She’s like a ghost who haunts my house, leaving as small an impression as possible. She behaves as though she's running a calculation about how much space a person is allowed to occupy before they owe something for it.
I expected this behavior to an extent. The habit of smallness. A reflex worn so smooth by years of use that she probably doesn't know she's doing it.
What I didn't expect are her nightly habits.
She leaves.
She always comes back, but every night, past midnight, she slips out the front door and walks the neighborhood. I know this because I'm always watching. The feed from the exterior cameras shows her pulling the door shut with a careful, near-silent precision, then heading east toward the lakefront. Hands in her pockets. Head down. No destination.
Corcoran, one of the two men I put on her rotation, tracks her on foot at a far enough distance she doesn't notice. He texts me updates.
Last night she walked to the lake, sat on a bench for a while, then walked home. The night before last, she went into a twenty-four-hour diner, ordered coffee, sat for two hours, and left without incident. Once, she circled the same eight-block radius three times, then came home.
She's not meeting anyone. Not scoping exit routes or gathering resources. She's walking. Moving through the dark like she can't get comfortable inside four walls.
Four walls probably feel like a trap to someone who's spent years on the streets.
I don't tell her I know. I don't tell her about Corcoran. I allow it, because what's the alternative—lock her in? She’s not a prisoner.
What I do instead is adjust.
I’ve started eating later, so she can have the kitchen in the late afternoon without navigating around me. I announce myself when coming down the stairs—a cleared throat, a deliberate footfall—instead of moving the way I normally move, which is quiet by training. I no longer carry my weapon openly inside the house. The holster goes under my jacket or stays in the bedroom, because I noticed the way her eyes cut to it the first time she saw it on the kitchen counter.
Small modifications. I just want her to become more comfortable here.
I'm in my office working through warehouse logs when I hear the shower run. Her routine is reliable. Every late afternoon, she showers for about twenty minutes.
I take the stairs quietly and enter her bedroom. I don't know what I'm doing snooping like this. I don't know what I'm looking for, just something to help me understand my wife, the stranger who lives with me.
I find both the closet and the dresser drawers empty. My eyes catch on her duffel bag in a corner just under the window. It looks full. She hasn't unpacked her things?
But actually…
The bag looks larger than when she arrived.
That catches my attention. She came with almost nothing. Now the bag bulges. Does she think she’s stealing?
I shake my head. She doesn’t get it. Stealing implies a lack of ownership. As my wife, everything in this house belongs to her. She doesn’t need to steal what’s already hers.
Reilly's on Milwaukee is the only pawnshop in a four-block radius. I’ll give the old man a call and tell him to offer her three times the value for any item she brings in, and tell him I’ll cover the cost.
I crouch beside the bag and unzip it.
What I see floors me.
There are no valuables inside. No silver, no electronics, nothing with any resale value to speak of.
I stare at the contents for a long time.
Granola bars. Packets of trail mix. Protein bars. Small, portable, high-calorie food items with long shelf lives.
She's stockpiling.
This is another response to living on the streets.
She must be building a go-bag the way she's probably built several go-bags in her life, getting ready for the moment thisarrangement falls apart, and she has to survive again with nothing.
I stay crouched over the bag for a long moment. This is a trauma response that comes from knowing what true hunger is.
