My hands grip the edge of the seat.

“Is that what all those sirens were?” Sandrine asks casually. She doesn’t live there. Only knows me and a couple of people who are her clients.

“Yup. They rolled up to Jamel and Ashley Jones’s house and stormed in. Pulled up the floorboards in Preston’s room. The boy was moving weight, apparently. Felony weight.”

My stomach turns. “Preston Jones? That doesn’t make sense.”

I’m not gonna pretend I know anyone’s secrets, but his family is solid, does all right for themselves, and he seems to have a very definite idea of how he wants his life to turn out.

I can’t reconcile “moving felony weight” with the nerdy boy who regularly showed up at my door over the winter to see if I needed help shoveling, and who always has his face in his books. It isn’t that he’s “too smart” to sell drugs, but if he is involved in that, he’s too smart to be holding an amount that would jeopardize his future or put his parents in danger.

Denise shrugs. “Not a bit of sense. And no one was in the room when they found the drugs, either. Don’t change the fact that they arrested him a little while ago. He was crying like a baby. His mama is a mess.”

Part of me wants to get up and swing on her, going around telling the Joneses’ business to anyone who’ll listen. But when I glance at her in the mirror and see the red flush under her light brown skin and her wide eyes darting back and forth, the urge fades away. What is the proper response to seeing a child arrested? Another child, the umpteenth child, when you’ve lived here long enough. And worse, arrested for something you can’t be sure they actually did, even if they get found guilty?

Denise and Sandrine continue talking, but their conversation fades into the background as my breath starts to come fast and shallow.

The police came for Preston.

The knowledge that it can happen just like that, that they can show up and ruin your life, feels like an itch in the middle of my back that I can’t reach.

Sandrine rests a hand on my shoulder, stilling me. When she speaks, her voice is gentle. “I’m almost done.”

After what seems like eternity but is likely about twenty minutes, I’m out of the chair and marching back to Gifford Place.

When I get there, people are congregating in front of Mr. Perkins’s house.

“Do we know where Preston is?” Gracie Todd asks in her crisp Masterpiece Theatre accent. She’s pushing eighty and wearing a simple blouse and slacks, but with her elegant gray bob and fine bone structure, she looks like an aging Black starlet. “There’s no more cash bail, right? I saw that on the morning news show. Shouldn’t he be home soon?”

Mr. Perkins shakes his head. “They can still add bail for what they call major traffickers. And apparently whatever they found makes him a major trafficker, being held at major-trafficker bond amount.”

Rumbles of anger and disbelief roll through the small crowd.

“Were they wearing body cams?” I ask.

Mr. Perkins sighs heavily and Count whines at his feet. “Apparently, they forgot to turn them on.”

“Preston didn’t mess with no drugs, John,” Ms. Candace says, fury in her voice. “We all know that.”

“Yes, we all know that. Maybe the police know that, too. Doesn’t change a thing.” Mr. Perkins’s lips press together.

“How will they pay the bail?” I ask. “Can we raise money or something? GoFundMe?”

“When I left, they were on the phone with someone talking about the equity of their house.”

“That’s why 223 sold, you know,” Gracie says. “The husband got caught up in some charges, assault or something, before the bail reform. He was exonerated eventually, but they had to sell the house to pay for all the legal fees.”

Goose bumps rise on my forearms even though the midday sun is scorching and the humidity is strangling. I rub my palms over my arms as I worry my bottom lip. Something about this whole thing nags at me, but grief is running interference on my thought processes. Preston hasn’t died, and people are already coming together to figure out what to do, but this very well could be the wake for the boy’s future.

My chest hurts and my head is pounding from the tight braids and the sadness. Without saying anything, I step back from the crowd and head back to my apartment, wondering whether it’s too early to have some wine.

The answer is no.

Gifford Place OurHood post by Josie Ulnar:

I am not going to post about this again. Not picking up your dog waste is a fineable offense. I’ve filed reports and the police say they will be patrolling the area to keep an eye out for offenders.

Candace Tompkins: We have bigger issues in the neighborhood right now, like young men being falsely arrested. Why don’t you talk to your husband about this at home and keep it offline?

Josie Ulnar: I don’t need to talk to him. I know Terry feels the same way.

Candace Tompkins: smh

Asia Martin: welp

(17 additional comments . . . see more)

Chapter 6

Theo

WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON, I LIE IN BED ONLY slightly hungover but mostly wondering if the night before, after the meeting, was a weird dream. Kim, Terry, and Josie’s paranoia, the attack outside the old hospital.

One thing I didn’t dream was seeing Kim get into an Uber with an overnight bag. I should care where she went, but I really don’t. A relationship on the rocks is one thing, but paranoia that Mr. Perkins and the rest of our neighbors are plotting against us is entirely another. I can’t exactly use my mom’s technique and run off to a new town with this house partly in my name, though, so for now I have to wait and hope that this is just some weird phase Kim is going through, like when she became obsessed with hot yoga.

When I look out the window, there’s a cluster of people in front of Mr. Perkins’s house. This isn’t unusual, but their somber mood is. There aren’t any kids playing on the street, though at this time they might be at day camps or doing whatever else it is kids do at home in the summer. I spent most summers watching TV and waiting for my mother to get home from work.

I slip on shorts and a shirt, grab the duffel I usually take with me on my night walks, and shove my shower stuff into it with a change of clothes after placing the flashlight and gloves under my bed. I bypass Kim’s portion of the house without checking to see if she’s inside.

Instead of participating in the shower of shame, I decide to walk over to the local YMCA, where the annual membership I bought when we first moved in has been languishing for months.

When I cross the street to say hey to the group of neighbors, which includes several older people I’ve seen around the block but haven’t ever spoken to, the conversation goes quiet. Mr. Perkins gives me his usual hello, but his gaze isn’t as bright as it usually is, and worry brackets his eyes.

I leave.

I spend an hour on the treadmill, watching the various people in the gym: young kids heading to the pool for lessons, middle-aged guys lifting weights with friends, a group of older women heading into a fitness class. The guy on the treadmill next to me forgets his iPhone X, and jogs back to grab it right as my treadmill cooldown finishes.

I have to wear flip-flops when I head into the shower, but I also don’t feel as if the pounding spray is reminding me what a loser I am. If I needed a reason to start hitting the gym daily again, I guess I’ve found it.

Or maybe you’re trying to lose the dad bod for a certain neighbor.

I ignore inconvenient thoughts of Sydney while showering in public, then towel off and head to my locker. The elastic of my boxers has just snapped around my waist when I whip my head to the right, my body reacting to some disturbance in the force before my mind does. There’s a guy sitting farther down on the bench where I’ve laid out my clothes, looking up at me with a goofy grin—he has trendily messy hair and thick stubble that makes me itchy just looking at it.

I look away from him and grab my gray sweatpants.

“Hey, bro,” he says. “You live on Gifford, right?”

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and realize I’ve seen this big head and square jaw before. “Yeah. You worked at the real estate place, right?”

“Right.” His smile grows wider. “I was just office staff back then. Made copies of your papers and stuff while you were closing on the house. Full-fledged agent with all the benefits now, though.”

I slip on my T-shirt, partly to mask what is probably a look of pure WTF on my face. That was one of the things Kim had liked about me at first that had later grown to annoy her when we went to her fancy work parties. “Can’t you even pretend to be interested? You’re so bad at faking! Like, god, have you ever even won a poker game?”