Free Visible City by Tova Mirvis Page B

computer, Googling the neighbors. She learned that Leon specialized in anxiety disorders. She found Claudia’s book from ten years before about the history of American stained glass. She entered Emma’s name too and found listings for the French language classes she’d taught and two conference papers she’d presented.
    Since recognizing Claudia, Nina had been overcome with the urge to talk to Leon. She took the kids on evening runs to the grocery store, hoping she’d run into him on their block. Twice, she saw him sitting in his car while she was outside with the kids, and after that, she timed their walks to coincide with his mornings in the car. She stood in front of the construction site, waiting for him to pass. When she saw him on the street, she always stopped to talk, and he too was willing to linger. She had to remind herself that she didn’t know him as well as she imagined, but even if he detected the longing in her expression, he wouldn’t know how to interpret it. He wouldn’t know what she saw out her window. He wouldn’t know that she’d recognized his wife.
    At home, in front of the window, she was a hunter lying in wait for some flash of movement, some rustling of life. Instead of offering solace, the view from her window made her lonelier. If only she could summon an emergency babysitter, or leave two sleeping kids by themselves for an hour—anything to be outside. As though they’d been alerted to her watchful presence, the last few nights had passed without her seeing Claudia or Leon. The only one she saw was Emma. The television, whose existence had been hidden inside a wood armoire, now glowed blue for much of the night. But finally, one night, the lights came on and Claudia and Leon took their places on the couch. Their books were open, but this was no longer a vision of shared solitude. Instead of seeing contentment, she saw only loneliness. Instead of imagining quiet murmured conversations, she saw a clipped, tense silence.
    She reached for the pair of Fisher-Price binoculars her mother had given Max, part of the Outdoor Adventure set that had arrived following their last visit to her parents’ house when Max looked nervously at the grass and asked if he was allowed to walk on it. As the faces across the way sharpened, so did the feeling that she was doing something wrong. But she tried to push away her guilt; if this was a crime, surely it was one without consequence or repercussion.
    At the sound of Jeremy’s key in the door, Nina put down the binoculars. She couldn’t turn the lights on quickly enough, however, and when he came upon her sitting in the dark, binoculars next to her on the couch, he laughed.
    “Stargazing?” he asked.
    He was looking expectantly at her, as though arriving home at only eleven o’clock at night was a feat to be celebrated. She kissed him hello, but her mind was far from her body. She was glad she hadn’t told him about her growing interest in the neighbors. Her day was filled with details, few of which he would care about, but this omission felt like a secret. Jeremy didn’t have to say anything for her to read his thought:
So this is what happens when you spend your day with children.
Max had his world of make-believe. Now she had hers. If she thought about what she’d done all day, there were no large accomplishments, nothing she could point to except the fulfillment of a hundred different needs.
    He took the binoculars. “Very high-tech. Does Max know you’re borrowing these?”
    “How was work?” she asked.
    “You don’t want to know,” he said.
    “What took so long?” she asked, and he bristled. He didn’t have to say anything for her to know his response. It wasn’t his fault he worked so late, not his fault he could never come home. With these excuses, he thought that he escaped her blame, but now she realized that he left behind something more corrosive. She wished she could change the way she had started to view him, but there was