We have a neighbour who hasn’t left the house in years. We didn’t know that anything was wrong at first. Between COVID lockdowns and my natural introversion, it’s easy to miss what’s staring right at me. 

“Mario, he’s bad,” his wife Mina informed me last summer. She’s a short, strong woman—a cannonball in animal print tank tops and camo leggings. A compulsive over-sharer, it’s not uncommon for her to show up on our doorstep at holidays, a bag of treats for K in hand, and when asked how she’s doing, she’ll launch into a tearful diatribe of her problems: the granddaughter she never sees, the middle-aged son going through a messy divorce, who lives at the house and who doesn’t cut the grass when he should. The blind sister, who also lived with the family for a stretch, and who forced Mina to keep her beloved white cat locked in the basement.

“And Mario, he can’t do nothing,” she sobbed. “He’s got so much pain. I move him to the couch, and he stay there all day. I give him the pills and he don’t understand. He’s got dementia now. He can’t walk for months and months.” She broke down, then added, “There’s no joy in my life.” 

K appeared at my side then, asking who I was talking to as he squeezed between me and the front door. 

The truth is, she’s someone I’d like to help, but my fear of becoming entangled stops me. I’d bake a casserole if it didn’t mean having to invest myself emotionally. I admit this with slight shame, because I can’t help but think of what my dad would do in my shoes, how he would have seen to their lawn and put out their garbage each week—he’d do it without offering first, a well-meaning habit that could be downright infuriating at times. Still, I can feel him urging me to be a better neighbour, but I’m just not the kind of person he was. 

Since I last spoke to Mina, I sometimes catch Mario at the window, leaning heavily on the sill and staring out at the empty yard as if watching a prize fight.

—-

I’m playing with K in the snow, trying unsuccessfully to snap myself out of a funk. I’d rather be in bed with a book than outside, parenting. I’d like to slip into a self-indulgent wallow and never have to face another human again. The endless winter and a series of episodes at work have left me feeling at odds with myself, with the world.

I’m battling these thoughts and trying to keep up with K, but I’m pretty terrible at faking it. 

He launches a snowball that explodes in my face. A shock of outrage followed by irritation that I just can’t take the joke. We exchange a look—K frozen, with a hesitant smile, waiting for my reaction, and I long to tap out, I can’t handle my own power, so I smile weakly as I clear the ice from my face, wishing once again that I were the fun parent. I renew my efforts: I scrabble around on my hands and knees in the snow, growling like a dog.

A movement across the street catches my eye. Mario is in the window, watching us. He’s smiling, beaming out at us with clear recognition. He starts waving and my heart bolts to see him upright, coherent, grinning behind the glass in a shaft of sunlight. I wave back, and he immediately ups the ante, waving now with both hands, and I do the same, mirroring him and smiling goofily, and I can’t help myself, I’m a chuckling lunatic caught in a single moment of joy.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m waving at Mario. Look, he’s waving.”

K looks. Mario takes him in, and then, a single wave.

“Wave back,” I urge, “it’s OK.”

K scowls and leans into me a little, hesitant to play along. 

I look up. The window is empty, but for a slight sway in the curtains. The bright clarity of the moment has retreated back into the dark, and we’re left with the snow and the silent afternoon ahead.