “I’ve been busy with my garden.”
The lie hung between us like smoke.
Simon had been retired for six years. His garden was a few tomato plants and a lawn he mowed twice a week. He spent more time at his window than in the dirt. He knew exactly what happened.
He just wasn’t going to touch it.
“Look,” he added quickly, as if he could cover guilt with politeness, “if you need somewhere to make phone calls or wait for your family, you’re welcome to—”
“Thanks,” I said, and my voice sounded like gravel. “But I’ll manage.”
He nodded too fast and closed the door.
The click of his lock felt like a second eviction.
I walked back to my pile of belongings. No neighbors came out. Curtains stayed drawn. The street was quiet in that suburban way that pretends it isn’t full of people watching.
I dragged an old aluminum lawn chair out of the heap, bent but usable, and set it down beside the biggest box.
Then I sat.
The air cooled as the afternoon bled into evening. Houses around me flickered to life—lights coming on, garage doors lifting, dinner smells drifting out. People lived their normal lives while mine sat in damp cardboard.
I checked my phone. No new calls.
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