Patricia Whitaker turned again onto her side, finally resolving to get out of bed. After tossing and turning for most of the night, she had finally become fed up with her husband's loud snoring, which seemed to reverberate against the walls of their quaint suburban home's master bedroom.
She glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table (2:34 AM) as she toed on her fuzzy slippers and made her way down to the kitchen in search of a glass of water, the wooden stairs creaking slightly with each muffled step. She decided she would sleep in the guest bedroom for what few hours made up the rest of the night, and to finally talk to Mark in the morning about his detrimental nocturnal habits.
Soft moonlight poured in from the half-curtained window in the kitchen. As she steadily filled a clean glass with water from the tap, she noticed the porch light flicker on in front of her next door neighbor's house. If it was the same type that she and Mark had, then it turned itself on during the night whenever the sensor detected motion, as it apparently had just now.
Patricia didn't know her next door neighbor too well, to tell the truth (the one situated due east of her that is). His name was Dan (she couldn't remember his last name, it started with a "K" maybe? or a "C"?), he was middle aged, at least in his early fifties, younger than Mark and herself.
He apparently lived alone, so he was probably single (or more likely divorced, Patricia thought, basing the hunch on what she would call her own female intuition), and he must be retired. This last fact was evident from all the free time he seemed to posses spent working in his garden or on his front lawn. Actually, most of the short neighborly conversations they had shared over the past year since he had moved in had all been on the subject of gardening, a topic he seemed very well versed on. He also had once been a doctor or a surgeon if Patricia remembered correctly (he had once mentioned it offhand, before grimacing as if he had almost made a mistake). And he definitely owned at least one cat.
Her curiosity piqued, she peered through the window, which had a decent view of the adjacent front yard, and realized that the light had gone on because a man was standing there on the front porch, practically frozen, with a hand outstretched, poised, ready to knock. His glasses glinted, almost menacingly, reflecting the hazy yellow-green fluorescent bulb above.
The man, seemingly middle aged with a slight build, instead pushed the button for the doorbell, then crossed his arms and waited, glancing over his shoulder, agitatedly, at the vacant street.
Patricia was fully awake now, and seemed to take some strange fixation upon her neighbor's mysterious visitor. She thought it very odd for someone who seemed to never have house guests to suddenly have one at half past two in the morning, (and on a Wednesday as well).
Slowly, a few lights from inside Dan's house flickered on, one near the back, then another in the front of the home. Finally, after a tense moment of expectancy (on both Patricia's part and the visitor's) the door opened. She couldn't see Dan from her vantage point, only what she presumed to be his long shadow on the ground them.
From the visitor's immediate placating stance, his palms thrown up in appeasement, surrender, she could guess that Dan was probably very angry at him? Possibly because of the odd timing of his visit ? Or for some lingering reason beyond that? She could just faintly hear the sounds of their voices, muffled and incomprehensible through her the glass of the window.
Her neighbor stepped forward into the light and it became more clear that they were arguing. The visitor gestures to the door, he wanted to go inside, evidently, but the home's sole occupant wouldn't let him. As Dan straightened his shoulders and heightened his stance, aggressively blocking the doorway, Patricia could see see just how much taller he is than the visitor. If the whole scene weren't so strange, that aspect alone might have been comical.
They argue for a few more moments, the housewife next door is transfixed as Dan steps forward clutching at the visitor's white linen shirt, almost imperceptibly shaking him in anger or disbelief, the two men are practically nose to nose. Suddenly the visitor is burying his head in Dan's shoulder, (seeking what? forgiveness? refuge?) his knuckles white clutching the thin t-shirt fabric on his back. Dan looks surprised, still for a moment, before he, almost awkwardly, pats the visitor on the back.
All of a sudden Patricia felt intrusive, like she was seeing a private moment she shouldn't have witnessed.
As the two former partners entered the home next door, she made her way upstairs, and finally back to bed alongside her husband.