Three things changed in my neighborhood in the same week.
The Garcias, two houses down, stopped waving. This sounds minor. It isn't. The Garcias have waved every time we've made eye contact for six years — Carlos and Maria, both of them, reflexively, the way people wave when waving is simply what you do. Then one Tuesday they stopped. Not just to me. I watched from my window. They stopped waving to everyone. They walked to their car looking at the ground. They came back from work looking at the ground. Maria stopped tending the garden she's maintained for as long as we've lived here.
The Rodriguezes' dog, two houses the other direction, stopped barking. This one I noticed because the absence of it was loud. Barkley — I've always called him that, I don't know his actual name — barked at everything. Cars, squirrels, wind. Then he stopped. Not sick-stopped. Not old-stopped. Just went quiet and stayed quiet.
Mrs. Patterson started sitting on her porch at night. Mrs. Patterson is seventy-three and has lived alone in the blue house across the street since her husband died in 2018. She goes to bed at 9 PM. I know this because her lights go off at 9 PM every single night. Then one night last week, her lights went off at 9 and I looked up from my desk at around 3 AM and she was sitting on her porch. In a chair. In the dark. Facing the street.
I told myself these things were separate. I told myself there were normal explanations.
Then I noticed the Garcias' upstairs window at 3 AM. The light was off but someone was standing in it. Looking out.
And Barkley — the dog — was in the Rodriguezes' front yard, sitting, facing the street. Not lying down. Sitting upright. Not barking.
Four houses on my street, all facing outward at the same time in the early hours of the morning.
I didn't open my own windows. I didn't turn on any lights. I sat in the dark and watched from inside and they stood and sat and stared for approximately forty minutes.
Then Mrs. Patterson went inside. Then the Garcias' light came on. Then Barkley lay down.
Normal morning.
The Garcias waved to me from their driveway. Like nothing happened.
I didn't wave back.