“I design w—”
But before she could finish, a scream rent the air.
“What the hell?” the man said, his head snapping to the side, out toward the inky-black no-longer night.
Nora couldn’t help it.
She laughed.
He looked back up at her, his hand coming to his chest again, that same gentle rub over his heart. Easily startled, this tall, handsome, bespectacled man, and she was so . . .delightedby that. So thoroughly, completely charmed.
“It’s a cat,” she said, the laugh still in her voice. “A stray. Probably one of the big toms.”
Her laughter faded as she realized something. She hadn’t heard them in a couple of weeks, not since . . .
“Donny,” she blurted.
The man on the balcony dropped his hand away from his heart.
There was a long, awkward pause, during which Nora’s soul certainly left her body.Not sticking around for this!it probably said, adding a cheerful wave as it went.
She cleared her throat. “He—um. He used to put food out for them.”
The pause that followed was even longer. Even awkward-er. What a terrible way to bring up the condolences conversation.
The man turned his head again, out toward the yard, out toward where the frustrated feline scream had come from, his hands curling around the balcony railing again, as though he needed to ground himself. She was desperate to say something,anything, but she also wanted to give him a minute, if he needed it. God knows she’d needed a lot of minutes, over the last few months. That’s what 4:00 a.m. was good for, wasn’t it? The poor guy.
It nagged at her, a little, that she’d never seen him before, never heard Donny mention him. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Donny wasn’t a talker, wasn’t a sharer, not even with Jonah, whom he’d known the longest. And he’d worked up until the day he died, leaving every weekday morning at seven and not returning until five thirty. He had a whole life away from here that Nora didn’t know about. Maybe he knew tons of people, but just never brought any of them to the building.
“Did there used to be a tree out there?” the man on the balcony said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Yeah,” she said automatically, her eyes going immediately out to its former spot. “We had to have it removed a couple of months after I moved in last year.”
She’d been devastated, getting that tree cut down. Her first official act as the building’s association president, and it’d felt foreboding, damning, especially so soon after Nonna had passed.I don’twantto do it, she’d told everyone, afraid of what they’d think.I wish I could keep it exactly as it is.But it’d been rotten to the core, that tree, and frankly they’d been lucky it hadn’t fallen on its own. In the end, she’d watched it come down—a whole day of chain saws running, men in truck lifts, wood shavings in the air like snowfall. She hadn’t cried, but she’d really, really wanted to.
“Wait,” she said, realizing that she’d neglected the most important part of what he’d said. She looked back down, found him watching her. “You’ve been here before?”
“Once. When I was a kid.” Something had changed in his voice, though she wasn’t sure she could’ve said what. Maybe it was that theairwas changing all around them—the sky lightening, the predawn pitch transforming into a velvet blue-black. She knew it well enough to know: golden hour, almost over.
He cleared his throat. “He was my uncle.”
Nora blinked down at him, shock and relief coursing through her. So itwasa relative, then.Loyalty!Nonna was saying smugly, from somewhere, but it also wasn’t really the time to be counting chickens.
“I’m so sorry,” Nora said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The man dropped his head, something like a nod of acknowledgment, or maybe some kind of bow of respect for the mention of Donny. Inside her chest, she felt her heart squeeze in sympathy, in recognition.
I hate that I’m all the way up here, she thought, though definitely being down there would be weird. What would she do, hug him? Without a bra on? Disastrous. Extremely inappropriate! Nonna, obviously, would never.
“I didn’t know him very well,” he said, andthere. . . there she could’ve said what. His voice sounded a little clipped. A little frustrated.
A little . . . disloyal.
No, Nora, she told herself.That’s only your 4:00 a.m. fretting talking.He’s probably still in shock, same as you.
Below her, the man reached up, scratched at that same spot on his chest. He cleared his throat again. “Do you like it here?”
Did she . . .likeit?
