He expected a speech. A pamphlet. A list of shelters and soup kitchens and people to call. Instead, she asked him if he’d ever tried to grow tomatoes in a bucket (“foolishness, don’t do it, they get sad”), and whether he thought the moon looked closer some nights than others (“I do, and I don’t care what the science says”), and if he’d ever had a dog named something ridiculous like Pancake.
Eli closed his fingers around the key. He didn’t cry, not then. But later that night, lying on the fold-out couch with Buster’s warm weight against his legs, he let himself feel something he’d forgotten existed. won't you be my neighbor? free
He was, after all, her neighbor.