What Has a Name
Five houses. Four families. One thing nobody on the street talks about.
By November, the For Sale sign in the yard of number six had come down. Nora’s brother had wanted a quick sale, but Nora had not, and for the first time in their lives, her quiet refusal had been the heavier argument. The leaves from the single oak on the asphalt bulb were gone, and you could see the new corner of the Halvorsens’ fence from the street. Three new cedar panels, four new posts, and a patch of dormant grass where the surveyor’s flags had been. The work had taken a single Saturday morning, and Dale Halvorsen had done it himself.
Karen Halvorsen had started nodding to Nora when she saw her get the mail. Not waving, just a short, sharp dip of the chin that was more an acknowledgment than a greeting. One Tuesday, a loaf of banana bread appeared on the porch of number six in a plastic bag, still warm. There was no note. Nora ate a piece of it standing at the kitchen sink, looking out at the five houses of Briar Lane, and then put the rest in the freezer.
The day before she left, Nora went over to number two. Marjorie Ptak had the door open before she was on the porch steps. The kitchen table had its plastic cloth, and the same store cookies were on the same plate. They sat and talked about the weather, which was turning colder, and the fact that the couple with the basketball hoop were finally painting their trim.
“They moved the fence, then,” Marjorie said, not as a question. She looked out her own kitchen window toward the Halvorsens' yard. “It’s better when a line is where it’s supposed to be.” Nora asked if she thought it was the right story, the one about the dog. Marjorie took a cookie and broke it in half. “It’s a story,” she said. “It’s easier to live next to a story than a secret. People know what to do with a story.”
Nora walked back across the street in the deep blue of a late autumn afternoon. The houses were beginning to show their lights. She found herself watching for the Halvorsens, but saw nothing. The fence stood, a clear line against the darkening lawn. She let herself into number six, her footsteps loud in the empty rooms. She was not selling. She was not ready to let the quiet in the house become permanent.
In the hallway, she looked at the labels her mother had made for the light switches. HALL. BACK PORCH. She paused at the last one: THE ONE THAT DOES NOTHING. She flicked it up, then down. Nothing happened. The house remained still. Then, from the kitchen, the refrigerator hummed to life, a low, steady sound filling the space. It was just the noise a house makes, waiting for someone to come home.
“It’s easier to live next to a story than a secret.”
Otherwise Ordinary publishes original fiction and invented reporting. Names, places and businesses in this piece are made up.
