Her fingers plucked at the slats of her neighbor’s wood-paneled home. Making her way through the narrow gap of the facade, careful not to disturb the dried earth of twigs and leaves that littered the path leading to their backyard, she went headstrong, using the clapboard as her guide. It was the same thing Clara did every Wednesday at 6 p.m. Using only her fingertips to kiss the smoothness of the old, white slats, she made her way to the dirty glass window on the western-facing side of her neighbor’s two-bedroom home. Under the small awning that opened up to the dining room, her hands widened as she came to a stop. The air was stark and clean; there was a particular possibility of truthfulness if weather permitted. Like reading a favorite novel, Clara involved herself with the characters through the looking glass of this lived-in, loved-in home with reverie. Toys littered the front yard, and overgrown trees and weeds placated the once humble home with promises that the grass would one day return and reign supreme. On evenings like this, she was thankful for Martha, the woman of the house, and her son. This mother and her small boy could plumply take up space inside their home and out; with the sun and the moon, they could dance in the light of day and relax into the open night, yawning and yapping comfortably. Her sliding minivan door was always left wide open. Clara admired the mother’s carelessness. If only! In there, I’d be alright. Here, Martha threw cautiousness to the wind, allowing all possibilities, no matter how grave or possibly disgusting – to risk it all for the sake of the risk. It was commendable, actionable, tangible. A refusal to abjure and, instead, welcomed likelihood in the face of her faith. Clara counted her breaths out of habit, 1,2,3,4,5, restarting when she got to 5.|
          Clara replayed this scene routinely and without interruption. She had been watching Martha’s small family every Wednesday for three weeks. Between the confines of their walls, Martha confidently danced around her son, plates in hand and the top two buttons of her blouse undone. A basket of rolls, a bowl of gravy, and a roasted chicken from the deli down the street. Her son sat patiently at the dinner table while Martha left only a breath of air behind her as she weaved from the island in the kitchen to a table that only sat three. He watched tentatively as her dark, black hair bobbed in and out of the kitchen doorway. Martha’s childlike gait pealed along with her crescendo of steps, with only the slightest amount of hysteria, as she fattened the table – a prix fixe for two and a dish of rosemary butter as the center.
         As the air grew colder where Clara sat, she imagined seeing her breath come out in puffs of smoke to warm her hands. She had forgotten gloves each night she came to watch the family. I gotta git better about this. I cain’t keep messin’ up ev’ry time. In the refraction of the window between her and the dining room’s warm light, she imagined seeing her face become as round as a melon – a distortion and dysphoria compared to Martha’s extended features. Though cold, Clara’s body sat softly as she made peace with the dried leaves. Martha was cutting tomatoes. All three were waiting for Martha to finish, a signal of permission. Her son reached out with hungry arms, skipping over the peppered salad of spinach leaves and shaved beets coated generously with oil – she always used too much oil – to the basket of rolls and the center dish of butter, keeping an eye on his mother and seeking approval. Through a simple gesture of her head tilting slightly to the left, her son released his mischievous expression and conspicuous reach and satisfied the mother by going instead to the peppered salad with too much oil. Martha’s cheeks seemed to flush – reticent – as she grabbed her son’s hand, and they recited a prayer. Clara mouthed to herself…to accep’ the things I cannot change, ‘n tha wisdom ta know the diff’rence. 
         Martha’s home was bare compared to the family with whom Clara had been watching every Friday night for the past 15 months. They were an older couple, a husband, Herb, and a wife, Bobbi. Bobbi spent each Friday monotonously moving from room to room while Herb changed the dials of his black and white TV. His fingers would fidget as Bobbi salted his steak, stopping when he got up to refill his glass. A blackened slab of meat paired with a tall, silky glass of milk. It’s the same meal Herb must have had every Friday since they’d married. The more Herb shifted, the faster Bobbi would work, leaving a comfortable wake everywhere she moved. Clara would repeatedly watch this scene week after week. She and Bobbi would sit reverently after each cut of his knife. Herb liked to spoon his portions in droves, herding his thick pieces until his mouth was full. Bobbi and Clara would remain patient until the familiar sound of the dials would click, click, click into and out of place. As the knobs turned, Bobbi would collect his plate with both hands. Before Bobbi fell asleep on the couch with a full, red glass of wine in her hand, Clara would be gone – left with enough contentment and peace to fill a well. There’s sumthin’ ‘bout loneliness’n how tha need kin be met from sumthin’ so sweet. The heavens can’t fill it, but a simple gesture of two people existing alone, watching each other’s solitude, would swallow Clara whole. Like a beached blue whale, starved from touch after years of traveling, finally finding a way back into the sea.
