I wanted to go over and help her, but I’m just an ugly, bitter old man now. I don’t know how to talk to people anymore without barking at them. I haven’t known how to be soft since Evelyn died.

But I will keep an eye on her.” I sat down hard on the cold concrete floor, reading through the pages.

Entry after entry detailed how he watched out for me. When he called the HOA to complain about my overgrown lawn, he noted in his journal that he had noticed shady-looking men cutting through the tall grass near my windows at night, and he wanted the property line cleared so he could see my front door from his porch to make sure I was safe.

When he yelled at me about my car parking over the line, it was because he knew the aggressive street-sweepers came by on Tuesdays and he didn’t want my only vehicle getting side-swiped. He didn’t hate me. He was completely terrified of caring for me, terrified of losing someone again, and completely lacking the social skills to just be kind.

The very last entry in his journal, written just a week before he died, broke me completely. “The doctors say my heart is finally giving out. Good. I am tired. But I can’t leave her next door to keep struggling. I’ve left the house to her.

I know she thinks I’m a monster, and maybe I am. I was too cowardly to just be a grandfather figure to her while I was breathing. I made her clear out this basement because I wanted her to find this trunk. I wanted her to know that even though I scowled at her every day, I loved her like my own blood.

I hope she forgives a foolish old man.” I sat alone in the dim light of that basement and cried until my ribs ached. I cried for the years we spent as enemies, separated by a driveway and a wall of misunderstanding. I cried for the terrified, hurting old man who showed his love through secret grocery deliveries and HOA complaints.

I’ve been living in Arthur’s house for six months now. I haven’t changed the exterior at all. I keep the grass perfectly trimmed, not because of the HOA, but because Arthur liked it that way. I still sit on his wrap-around porch in the evenings, sipping iced tea, looking out at the neighborhood.

I kept the trunk. I kept every single journal. And I finally realized that sometimes, the people who seem to be making our lives the hardest are fighting silent battles to keep us safe in the only broken ways they know how.