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As I’m walking home from the train station after a day of work, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

It’s been a week since Krista moved out. In the days after she left, I sent her roughly a billion text messages and voicemails. She sent me one single text, asking me to give her some space, and I then proceeded to send her another billion text messages and voicemails. I’m having a lot of trouble playing it cool. I just want her back.

Every time my phone rings, I’m hoping it’s her. So I can’t say I’m not disappointed when I pull out my phone and “Dad” is flashing on the screen. But I haven’t talked to my father in weeks, maybe longer, and it hits me right now that I desperately want to see him and hear his voice. I have no friends at my new job because Kenny told everyone about my history, and nobody from my old job still speaks to me. Which means there isn’t anyone I’ve been able to talk to about what happened between me and Krista. Not even Goldy.

I swipe to take the call, and there’s a squeezing sensation in my chest as my father’s familiar voice fills my ear: “Blake! You picked up!”

That squeezing sensation gets even tighter. “I always pick up. If I’m free.”

“Sure,” he says. “It’s okay. I know you’re busy, Blake.”

Great, he knows I dodge his calls. Well, I’m not going to anymore. I’m going to quit being such a shitty son. When my father calls, I’m going to pick up the phone. Most of the time anyway.

“So how is it going?” he asks me. “How is the new job?”

“Fantastic,” I lie.

“That’s wonderful,” he says, and it’s a tribute to him that he sounds like he actually means it. “And how is Krista?”

“She’s…” I almost lie again, but then I realize this is my dad I’m talking to. Why pretend? Who am I trying to impress? “She moved out.”

“Aw, Blake.” His voice lowers a few notches. “I’m really sorry to hear that. She seemed like a nice girl, and I know you liked her a lot.”

Liked her a lot? She was the one . And Whitney ruined it.

“Yeah,” I manage.

“What happened?”

I swallow a lump that always seems to pop up in my throat when I think about Krista. “She thinks I cheated on her.”

And she thinks I murdered her fish. I’ll leave that part out though.

“Did you?” he asks.

“No!” I can’t believe he would ask me that. “She just got this idea in her head. None of it is based on reality, but she doesn’t believe me.”

“Well,” he says, “if you didn’t even do the thing that she accused you of, why don’t you win her back?”

“Believe me, I’m trying.” Krista hasn’t blocked me yet, but if I keep sending her this many text messages, that is the next thing coming. “She says she needs space.”

My father is quiet, thinking this over. I’m waiting to hear what he has to say. The funny thing is, even though I don’t talk to my father much, he gives great advice. He’s a smart guy. He was married to my mother for nearly thirty years when she died, and even though they had their financial problems and he couldn’t give her everything I thought she deserved, they were always really happy together.

Maybe my mom didn’t get her dream house and sometimes the electricity went out, but she was content. She gave me a wonderful childhood, full of camping trips and home-cooked dinners and treasure hunts for fireflies. And when the cancer finally got the best of her, she died in her own home, with my father holding her hand. Maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong.

“If she asks for space,” Dad says, “you need to give it to her. She knows you love her. I think at the end of the day, she’ll come back to you.”

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 cans are 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.

My next stop is the kitchen, which is even smaller than mine. Unlike mine, it hasn’t been renovated, and the gas stove has a layer of brown crust over it that makes me think it hasn’t been used in a long time. But what disturbs me about the kitchen is what is on the kitchen counter.

A glass of water, filled to the brim. And a sandwich on whole wheat bread, carefully sliced in half.

It seems weird for a person to make himself lunch, then leave it on the kitchen counter while he goes out shopping. Or even take a nap. No, my neighbor made himself a sandwich with the intention of eating it. And then for whatever reason, he didn’t.

“Mr. Zimmerly?” I call out again.

Shit.

I stumble out of the kitchen, my head spinning. I should definitely call the police at this point. After all, I have ample evidence that something is amiss. I’ll have to explain to them what I’m doing here, but it’s not like I came here to rob him. I only entered his house because I was worried.

I reach into my pocket for my phone, and just as my fingers close around it, I notice the light is on in the downstairs bathroom.

The door is slightly cracked open, and a wedge of yellow light peeks out. Mr. Zimmerly is not the sort of man who leaves a room without turning off the light. If the light is on in the bathroom, he must still be in there.

I creep in the direction of the bathroom. When I get to the door, I hesitate, listening for any sounds from inside.

No. Nothing.

Although I guess he could be on the toilet.

“Mr. Zimmerly?” I say one last time.

I reach out to knock on the door, but because it’s already cracked open, the door shifts. The hinges protest as it swings entirely open, revealing the contents of the small bathroom, and the foundation trembles as I let out the loudest scream this brownstone has heard in years.