Ever since I moved in, a man named Jeff has lived in the other half of my duplex. He is short and bald with a neat ginger-colored beard, and the most personal fact I know about him is that he doesn’t feel the cold. He wears short-sleeved shirts all year round. When he is inside, I rarely hear a sound from him through our shared walls: no music, no television. Once I did hear him crying out, as if in anguish, “But that’s not the way you do it!” Do what? But I was only mildly intrigued. I didn’t care enough to actually have a proper conversation or make eye contact with him.

If we see each other at the letterbox or walking in and out of our front doors, we both immediately speed up and walk away fast like we have suddenly remembered we are running very late, or we develop an intense interest in one of the letters we have just received, tearing it open as if it’s of the utmost importance. We call out things in a distracted busy tone like, “Hot, isn’t it?” and “Cold, isn’t it?” or if the weather is difficult to label, “How are you?” and we never wait for the other person to answer because we don’t care about the answer. Sometimes in my head I answer: Still obsessively stalking my ex-boyfriend, grieving for my dead mother and suffering unexplained leg pain, thanks, how about you?

So, yes, Jeff is the perfect neighbor for a duplex. We have managed to live next door all these years, and collect each other’s mail when one of us is away, and negotiate shared issues about garbage collection and lawn mowing, while maintaining the most delightfully superficial of relationships.

And then today, when I’d just got home from collecting the car from the mechanic, Jeff suddenly marched up to me and stood far too close. I tried to take a discreet step backward. “Hi, Saskia,” he said. I think this was the first time he’d ever used my name.

“Hi, Jeff,” I said. Likewise.

“I wanted to let you know that I’m moving,” he said. “I’m having a sea change.”

“Sea change,” I repeated.

“Yes, I’m moving to a little town down the south coast. I’m going to run a café. I’m calling it Jeff’s Jetty Café.”

I was stunned. I’m not sure why. I think I just never expected him to be important enough to make any significant changes in his life, but of course, he doesn’t know that he’s only a minor character in my life. He’s the star of his own life and I’m the minor character. And fair enough too.

“It’s not on a jetty, but I’m going to give it a jetty sort of look. Ropes and anchors and … buckets, that sort of stuff.” A flash of uncertainty crossed his face. He has no idea what he’s doing.

“Sounds wonderful,” I said. It will be a spectacular failure.

“Yeah, decided it was time to get out of the police force,” he said.

“You’re a policeman?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen him in uniform. I thought he was an auditor or an IT consultant or even a librarian. Shouldn’t policemen be forced to disclose their careers to their neighbors? What if I’d casually revealed a crime to him at the letterbox? Offered him an illegal substance?

And there is the matter of Patrick. He’s always threatening to call the police. So melodramatic. Why would the police be interested in what is essentially a private matter between two adults? But still. Technically, I do enter his house without his permission.

“I had no idea you were a policeman,” I said. I couldn’t keep the resentment out of my voice.

“Undercover,” said Jeff. “Pretty stressful. Messes with your head. Impossible to form a relationship with anyone. I’m not getting any younger. I’m desperate to meet that ‘special lady.’ Want to be a dad one day!”

I did not want to hear that Jeff was desperate to meet that special lady. It was like he’d shared an intimate, slightly revolting sexual secret.

“A nice young family is moving in to my place,” he continued. “Two little kids. Boy and girl. You’ll find them a bit livelier than me.”

And that suddenly seemed to remind him of the sort of neighbors we’d been, and he took an abrupt step backward.

“So,” he said. “I’ve kept you long enough. Just thought I should let you know so you didn’t get a surprise when the movers arrive tomorrow. The young family will be moving in the day after.”

“Best of luck with everything,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said and smiled, and he had an unexpectedly nice, shy smile, and I was filled with a strange, sad regret. I could have been his friend. I could have invited him over for a drink or a coffee. Maybe then he wouldn’t have needed his silly sea change.

Before Patrick, I would have been the sort of person who would have done that. This is all Patrick’s fault.

And now there will be a “nice young family” living next door. My bland little duplex will no longer be my safe haven from other people’s happiness. The thought of having to hear and see this smug family loving each other every day of my life is unbearable and unacceptable. I hate families with one boy and one girl, like a family in a car commercial. It’s so tidy. They’re always so pleased with themselves.

I can feel this explosive pressure building in my head. Something has to happen. I have to make something happen. Soon. I’m just not sure what.

When Ellen got home from lunch with her mother and godmothers, she sat on the front step with her bag on her lap. She didn’t want to take the keys out of her bag and open the door to an empty house. She wanted to ring the bell and wait for the sound of slow, shuffling footsteps. Her grandfather always opened the door with a wary, almost belligerent expression on his face that would vanish when he saw it was her. “She’s here!” he’d call out jubilantly to her grandmother, and he’d open the door wide and Ellen would smell baking.