Valley Oaks Drive

SHORTLY AFTER I moved into this house, more than a decade ago now, I met the neighbors who lived behind us. Their yard, the same size as mine, butted up against my yard, and their house, also the same size, had an identical layout. In our neighborhood there were four models that repeated on five long, winding streets. Our house on the outskirts of the development faced a high hill and on the incline, leading to the top of this hill, the crest that separated us from the Pacific Ocean, were palatial homes that at night we’d see glittering, as if they were the stars themselves. Some of these houses had vineyards terraced along the hill, enclosed by fences, and all properties sat on at least an acre of land.

When my husband and I moved here the house felt enormous and there were rooms we did not even use. This was before so much happened—before the death of my mother, before the diagnosis of my husband’s illness, the disease that made it impossible for him to work. So much has changed in the past decade, but what I’ve been thinking about lately, what I’ve been holding in my mind as I go through the day—caring for my husband, working at a large chain hardware store, making meals, doing the gardening, housework—what I’ve been thinking about are our neighbors, how they were a decade ago, when we first met. And how one night I saw them in a private moment when they were unaware I could see them.

THE CALIFORNIA sun in summer spreads over our yards, the streets, the hills where I walk each morning, as