         Clara softly adjusted her seat, leaning against the pane from her perch at Martha’s home. The streets were just about empty, and there was enough moon to light her post. The space between Clara’s four-plex apartment and Martha’s house was small and confined. Thick vines of Autumn Clematis arched and climbed above her head. Sitting there, she pressed her long fingers between her knees. She didn’t look anywhere except inside the dining room. All of the coldness swept across her face, igniting the sweet-smelling flower. Its stars, wrapped in white, caught fire from the moonlight. Clara was small and delicate, a satellite that neither circled nor rotated. She would stay planted until their meal was complete. When Martha began the kettle, dishes left strewn on the table, Clara would begin the walk back to her apartment door. Stooping through the wire fence that separated the family of two and Clara’s apartment of one, the earth cracked beneath her. Aye. The snap of twigs and pecan shells gave an order to her movement; each step was more calculated and quiet than the last as she counted her steps, 1,2,3,5, gawd bless’it, 1,2,3,4,5.

                                                                     *****

         When Clara got inside, she set her glass cup on the counter and arranged clear containers of leftovers while she started the oven. Her keys fell into the bowl next to her front door; her coat went onto the empty hanger on her clothes rack. The exact spot it will, and always will, live in. As she saw fit, the natural order gave her an oasis to lay a stake in. Tomor’ow, I’ll git it alright. I’ll git it right. I’ll prove I kin do it. It won’t be long’n I’ll be okay. She, like Martha, methodically moved from one room to the next as her body – propelled by the swell of being in her absolute solitude – moved comfortably and lofty in her apartment that gave safety. As she sat down to listen to a message on her machine left while she was out, the news came in and out of her consciousness in waves. It was her father, “Hi, punkin’…You…We’nesday nite…’roun’ evenin’ time.” She listened to the message as many times as possible, trying to decipher if the message he was trying to say was correct as the words jumbled from one unintelligible idea to another. The thought of today still being Wednesday, that he would be coming over soon, and that the “soon” of Wednesday was here and in the present day made the actual idea of time eke out of her already meager concept of time itself. He kept repeating several things, but the words had a separate life of their own, “…normally come on a diff’rent day…” but Clara couldn’t catch his velvety voice. I cain’t do this rite now. It ain’t tha normal day, poppa. Her fingers pressed hard on the button to erase, then carefully sat up and looked around her. Her apartment was small and decorated with found items from garage sales, swap meets, and items left behind by previous tenants. Framed pictures of family members that were not her own and small ornaments found on a curb last Christmas lined her shelves and sat in front of her books. A halved walnut was made into a shadow box with miniature people dressed in suits and wedding dresses. Various glass and ceramic birds that were lively, beautiful, sympathetic. Before her next breath, a knock at her door made her cheeks sink, and her narrow hips guided her toward the sound as her hand met the knob. Gawd bless’it. 
         “Poppa.”
         Clara’s father entered triumphantly, hunting for a place to set his things. Hovering protectively over his wallet and keys, he lifted his head to smile. Joseph was gentle and oblivious, familiar and expressive – camouflaging his disapproval of his daughter so as not to be discovered by either him or Clara. He gestured to his daughter to move forward so his arms could wrap around her shoulders and neck. Her dad’s teeth were perfect – rounded by a short, white beard. Holding her warm like a child, she moved sideways to remove herself from her father’s embrace. Gawd, this ain’t rite. He cain’t stop by on a diff’rent day thin the one we always do. We have a thang set’n it’s always worked out that way. I’ll git this rite.
         “Hi, Punk’n, I…” He wanted to continue but could see from Clara’s taut face that she wouldn’t respond how he had hoped. 
         She tugged at her shirt sleeve with the whole of her palm; her lips parted, her eyebrows stoic and thick. Her dark eyes gazed until her father’s flickering stare met hers, “I’m not us’d to you stoppin’ by on a We’nesday.”  Clara had been trying to build a bridge between them. She wanted to mend the gap that kept them so far apart, but at times, their differences made the task too grave, furthering the divide between an absently-present father and a daughter who just wanted to be loved for who she was.
         “I know, but…” his reply was instant and impatient as if he knew she would protest his visit. “You gotta start livin’ a little, punkin’. You cain’t jus’ live here in yer apartment, and that’s jus’it,” he said as he pointed to the floor. “There needs ta’be more than jus’me coming here. It’s the same each week; there needs ta’be more.”
