“Mm?” said Maude, her eyes not moving from Sunna’s. The wind moved the feathers in her hat so they waved like wispy black fingers.
“Look at this,” said Sunna. She peeled the soggy envelope out from the folds of the grocery store flyer and held it up so Maude could see. “Half of this is gone—it’s been ripped right off. I can’t find the other half. What happened to . . . ?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Maude.
“A dog?” mumbled Sunna.
“Well, obviously,” said Maude, who only a second before had not been able to imagine a dog or anything else. She snatched the flyer out of Sunna’s hands, disinterested in the letter. She turned to the page with the coupons, and her face collapsed into a heavy frown. “Look at this.” She held it up, and Sunna saw that the flyer had suffered a similar fate to the letter. “We need to talk to Larry about this. They can’t scan those coupons after they’ve been in water overnight, or after the barcode’s been ripped off like that. Happens at least once a week. I’ve had to pay full price for several items I had a coupon for. In fact, I think Larry owes me money.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it . . .” Sunna swallowed the words. It wasn’t her business, and she got the feeling she didn’t want it to be. She held out the sopping letter. “Here. I think this letter is for you or the other tenant. It’s not for me.”
“Why wouldn’t it be for you? Because it’s dirty? Because it’s ripped?”
“No. Just because I don’t get mail. Ever.”
“Whose name is on it?” asked Maude.
“No one’s. See? Half of it’s gone. The address was probably on that half.”
“Then how did the mailman know to put it in our box?”
“I guess . . . it must have happened after it was in our mailbox.” That was frustrating. No dog could get into a mailbox and mangle the contents and then put some of it back. Was this the work of a mentally unhinged neighbor? Annoying teenagers thinking they were funny?
“Oh,” said Maude. “Well then.”
“Yeah,” said Sunna, and she felt like she’d won some kind of silent fight.
Maude scowled at Sunna and at the ash tree and the sky. A car pulled up behind her with its radio blaring. It parked, and she turned and scowled at it too. A girl with short hair slid out of the car. At first, she looked surprised to see people on the porch, then excited. She jogged up the sidewalk, stopping short at the porch steps. Her body was tall and wide, and she carried herself athletically but self-consciously, eager but full of nervous energy. She offered a funny little wave and smiled, oblivious to the tension between the other two women. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Mackenzie Simons. Are you the neighbors? I’m really happy to meet you; I’ve been wondering who else lived here. It’s weird not knowing who all’s in the same house as you, you know? It’s . . . strange . . .” She trailed off, and her smile wavered slightly.
Sunna smiled back, trying to shake her annoyance with Maude. “Hi, Mackenzie. I’m Sunna. I’m on the main floor. This is Maude—she’s upstairs.”
Maude nodded. “I wondered if I’d ever see either of you, and now here we are, all at the same time.” She sounded like she’d been waiting for this moment for a while, like she had something to get off her chest. “Good. I needed to talk to you both about your hours.”
“Our—”
Mackenzie’s smile didn’t falter when Maude cut her off. “Yes, hours. You leave and come back at strange hours. The doors in this house are loud. It wakes me up when you slam them.” She kept nodding emphatically as though pointing out the important words with her head.
Sunna opened her mouth to defend herself. She’d only been here a week and hadn’t gone out except to get groceries or go to work—though she did leave very early for work. She taught classes at the gym as early as five a.m. That wasn’t all that unheard of, though, was it? Lots of people had to leave early for work. And she didn’t slam the door on her way out or anything. She wasn’t a person who tiptoed around, but she wasn’t inconsiderate.
Mackenzie, however, was earnestly apologetic. “I do, don’t I?” she said. “I’m really sorry. I have early-morning classes, and I usually work quite late. I’m so—”
“It’s not a problem,” Sunna interjected. “This is just how it is when you rent a suite instead of buying your own whole house. You’re not loud, and you have as much right as either of us to close doors whenever you feel like it. You pay rent too.”
Maude gaped, and Sunna felt like she’d won again.
“Anyway,” said Sunna, “we were just talking about this.” She held up the dripping letter, still pinched between her fingernails. “Found it in the mailbox; half of it’s gone. Weird, right? I don’t think it’s for me, and I thought I should check if either of you were expecting something before I read it.”
“Huh.” Mackenzie was polite but unconcerned. “I’m not expecting anything, and honestly I don’t know who’d write me a letter. Probably not mine.” They both looked at Maude. They were likely both thinking the same thing: Old people still write letters.
Maude clucked her tongue again. “And I’m in the same boat as you two. Why don’t you just read it? Then we’ll know who it’s for.”
“Okay,” said Sunna, unfolding the sopping paper.
“Well?” said Maude.
Sunna frowned. “Short and sweet,” she said. “Really short, actually, since half of it’s missing. See?” She held it out. The ink on the right side of the letter was bleeding and barely legible, but the left side of the letter was gone. “I can’t tell what all of it says.” Sunna held it closer to her face.
“Read it,” said Maude. “Out loud.”
“I literally just said I can’t read it,” said Sunna.
“I just meant,” said Maude, her voice taut, “that I want you to read whatever of it you can make out. You literally just said you can’t really tell what all of it says. That literally means you can tell what some of it says. Maybe even most of it. If we are, in fact, being literal.”
The women exchanged withering looks, and Mackenzie became singularly focused on a hangnail on her thumb.
“Fine,” Sunna said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Half of it’s missing, but . . .” She cleared her throat and held the paper close to her face, squinting more than necessary. “Okay, so the letter, what’s left of it, says—”
“Is there a name? A salutation?” Maude interrupted.
“Doing the best I can here, Maude,” Sunna said, pressing her teeth together. An ache bloomed behind her ears. “No, there’s no salutation. That would’ve been over here.” She pointed at the air where the left side of the letter would’ve been.
“Annoying,” said Maude.
“Okay, I’m going to read this, here, Maude.”
“Yes, fine,” said Maude, like she couldn’t understand why Sunna needed to spell it out like that. “Go on.”
“Okay,” said Sunna, shaking some new tension out of her shoulders. “Here it is: