Houses belong in thickets of woods. That’s what my parents believed. For privacy, for escape from work. Who wants to look out their window and see neighbors? But we have one: Mr. Yessler, and his house is also shrouded by trees. So we don’t see him too much, except I have a view of his shed from my bedroom. Mom and Dad say I don’t really need curtains because the trees hide everything, and I could just get dressed for bed in the bathroom. However, my pajamas are in my room with me, in a drawer. It’s much easier to just slip them on and look out the window at Mr. Yessler’s shed.

“He’s always working late at night,” I say.

“You shouldn’t spy on him. Everyone needs privacy,” my parents tell me.

But there’s nothing else to do in a house in the woods but watch out the window as Mr. Yessler gets his shovel each night and digs until late.

“What’s he digging?” I ask Mom and Dad.

“Maybe a pool? Maybe he’ll invite you to go swimming?”

Maybe. Mr. Yessler ploughs our driveway in the winter and walks me to the school bus at the end of our long, shared driveway. Of course, he’d let me use the pool.

#

The school cafeteria sometimes serves milk cartons with pictures of kids who’ve gone missing. I don’t recognize any of them. They all live far away.

Mom and I go shopping for pajamas after school. I choose a pink frilly frock with puffed sleeves and ruffles. I put my nightgown on in my room and watch Mr. Yessler dig until I fall asleep.

#

Mr. Yessler knocks on our door, tells us he’ll be gone for a while. Can we watch the house? Mom and Dad say they will, of course. He’s been so kind. When I hear his car pull out of the driveway, I think about what he’s been digging, hoping it’s a pool he’ll share. So when Mom and Dad go to the kitchen to make dinner, I slip out the front door, head down the driveway, creep around back—and hold my breath. He’s dug the biggest pool I could ever imagine, and though it’s just dirt right now, it looks like there’s a lot of water inside already. I just know he’ll invite me to go swimming.

All the way to the edge I go, to look in, but there’s so much stuff floating on top, so many ugly things, like shoes and hair ribbons and cartons of milk with photos dissolving into the muck. A pool shouldn’t have so many of these things inside. Shouldn’t have so many clippings and sketches… shouldn’t have a framed picture of a girl in her bedroom at night, wearing pink ruffled pajamas.