He was still thinking about Ryan’s narrative campaign when he turned off the kitchen light. He was going to have to do something about it. Not much, not dramatically, but something. He just needed to figure out what. The answer came to him unexpectedly two days later. At the mailbox.
He was collecting the mail on a Tuesday morning when Linda Okapor from three houses down walked by with her dog, an enormous golden retriever named Biscuit, who approached every human being on Earth with the same unbridled enthusiasm, as if every person was specifically the person he’d been waiting his whole life to meet. Biscuit immediately put his entire enormous head into Ethan’s hip and Ethan scratched his ears. “Sorry,” Linda said, pulling the leash slightly. “He has no personal boundaries.” “Neither did most of my teammates,” Ethan said. “I don’t mind.” Linda laughed.
She was in her mid-sixties, retired, sharp in the way that people who’ve been paying attention their whole lives get sharp. She’d lived on this street for twenty-two years. She knew everything. She glanced toward Ryan’s house. “You know,” she said carefully. “I heard some things.” “I heard you might have,” Ethan said. She looked at him directly. “The things I heard don’t match what I see when I watch you. And I’ve been watching people on this street for a long time.” He held her gaze. “I appreciate that, Linda.”
“Ryan’s charming,” she said. “His father’s more charming. I’ve met men like that before. My late husband used to say, be careful of people who spend a lot of energy making sure everyone likes them. That’s usually not about connection, that’s about control.” “Your husband was a smart man,” Ethan said. He was. A brief flash of something in her eyes. Grief and pride in the same instant. “You have anything you want me to know? Anything that would help me understand the real picture?”
He thought about it. “Ryan scratched my truck,” he said. “I can’t prove it. I’m not asking you to believe it or do anything about it. I just wanted you to know it happened.” Linda looked at him for a long moment. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you for telling me.” Biscuit made a sound of profound disappointment when Ethan stopped scratching his ears. “Good dog,” Ethan told him. He went inside.
He had no idea what Linda would do with that information. Maybe nothing. But he had put one true data point into the neighborhood’s social system quietly and without drama and that was enough for now.