         “I gotta life,” she challenged, “I know wut it means to live outside this here apartment,” moving over to the sofa, cupping her eyes with her fingers. Clara wanted her routine to fall back into place. She thought of the gray night, the quiet street, and her neighbors making mint juleps after dinner or having coffee underneath dim kitchen lights. She wondered what she could do to reorient her sails after this rift in her usually unvarying and habitual routine. This unscheduled visit was enough to wreck her tenuous ship. This cain’t be right.
         His daughter began to shrink; he knew she was habitual and had much more freedom than he had. Joseph lived alone off a back alley just outside of town. Where he lived, it was safer to keep to yourself and let the rest of the neighborhood run wild. Clara was lucky to live so near the University. For him, you had to take the hill to the South and due East until you reached the bottom, where the ferns choked every building and green foxtails could grow up to your shins and seed unimpeded.
         Joseph leaned over and kissed the top of his daughter’s head, bringing in the softness of her hair. As he looked around the room, the walls around him began to shrink as the place he once felt comfortable and a part of dimmed in its usual brightness. As the shadows browned, the couch where Clara sat sank beneath the torrent. Joseph tolerated the charms of Clara: her incessant blinking, her obsessive ruffling of the blinds, the framed pictures of strangers, and ornaments left year-round. But tonight, she had slipped so gradually away from him that he hardly had time to realize how far away she was.

                                                                     *****

         When Joseph finally left, exhausted from his daughter’s repulsion during their visit, Clara again descended the steel stairs from her balcony. Her apartment was on the second floor of the four-plex, with the doors facing the outside. Usually, she’d be in for the night, but the discontentment roused from an unplanned visit left her feeling restless. Using the ball of her foot, she trotted lightly with the rubber of her sole. Not to argue with the metal, she cautioned her steps not to make a sound – first her toes, then her heels. I kin get’it rite this time. I was fixin’ to have it all set, and now I gotta do this. She knew Martha, Herb, and Bobbi would either be asleep or just out of view from their regular windows. 1,2,3,4,5.
     Over time, Clara learned what would calm her nerves, and that sometimes meant finding somewhere new to watch. She never chose a new house to make company with; she always let them choose her. It could be a doorway that called out to her with quizzical lamentations or a vague empty nook overgrown with branches that promised seclusion. Clara slowed her steps when she came to a familiar and once-empty house. The outside of the house was freshly painted a canary yellow, and the grass was uprooted. The tall oak stood planted in the front, making a stand that the tree would remain. A light was on in a window. The night was now dark since the blanket of dusk had been removed. The blackness of the sky was pocked with bright, prominent stars, leading her to a ditch where the lit window hung like a lantern.
         Celebrating this new find, she approached shyly. The lines on her face deepened as she came to the concentrated light. It pleased her to see a man who looked to be about her age sitting comfortably alone in the living room filled with marked boxes. His brown suede couch sat prominently in the middle of the floor while his belongings, stacked high above his head, lined the walls. Livin’ room, kitchen, my stuff, bathroom. This man had a small combination TV/VCR sitting atop a light-colored wood bench serving as a stand. Because of the ditch, Clara couldn’t sit as she would with Martha, Herb, and Bobbi. Instead, she stood. Positioning herself with slightly bent legs, hands resting atop her thighs, her face floated in front of the glass. The light emitting from the window warmed her cheeks. 
         Because she stayed so close, she could smell the fragrant butter and salt from recently made popcorn that he kept in a wooden bowl beside him. She didn’t recognize what he was watching; she couldn’t read the expression on his face. This fact made the sides of her lips curl upward because the lack of what was known of him made his presence that much more magnetic. In there, I culd be alright, too.
          They both watched what could have been about war, death, vengeance, or pride – but was lost on Clara. A woman collapses to the floor as a pale-skinned man advances toward her. Clara dubbed the movie herself, wondering if he watched this often. If so, she could memorize the lines as they sat together; taken. She could watch when the man on the couch unpacked how his left shoulder dipped slightly more than his right and how when he walked, he tended to seem more sure of himself than he let on. The woman on the screen’s beauty diverts the pale-skinned man’s attention from something off-screen – an act to ensure the woman’s sacrifice to him was not in vain. Maybe when yer pretty en’uff and have en’uff courage, sumthin’ once so scary could prove ta’be harmless, huh? At the man’s expense, the woman’s forfeiture led him to a demise, making Clara cover her eyes with cupped hands. An oath taken back – renounced and abandoned, relinquishing every lofty principal Clara held closely. The violence on the screen made Clara feel guilty, but she sat with him nonetheless. Together, they ate popcorn. She remembered watching similar movies with her mother late at night. She wouldn’t warn Clara of what she was about to see. Instead, she’d tightly held her finger against her lips, a stubby gesture that meant she was about to plunge deeply into a dark world.
