The woman stayed beside the dresser.
I could hear her moving papers around, then stopping to listen to the man on her phone.
I couldn't hear every word he said.
I was too afraid to shift my position, and the bed muffled some of the sound.
But I heard enough to understand that they were discussing something they both wanted.
The insurance endorsement.
That phrase kept running through my mind.
I had never heard Arthur use those words at home.
I knew he had paperwork connected to his life insurance, of course.
We had been married long enough for that to be ordinary.
But I had never imagined a document like that could be the reason someone would enter my house secretly.
The woman made a small, impatient sound.
“I've checked the drawers.”
The man answered, but I couldn't make out the entire sentence.
Then she said something about looking somewhere else.
I pressed my cheek closer to the carpet.
I wanted to hear more.
I wanted to know whether the man would say something only Arthur could know.
A name.
A memory.
Something about the house.
Anything that might turn what I was hearing into something I could understand.
Instead, there was a pause.
Then the woman asked a question.
“Are you sure he kept it here?”
The reply was too quiet for me to catch.
She sighed.
I heard another drawer open.
She was searching my belongings with the confidence of someone who believed she had a right to them.
That bothered me almost as much as the voice.
I had lived in that house for two years without Arthur.
I had paid attention to every object he left behind.
I knew which things I had packed away and which things I couldn't bring myself to move.
The woman was treating all of it as if it were a storage space she had visited many times before.
I had no idea who she was.
I couldn't see her face from beneath the bed.
I couldn't even tell how old she might be.
All I knew was that she had arrived with a key and had gone directly to Arthur's old documents.
I began to wonder whether she had been doing this for days.
Perhaps weeks.
Perhaps longer.
Mrs. Gable had mentioned three afternoons, but that didn't mean the woman had only started visiting three days earlier.
It meant those were the days my neighbor had noticed her.
The distinction frightened me.
I thought about the way I left for work every morning.
I thought about the quiet house I returned to each evening.
Had someone been walking through those rooms while I was downtown?
Had she been opening drawers, moving things, using the kitchen?
Had she touched Arthur's mug before putting it on the drying rack?
I couldn't prove any of it.
But I couldn't dismiss it anymore, either.
The woman stopped moving.
I heard her phone shift in her hand.
Then she spoke again.
“I can't find it.”
The man answered immediately.
His voice was still familiar.
Still close enough to Arthur's that I felt a physical ache in my chest.
I had heard that voice when I was sick and he brought me water.
I had heard it when we argued about small household expenses.
I had heard it in the mornings when he stood at the kitchen counter with his Seahawks mug and complained about the weather.
There was no single memory that made it his.
It was the accumulation of all of them.
The way he spoke.
The way he paused.
The slight impatience in his questions.
I had known him for years.
I couldn't simply decide that I no longer recognized him because I had been told he was dead.
The woman said something about returning later.
I couldn't hear his response.
Then the call ended.
For a few seconds, the room was quiet.
I thought she might leave.
Instead, I heard her close the dresser drawers one by one.
Some shut neatly.
One struck the frame with a harder sound.
She seemed irritated.
I could picture her standing there with her arms at her sides, staring at the furniture and trying to remember where else she might look.
I wondered whether she knew that Arthur's belongings had been arranged differently after his funeral.
I wondered whether she expected to find something hidden among the things I had kept.
Then her heels moved away from the dresser.
They crossed the carpet toward the reading chair.
I heard the handbag being lifted.
The sound of its strap brushing against the chair was small, but I noticed it.
I was paying attention to everything.
The woman walked toward the bedroom door.
I saw the black pumps stop near the threshold.
For one terrible second, I thought she had noticed something beneath the bed.
My thumb pressed against my phone.
I was ready to call for help.
Then she stepped into the hallway.
The door remained open.
I heard her footsteps move away.
They traveled down the stairs.
A moment later, the front door opened and closed.
I waited.
I did not move when I heard the lock turn.
I did not move when the house became quiet.
I stayed beneath the bed until I was certain she had gone.
Even then, I remained there for another few minutes.
I was afraid she might return for something she had forgotten.
Eventually, I pushed the bedspread aside and crawled out.
My legs felt stiff.
I had to sit on the edge of the mattress before I could stand properly.
The bedroom looked different now.
Not dramatically.
The dresser was still where it belonged.
The reading chair was empty.
The carpet was undisturbed except for the marks my own hands had left when I crawled out.
But the drawers had been opened.
Arthur's papers had been moved.
Someone had searched my room while I hid beneath the bed.
And I had heard my husband's voice.
I walked to the dresser.
My hands shook as I examined the drawers.
Several documents were no longer stacked the way I remembered them.
I tried to determine what had been moved, but I couldn't tell whether anything was missing.
I hadn't examined those papers recently enough to know every page by sight.
That realization made me feel helpless.
The woman had been looking for something specific.
I didn't even know what it looked like.
I went downstairs and checked the front door.
It was closed.
I checked the deadbolt.
Then I looked through the front window toward the street.
There was no sign of her.
I returned to the kitchen.
Arthur's Seahawks mug was still on the drying rack.
I picked it up.
For the first time since finding it, I didn't try to invent an explanation.
I stood there holding it, staring at the familiar logo.
I had spent two years telling myself that the objects he left behind were only objects.
They were reminders of a life that had ended.
Now I was beginning to suspect that somebody else had been keeping part of that life going without me.
I put the mug down.
Then I took out my phone and looked at the time.
I had been home for hours.
My office would have expected me to be working.
I couldn't imagine sitting at my desk and pretending to concentrate on ordinary tasks.
I needed to understand what I had heard.
But I had no proof that Arthur was alive.
I had only a voice.
A woman searching for a document.
And the knowledge that someone had used a key to enter my home.
I couldn't make a police report based on what I thought I had heard without being prepared to explain everything.
I couldn't confront Mrs. Gable with a story that sounded impossible.
I couldn't even tell myself with complete certainty what the voice meant.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I began looking through Arthur's old paperwork myself.
This time, I would pay attention to every page.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Papers She Left Behind Meant Nothing at First, Until I Realized She Had Been Searching for Something I Had Never Thought to Question
My Neighbor Said She Heard Someone Screaming in My Empty House, and I Had No Idea Who Could Be Inside
Part 5 of 12
