He watched her every afternoon, never knowing who she was. He would sit on his porch and pretend to read a book, and look across the street, past the empty lot, and into the backyard of the woman. She did laundry every day. Mostly sheets. Linens. Blankets. He would sit and watch her hang these things on the line and wonder how many sheet sets she owned. How many blankets. What the thresh-hold was for clean or dirty that required her to wash them so often. He wondered if she had so many that she needed to wash them constantly in order to keep them fresh.

It was only just her. No husband that he discovered by keeping an eye out the kitchen window when he did dishes, no boyfriend to come calling, and no children playing in the yard. No one came home late, coasting into the back yard on a one-speed bike and letting it crash next to the patio. No weekend parties with friends. No walking back and forth in front of the dining room window with a phone at the side of her head, lips curled up in laughter, finger burrowing through the coils of the telephone cord. There was no car in the driveway, and she had no discernable routine for going out for groceries.

It was just the two of them, her hanging laundry, and him watching her across the street and empty lot.

He would write in the margins of his book what she was wearing. Mostly he could only see her legs and feet. Monday – barefoot with blue dreas. Tuesday – flip-flops. He has a bookshelf filled with books that have notes in the margins.

He went out to her mailbox several nights just to see if he could find out what her name was. She either never received any mail, or always took it in whenever it arrived.

That winter, she hung up no laundry. The lights were never on inside the house, even though evening came earlier and earlier.

In mid-December, he dreamed about going down to the court house and looking up records of who lived in the house. He couldn’t find any names. More than that, he couldn’t find any records of the house ever existing. He dreamed he went home to find the house was nothing more than another empty lot. He dreamed that the woman along with the house was merely another dream that he had.

He woke, and went to the window, pulling the curtain aside. The house was still there, the street-light casting a pale yellow glow on the clothes-line and the back of the house. He watched the kitchen window for movement, but could see none.

He pulled the blanket around him and stood there, watching.