“You’re going over there again?” she asked one morning, half-teasing, half not.
“It’s an hour. Maybe two.”
We said almost nothing.
“You’re really going to keep doing this every week? For years?” my wife asked.
“Ezra doesn’t have anyone else,” I protested.
Claire softened then, the way she always did, and handed me a tin of the cookies she’d baked the night before.
“Take these to him. And tell him I said hello.”
I did.
***
Ezra held the tin as if it were something precious and asked me three times to thank her.
That was the Sunday he mentioned Marcus again, the one who only called when something was wrong with his car, his rent, or some scheme that needed a small loan.
“Take these to him.”
“Marcus came by last month,” Ezra said, stirring his coffee in slow circles. “Asked me what I was planning to do with the house.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“I told him I was planning to keep living in it.”
He smiled at that, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. I left it at that.
I left that afternoon thinking I should bring Claire and introduce her properly. Ezra would’ve liked that, but I never got the chance.
“What did you tell him?”
***
I noticed the porch light first.
It was the following Sunday, a bright October morning, and my neighbor’s porch light was still burning at 9 a.m. Ezra never left it on past sunrise. He was particular about things like that, the small habits of a man who’d lived alone too long.
I stood on my driveway with the newspaper in my hand and stared at that yellow bulb glowing against the daylight. Something felt wrong, but I told myself he’d just forgotten and that I’d mention it when I dropped off the groceries.
I noticed the porch light first.
I went inside to finish my coffee and read the headlines, but I couldn’t focus.
***
By noon, the ambulance pulled up to Ezra’s house. When I went out, a neighbor across the street told me what I already knew. Ezra had passed away in his sleep. Peacefully, they said. He was 84 years old, and I was 40.
I stood on his lawn for a long time after everyone left, looking at the porch light somebody had finally switched off. Claire found me there an hour later and didn’t say anything. She just took my hand.
The ambulance pulled up.
***
The funeral was smaller than I had expected. Much smaller.
A handful of distant acquaintances stood near the back, a tired pastor read from a worn book, and I kept thinking about how Ezra had deserved a fuller room than that.
Across the aisle, one man stood out. He wore a sharp dark suit and kept glancing at his phone, his thumb moving as if the service were an inconvenience.
When the service ended, I was about to leave when the man walked straight toward me.
One man stood out.
“You must be the grocery guy,” he said, offering a hand that felt more like a transaction than a greeting. “I’m Marcus, Ezra’s nephew.”
“Anthony,” I replied. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He gave a thin smile.
“Sure. Over a decade of Sunday visits, huh? That’s a lot of free time to invest in an old man.”
I felt my jaw tighten, but I kept my voice level.
“He was my friend.”
“Right,” Marcus looked past me toward the casket. “Well, friend or not, the house is going on the market fast. I’ve already got someone interested. No point in letting it sit.”
“You must be the grocery guy.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell if it was grief or anger making my hands cold, but I knew Ezra wouldn’t have wanted a scene at his own funeral.
His nephew leaned in slightly.
“You know, people get attached to lonely old folks for all kinds of reasons. I hope your reasons were the good kind.”
“I never took a dollar from him,” I said quietly.
“That’s what they all say.”
My late neighbor’s nephew walked off before I could reply, already lifting his phone to his ear as if the conversation had never mattered.
“That’s what they all say.”
I stood and watched the last few mourners drift toward the parking lot. I was about to leave again when another man stepped in front of me, holding something at his side.
“Are you Anthony? The neighbor who used to help Mr. Harrison?”
I nodded.
“I am Mr. Whitman. I was Ezra’s lawyer.”
He brought up his other hand, and I saw what he was carrying. It was an old, battered suitcase, the leather worn pale at the corners and the latches dull with age.
“Are you Anthony?”
“Mr. Harrison specifically instructed me to give this to you,” Mr. Whitman said. “His words were very clear. It had to be private and for you only.”
