Page 50 of The Tenant
I can’t help but think about another piece of advice he gave me after I lost my job. He told me I should come back home to Cleveland and bring Krista with me. If I’d taken that advice, none of this would be happening. I’d be living in my hometown with my soon-to-be bride, and we’d probably be house hunting right now.
I wonder if it’s too late for that dream to come true.
“I was also wondering,” Dad says, “if you were planning to come home for Thanksgiving this year?”
Oh right. Thanksgiving is in only two weeks, but it’s been the last thing on my mind. Most years, I work right through the holidays, and I haven’t been back to Cleveland for Thanksgiving in…well, a long time. But I suddenly feel a desperate urge to see my father and my childhood home.
And the bonus is I’ll get a break from Whitney too.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I’ll be there.”
“That’s great!” I can’t see his face, but I can hear his smile. “I’ll start working on the menu right now.”
My father is rambling something about yams and cornbread stuffing when I turn the corner to get onto my block and stop short. Something I see shakes me to my very core. I blink my eyes, certain this must be some kind of mirage, because what I’m looking at simply isn’t possible. I am even more stunned than I was when I found those rotting fruit in my kitchen cabinet. For a moment, I feel my heart stop.
It’s the end of the day on trash day, and Mr. Zimmerly’s trash cansare still at the curb.
“Dad,” I say. “I have to go.”
“Sure,” he says. “Hang in there, Blake. I know you’ll get her back.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
I hang up the phone just as I come to a halt in front of my house. I thought it might have been some sort of mirage, but now that I am closer, I can plainly see Mr. Zimmerly’s regular trash and recycling bins still at the curb, even though they have been emptied and it’s nearly 5:30.
Oh, I am going to enjoy rubbing this in his face.
I take a minute to drag my own trash bin back behind my house, just so I can clearly demonstrate that I have the moral upper hand here. Mr. Zimmerly still has not come out to grab the trash, so I march up the steps to his front door.
I ring the doorbell, listening as the chimes echo throughout his house. I wait for his shuffling footsteps behind the door, and when I don’t hear them, I ring the doorbell a second time. And then I pound on the door for good measure.
After a good minute has passed, there is still no sign of Mr. Zimmerly. I don’t hear anything either. Could he be traveling? I suppose that’s possible, but he did put the garbage bins out last night. It seems strange that he would have put his garbage out and then left town.
Maybe he’s napping. Old people nap all the time, don’t they? And Mr. Zimmerly is very old.
Christ, I hope he’s okay.
I almost turn around to go back home, but then on a whim, I try the doorknob. And it turns in my hand.
It’s a bad idea to enter his house. Mr. Zimmerly and I are not the best of friends, to put it mildly. But the truth is I’m worried about him. Failing to take his garbage cans off the curb after garbage day is shockingly unusual behavior for him. I could call the police and let them know my concerns, but given that I only saw him yesterday, they might not have cause to investigate yet on the basis of a couple of empty garbage bins. And by the time they do, it might be too late.
What if he’s lying on the floor of his bedroom with a broken hip? No, he isn’t my favorite person in the world, but the idea of him lying helpless and injured somewhere gives me a pang in my chest. Despite what Krista and Whitney seem to think, I’m a decent person. If Mr. Zimmerly needs help, I should try to help him.
I’m going in.
I crack open the door, pausing for the sound of a dog or some other animal coming at me. Even though I’ve never heard any barking coming from the house next door, nothing would surprise me at this point. But when I get inside, I am met with only silence.
“Mr. Zimmerly?” I call out.
No answer.
I have lived here for nearly a year now, and I have never been inside Mr. Zimmerly’s house before. He never invited me, and I never bothered to try to get to know him. But when I get inside his house, it’s clear to me that he doesn’t have many visitors. The furniture in his living room looks old and dusty, as if nobody has been in the room for years, even though he obviously lives here. I pass by his mantel, which is full of black-and-white photos in metal frames, also covered in a layer of dust. My eyes linger briefly on what appears to be a wedding photo from a time long before digital cameras. There’s also an antique clock that looks remarkably like the one we have in our kitchen, although it seems to have stopped working, the hour and minute hands frozen at eleven and eight.
“Mr. Zimmerly?” I say again.
As I walk through the living room, stepping over a stiff brown rug, a voice in the back of my head tells me that I should turn around and leave. I am essentially trespassing in my neighbor’s house. And from the stillness around me, I sense that the house is empty at this moment. If he went out grocery shopping and returns to find me here, he’s going to be furious. He might call the police himself.
Yet I don’t leave.