          Above the TV hung a horseshoe, a good luck charm, and as the credits rolled, he sat up and took the wooden bowl in one hand. From where he paused in the next room, she felt the depths of what was hidden and in plain sight of him; she could think profoundly and horrifically of the creases that shaped his eyes and the fullness of his lips. His gait and how his eyes changed from brown to black and back to brown again. As if thinking or buying time, his pause made the barrier between them palpable and penetrable. The quiet night rang out in her, the deafening silence of being alone and in company startling. A cat was eating contentedly close by. The expansiveness and the closeness between her and the man inside made her ears ring. Something that once seemed private and obscure was now visible and tangible; she was both in plain sight and neglected and hiding. Clara realized how the spot at which she stood and her new home offered little seclusion, and as if for the first time, Clara felt her stomach drop. Fear is a fickle lil’ lady, huh? She’s empty and suffocating. She’s sweet, and she’s selfish. But ya cain’t be left without it or have too much of it, hnn.
         The muscles in her legs and thighs began to burn and tighten from the weight of her body. Pushing slightly with her hands to promote movement, Clara started to make unabated steps as she debated whether to escape her post to the comfort of her home or to leap into the unknown and knock on his door. When she got to the tall oak at the front of his property, Clara peeked back around to the cherry wood doorway with brass numbers, “924”. Her skin flushed from the world’s weight and the rapid increase of her heartbeat. The institution of Clara’s heart, which was once totalistic and uncorrupt, was now being dismantled by each foot being put in front of the other as she made her way to the cherry wood door. The night and her feet dragging on put her otherwise cowardly heart to the test. As if tethered to strings like a marionette doll, she stood beneath the brass number “924” and the bright light of his entryway. It might not take the knocks, hnn. Instead, they’d absorbed the sound like the rubber of her sole. Gawd.
         She soothed the quivering of her arm against the rapt that only faintly grazed the surface, faintly resembling the sound of someone calling on you to answer. Clinging to what her father had previously said that night, how he’d wished she’d have more of a life that resembled the one he could approve of, and how he kissed the top of her head as if to surge his courage into her. His words flowed and swelled inside her, rising to the surface and crashing down again, spilling beneath her feet. Clara wanted to let it go; his misunderstandings of her, his need to change her into the woman he had planned – to be more like him. He had the analytical brain of a fool and thought only in binary. Her internal landscape of watercolor grays and whites muddied his simple outlook, resembling zeros and ones. As she stood still, planted in front of the cherry wood door, she thought of her father and tried to have more faith in interaction with others. I kin get it rite this time. She wanted her father beside her. But she had nothing left to do except find the resources within herself. 
         Turning her body sideways, Clara stood beside herself. Reaching higher this time, she knocked proudly toward the warm light inside and the brown suede couch. 
         His response to her second hit was one to be respected. He answered the door gently and with ease, smiling broadly and without confusion, “Hi,” Clara interrupted.
“Hi. Are you…”
            “I live across tha street,” she pointed, awkwardly gesturing toward the direction of her apartment. Quickly turning back to him, she took a heavy breath and put her hands on her hips. This must’luk so pomp, my dang hands on my hips; why my feet so far apart? She tried instead to find ways to make herself look smaller and more petite. Frustrated, she knitted her hands and forced her feet closer together. Please don’t fall over. 
         “Right, I think I’ve seen you. You wanna come in?” He had already started retreating backward, pushing the door wider. His jaw was sharp and rough, much like the sharpness of her cheeks and jaw. She held her hand to her face to feel the same features that he resembled, except hers was smooth and cold. His nose stood prominently from his face, outwardly saluting with a slight curve at the end. He wrestled with the wiry strands of dark brown hair that seemed unruly – his indifference oddly familiar.
Clara followed his lead.
“I’m J.R., by the way,” pushing his hand against his chest.
“Clara,” she said, mimicking his gesture—Clara’n’ J.R.
     She followed him into the living room, where they had watched the movie. When the film was finished, the tape stuck out of the tape loader like a tongue. She glanced around at the horseshoe on the wall, the wooden bowl of popcorn now on the kitchen counter. Reading the marked boxes for the second time, she noticed a mirror on the adjacent wall she hadn’t seen before. Catching a glimpse of herself for the first time that evening, her clothes felt suddenly too small, her shoulders appeared broader than she remembered, and her hair had more whisps than she’d expected from standing out in the cold. Suddenly, she felt the length of her culottes and how her ankles were wet with dew. Trying to hide her suspicious disposition, she followed him close behind like a shadow as he approached the kitchen.
