Page 11 of My Neighbor Literally Bites

"You fixed the lock," she says. "And didn't tell me I imagined someone in here. You have no idea what that's worth." She wraps both hands around her own mug. "Everyone in my old life had a very gentle way of telling me I was overreacting. You just—believed me."

"You weren't wrong to be afraid." The words come out rougher than I mean them.

She studies me, the tired stubbornness in her holding steady. "No. I wasn't."

The pull between us is physical, and the worst part is how easy it would be. To set the mug down. To sweep the hair from her face. My hand has actually started to lift before I close it into a fist and let it fall. She sees it. And instead of giving me the distance I am begging the universe for, she steps closer.

"Mom." Lily's voice drifts down from the open window above us. "If you two are going to stare at each other, do it quieter. Some of us have school."

Hannah laughs, short and surprised, and the moment loosens its grip on my throat. I place the mug on the rail.

"Go back to sleep," I suggest.

I am retreating toward my home while the sun rises. It's only gratitude, I tell myself. Gratitude is harmless. The bond, stirring like something waking, and the unsettling feeling of being a liar stays with me.

9

HANNAH

Theo arrives Saturday at seven with a level so old the bubble has gone amber. He stands in the garden with his boots planted in the wet grass, studying the leaning boundary wall like a man greeting an old grudge.

"Footing's gone," he says. "Told them it would happen when they reset this stretch in ninety-one."

"You worked on this wall?"

"Helped reset it once. Your grandmother paid in pie and arguments." He sets the level on a flat brick. "Mostly arguments."

He moves slow but nothing about him is uncertain, and when his thumb follows each mortar crack, it feels as though the wall might answer back. We start at the worst section, where the bricks have bowed toward my side and the frost has shoved the base out of line.

By eight, Alaric comes through the gate carrying a coil of string line, and enough quiet authority to annoy me before breakfast.

"The bottom row has shifted," he says, without preamble. "If we stack over it, the wall comes down again by next winter."

"Good morning, then."

"It isn't safe."

"You keep saying that." I fold my arms. "You've said it about the staircase, the door, the back step, and now the wall. At some point a person starts to wonder if you just like being right."

"I like this house standing." A pause. "And the people in it."

He says the second part quietly, like he didn't quite mean to, and then he's already setting Theo's level against the brick, rolling his sleeves. I should send him home. Instead I hand him a mason's chisel. It bothers me how quickly that feels normal.

Gregory used to do this differently. He would arrive with concern on his face, leave with my checkbook and my opinions, having decided what was best for me somewhere between the driveway and the kitchen. I could never tell the difference between being cared for and being managed.

Alaric isn't managing anything. He asks which section I want taken down first. He waits while I decide whether to keep the original bricks in their same order. When I say I want the wall rebuilt exactly as it was, even if it takes longer, he only nods and marks each one with chalk before lifting it free.

"You've done this before," I say.

"Once or twice."

"With walls older than this one?"

"More than a few." He sets the brick down with absurd care. "Older."

Theo snorts from the other end of the wall. "Don't let him fool you. Man stacks brick like he's asking permission from it."

"I stack brick," Alaric says, "like I'd prefer not to redo the work."