The massive kitchen windows were the reason she loved the place. Her kitchen let in all the afternoon light and it was her place to bask, to dance, to create, to be.
She thought it would be Robbo, the good-looking divorcee in the wooden house on stilts immediately behind her, who might peer through. At least she’d fantasised about it. But this thought was sourced more from an imagined fantasy than any real experience.
She’d seen their shapes on the balcony, the chink of glass, metal on crock. She’d heard them on the balcony, splashing in the pool. She heard him say, “Are you sure?” to a female voice that responded, “I’ll catch the train. It’s so much cheaper and it isn’t far. Better than getting Linus up in the night.”
No, Robbo and his girl were too benign and into themselves. It wasn’t them. It was the house diagonally opposite. That was where the watcher lived.
By 11pm, she’d tucked in the kids, was turning off the lights, checking the doors. When she got to the kitchen, she looked faraway as she often did, past the kitchen glass and the tropical greenery screening the fence. She noticed the lights that were always on but she mentally questioned their provenance on this occasion, worked through their probably location. For months she had considered these were another set of lights on Robbo’s property, but tonight it struck her that these lights were somewhat removed. A shed? Too far. The fence line came between. Then, just as the top of the distant shell of a fridge sprang to view beyond the palms, she saw it. A head. She looked away instinctively and, in the time it took her to wonder if she’d actually been watching the silhouette of a lampshade, she looked back to find herself inspecting the vacant edge of ceiling-meets-wall above kitchen cabinets and oven.
She wondered how long he’d been watching and for what purpose. And she wondered if he’d seen her seeing him, and where he had gone. After all, he knew where she lived.
thirtyseven 