         “Ah, I just moved in. ‘Bout a week ago,” he said, motioning his hands like he was questioning himself, nodding in the directions of the stacked boxes. “You can sit wherever you like. Can I git you anything? A drink?” 
         Clara glanced about. There was nowhere else for her to sit except the couch, “Sure.”
         J.R. plodded away from the room that held Clara. He asked her another question, but his voice seemed dull and far away. His distance from her helped alleviate the pressure of how painful this interaction grated at her skin. Her head felt faint from the reality of having now been inside. To calm her nerves, she rubbed her finger against the bridge of her nose as if to bring her back to the present. A few stray popcorn kernels sat lonesome on the couch beside her, so she popped them into her mouth, sucking on the salt.
         “What was’that?” she asked, remembering he had said things she couldn’t hear as he entered the kitchen.
         “I said all I got is vodka,” louder this time, “Maybe sum kin’a juice? But it looks lik it’s been herr a while,” he shrugged. His obliviousness captivated Clara, so she nodded in her approval of either.
         There was a clock on the wall telling her it was 9 p.m. The room she was in had wood-paneled walls and walnut-stained hardwood floors stretched as far as she could see from her perch. She felt like she was inside a safe bird’s nest, which stirred envy and infatuation. Clara’n’ J.R. The yellowed ceiling reminded her of her childhood home. She could see herself here again, getting used to where the light switches were, arguing over who would turn on the fan before starting a new movie and if he’d be okay with her bringing her favorite blanket. Sitting beside her on the side table was a silver framed picture of a woman wearing a maroon sweater with long, sleek blonde hair swept over to one side, exposing a bare shoulder. Nuh-uh. Clara picked up the frame to examine her better. She traced with her fingers the suppleness of her cheeks, the fullness of her lips. This cain’t be right. How she fit the frame in such a delicate manner, and her smile was pure and sweet. The sincerity and roundness of her chin made Clara smudge her thumb across the glass. 
         When J.R. returned with two glasses, Clara stood fully and outstretched one hand while the other hid the frame housing the beautiful blonde in a maroon sweater inside her coat. Holding the drink closely, the stifling smell of alcohol overwhelmed and engulfed her. She didn’t even drink alcohol – hated the taste – and the smell made her think of her mother. 
         Clara handed him back the glass, “I, uh, sorry,” pushing her hand against her chest, mouth still full of stray kernels, not wanting to say much. 
         “You sure?” he said, following Clara as she made her way to the door, her back already turned. She looked behind in his direction while swallowing the kernels and hiding the frame deeper inside her coat. She waved goodbye and quietly smiled. 

                                                                     ***** 

         Once outside, she pushed herself onto the concrete, paying no attention to the sounds of her stride. Her feet struck the gravel of Martha’s driveway. I cain’t do this again. Clara’s heavy gait stumbled across her lawn, blind and dizzy with apprehension and cold. The Autumn Clematis nudged her closer, whisking its leaves across her back as if to say, “It’s okay, sweet child.” The sky had varied little. Her presence from the street faded, and she fell to her regular spot beneath Martha’s dining room window. The familiar clapboard, the weather-torn awning she had grown used to, the nest of twigs and leaves. This place served as a beacon even in the dark, with the rooms inside consumed with darkness and sleep.
         Using her fingers that still had bits of butter and salt, she leaned over and began to dig into the soil floor. It wasn’t suppos’d to be this way. I was gonna git it rite this time. She filled her nails with dirt, rumpling the soft earth. Clara persisted until she felt the cold, wet, malleable clay. The moon’s broad face dropped steadily behind her without oppression. She studied the flat picture rigorously, the characteristics of the mystery woman’s face and neck, a small key dangling from a silver chain around her neck. Did he give’r this necklace? Did she lik it when he did? She prolly sang and kissed’im when he did. The woman’s confident expression and unwillingness to waver came as blunt facts to Clara. Here was her proof to never again risk it all for the sake of the risk in connection. She was her soft protector, watching over her solitude like a guardian at a gate.
         Like a small creature, she buried the silver frame. She said nothing and covered the woman with the maroon sweater’s face until her fragility diminished. The brown dirt enveloped the frame, containing the beautiful woman with sleek blonde hair and round features. The physical evidence was now wrapped under dark layers under the stars.
         Clara pressed her hand to the window pane and leaned inward. The now clean table inside sat portly without Martha there to cut tomatoes. Clara focused on the curvature of their three wooden chairs and how the room looked when left empty, momentarily concealing the sadness eccentrically drawn out each night by Martha’s endurable presence. She thought of nothing and the space between herself and the wall separating her from what was inside, and through it all, Clara dreamed of living in a tireless building that never slept made entirely of glass.

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