He was usually gone when I arrived; where he went off to, who knows. Golf, maybe, not fishing or tennis. No rod holders on his car. No white shorts in his closet. He walked on Jetties Beach sometimes—I’d seen him once or twice, cutting across the spit on his way home—but he didn’t look seaworthy. Walked a little unsteady, to tell the truth, listed side to side like a bird. Like a creature used to not walking. Hard to imagine him balancing on a prow, reeling in a fish. Or taking any kind of chances, for that matter. One time, he was on his way out, and he stopped and asked me to get him a book high on a shelf. Said he got vertigo on the library ladder, and did I mind? He’d laughed when I asked him if he kept his favorite books on the bottom shelves.
I was early that day when I found the poster, seven forty-five instead of eight, because there was no line at the Fog Island takeout window. I ate my egg biscuit in the car, left the wrapper there. Didn’t feel right throwing my trash in with his.
The porch was still dewy in places, a few stray leaves fluttering around. I’m not paid to clean the exterior, but I always sweep the porch when I finish, because what good is a clean house with a dirty porch?
I pushed in the alarm code, took off my shoes, left them in the foyer. I usually clean top to bottom unless someone gives me a good reason not to, but first, I check the kitchen to see if there’s a note. Nobody ever leaves you a note anywhere but the kitchen.
Not sure what made me look outside. The ongoing construction was nothing special to me—especially before July 4. Crews work overtime, and trucks and backhoes beep their warnings constantly, more annoying than crows at daybreak, but you get used to it. The nail guns, the saws, it all stops around 4:00 p.m., and then poof, you can hear the water and seagulls again. But the workers were gone that day.
More likely, it was the bright wildflowers, the meadowy backyard, the wild roses still going strong. I opened the kitchen window to catch a whiff, because the smell of real roses never gets old, especially after a day spent with people’s fake candles and scented cleansers and whatnot. Through the open window, I saw something. Something flapping and torn.
The exterior is not my domain—I won’t wash down anyone’s porch furniture unless there’s a gun put to my head. But I have an eye for what’s wrong or right. When something is out of place or doesn’t belong.
And that’s what made me open the door and walk outside with my yellow rubber gloves on, through the lush backyard. The old cottage was gone, the footings for the pool house were poured, the framing about to start. The offshore wind was whipping that day; I’d seen all the windsurfers and kiteboarders in the harbor as I drove by, dancing up and down like bright toys in a bathtub. Now a poster was blowing in that same wind, taped at the top of the Porta-Potty, half-ripped from its mooring. I reached up with one gloved hand and peeled it off the rest of the way. I carried it in the house, smoothed it out on the table.
And then I called him, right away, so he could think through his options. And also, I admit, so he wouldn’t for one second think that I would put up something that said Jews are not wanted here on his property.