We hadn’t been there long, in the house my wife and I bought on the Southside of Chicago with our two little girls and big dreams. A couple of years, while I struggled to get a steady job to supplement my wife’s income while still chasing my dream of being a minister and having a church of my own.

Next door was a Ghanaian family. A house full of boys shepherded by a kind mother and a dad who I only saw going to work, never coming home while I was outside in our meager backyard after my daily travails or even going and coming while running errands. The boys were full of energy and yelled and screamed and sang their boy song, but I never heard her yell. It seemed like a house full of love, even though I couldn’t imagine the dad being at home much.

On the opposite side, there was a huge vacant lot, where wild grasses grew and feral cats stalked birds and other small critters. On the other side of that lot was a couple who we happened to meet in our first couple of weeks in the house, after we’d moved our stuff in and was still figuring out where things went. He was tall, she was short, and they seemed nice enough. My wife listened closely as they talked to us about the neighborhood; the school in the next block that wasn’t very good, the apartment building across the street who had comings and goings at all hours.

But me and the husband started talking music, and everything I shared about my love for jazz, he’d mention a name or an album that I was motivated to find, or listen to. I loved Miles and Crane, and when I said so, he looked at his wife in a gesture I later took to mean as permission, a “can I?” She smiled at him and nodded, and despite my wife’s subtle nods, I was pulled into a conversation about music in heneral, and jazz specifically, that had me reaching for a piece of paper to write down the names and titles he had mentioned. He laughed ant my looking around, and said that he’d give me his number so he could just text me the stuff he was talking about.

Anyway, we didn’t hang out after that; just texts inviting me to go record shopping or something he thought I’d like. Once, apparently, they went somewhere, and the wife dropped her phone on the street while getting into the Uber. He texted me to ask me to pick it up and to keep it when they got home. Hours later, we answered the doorbell to a visibly relieved wife, thanking us over and over again for finding her phone and keeping it.

Truth is, Chicago wasn’t working out at all, job-wise or church-wise, and a friend ours advised s to look at Florida. The tax situation was great, and there was a small church, just built a few miles away that needed a pastor. God surely was speaking to us!

So we moved. I had my head down with the details of moving; furniture, moving trucks, utilities accounts, and I didn’t tell anyone that we were going. The Ghanian mom saw me one day amidst boxes and packing tape, and asked, and told us to go with God and all the blessings and all of that goodness.

I didn’t see the other couple at all. DIdn’t really think about them, really. In the summer, they would sit outside on their back porch and drink brown liquor and smoke cigars, and I would wave and yell hello, and they’d wave and say hi back. This was winter though, or fake spring, and they were nowhere to be seen. I had bigger things to do, like shepherding my family to a future that was warmer and with bigger upside.

He did text me once when we were gone, to ask what was up with the For Sale sign. I told him that we had moved, and while we had no issue with Chicago (we actually did) we found a better situation in Florida. He texted me back that he was sorry to see us go, that he wished us all the best of luck.I thought that was it.

A bit after this, my real estate person told me that we had a buyer. In our haste to get south and to make it so the agent could show an empty house, we moved a lot of stuff into the unattached garage. We had to go get it, so we told the girls that we were going to put them at their gram’s house for a few days while we took care of things without them underfoot.

We got back to Chicago in an empty uHaul truck amidst a heatwave. We stayed in the hotel during the day while the sun beat down, enjoying adult time and rest, then as the sun started to dip with the temperature, we headed to the old house. Only a couple days, we told ourself. We had forgotten what all we’d stashed in the tiny, one-and-a-half car garage.

I don’t know why I was surprised, and I don’t know how else to react, but I look up while hauling a rug to the trash and I see the couple sitting out back, sipping and smoking. I said nothing. No hailing, no “hey, just cleaning things out”, no nothing. And they didn’t try to get my attention, say anything at all to mark our return or point out the inevitability of us leaving again.

A friend of mine who plays a lot of online video games told me of a thing he finds funny and so awkward. Every now and again, he pairs with one or more players who seem to get along well, who experience a good run of success or memorable play, and inevitably comes the time where it gets late and someone begs off. “I have work in the morning.” “My girl’s been calling me for a while, I should go deal with that.” “I’m hungry, and them chips and Mountain Dew ain’t cutting it no more.” Everyone will say their goodbyes, languishing in a session that was successful. They’ll go offline, their indicator going from green to dark.

Ten minutes.

*bloop*

They’re back online again.

And here I was, back “online” after leaving, albeit without the good-natured farewells.

I never caught their eye as I toted things back and forth to the uHaul, but I know they saw me. They decided to remain silent as I had, smoking and sipping while faint snippets of their music reached me as I climbed into the cab of the truck to get to the hotel; we would hit the road early in the morning.

I heard Miles’ trumpet and Trane’s sax serenade me as I pulled away.