Chapter 4

As the little girl disappears around the corner of the hedges, an old lady comes out onto the porch in a gray robe holding it tightly closed. "Now, Sarah, don't get dirty today at school."

Christopher is trying to see around the high overgrown bushes and tree limbs that have taken over both his yard and his neighbor's. "Good morning." Christopher says, more to the creaking of the porch rather than being able to see the person.

The old lady comes over to the edge of the porch at the top of the steps and leans out a little to look over. "Oh, good morning. Are you our new neighbor?"

"Yes ma'am." says Christopher, fighting his way through rose bushes that have not been trimmed in years, and hedges that have gone from neatly trimmed to creatures from outer space, with a thousand arms reaching out to try and grab you. Not to mention the many layers of decomposing leaves.

Christopher finally makes his way under a low hanging branch that is from a tree that is about in the center of the two properties, but actually is on city property as it is about a foot from the street. The sidewalk is breaking apart as the tree continues its life.

As he is walking up her walkway he goes on. "Hi, my name is Christopher and I just bought the house next door." As he is saying that last part, he is going up her six steps with his hand held out. As he is going up the wooden steps he notices they are in bad shape, and in fact the third one is broke.

The old lady quickly takes his hand and then hides her hand back into the folds of her robe because it is a very cold. The beginning of February in Connecticut has his breath preceding his words like a dragon breathing fire. "Well, my name is Nan and I live here with my granddaughter, Sarah. She is nine-years-old and very shy, but she is a good girl. So, you from around here?"

"No, ma'am, I'm from Northern California, born in a city called Folsom."

"I remember Johnny Cash singing about Folsom Prison."

"Yes, ma'am, same city."

"Have you ever been to prison?" she asks slyly.

Christopher smiles. "No, ma'am. I used to be in the Army, and now I'm a writer."

"A writer, huh! Got anything published?"

"Yes ma'am, I..."

"You can call me Nan."

"Okay, Nan. Yes, I have ten novels published, and they're just getting ready to turn one of them into a movie. I think I have an extra copy of the book they are going to turn into a movie if you would like to read it."

"I could do that."

"Let me get situated over here and I'll bring it over in a couple of days."

"Okay, good morning to you, Christopher."

As Christopher is walking back over to his new house, he is looking at his neighbor's house and his own. They both are painted the same dark brown with cream trim, and they both have covered front porches that have six steps leading up to them.

From the looks of it, these are the only two two-story homes that are this close to the street on the block. While his new house and his neighbor's have maybe forty feet of front yard, all the other houses have at least seventy. It is probably why both the neighbors have put up dense high hedges alongside the property lines.

Also, while the entire rest of the neighborhood is exquisite, these two yards are pathetically overgrown and designed. With the rose bushes, hedges, and some kind of miniature tree, his house barely has twenty feet of front yard. On each side of the steps, all along the front of the covered porch are tall hedges that are several feet over the railing, blocking out at least half of the possible sunlight.

Christopher can already tell he is going to be doing a lot of rip and tear remodeling in the front yard alone. Besides the tree that splits the properties, the one on city or county property, he's not sure which at this point, he has another tree in the dead center of his right side lawn as the walkway into his house splits his yard. If Christopher had to guess, he would say that the same people built the two homes because they look so much alike.

As Christopher walks up his six stairs, he notices they are made out of concrete and rocks. "Probably very uncomfortable to bare feet. I guess I need to get a list together."

Christopher pulls out his house key and opens the front screen door and then the door. The top half of the screen door is torn and falling down. "That will be the first thing I fix. Wow, this house is freaking colder than a witch's tit. I could have sworn I asked the gas people, who I had check everything out, to leave the heater on at fifty." Christopher sighs in annoyance.

Since the door opens to the right, he searches for light switches just to the left. He finds a set of four of them and he flips them all on. The light in the dining room comes on and so does the porch light, but nothing else does. Most likely they operate two different plugs from the wall.

The dining room is to the immediate left and is about fifteen feet by fifteen feet. It sits in the front corner with a window looking out onto the porch. It faces east so he will definitely have to clear away those hedges, and trim or remove the tree, so he can get the morning sunlight. There is another window on the south wall that looks at the neighbor's house to one just like it, which is Nan's home.

Christopher begins to wonder if the two homes aren't mirror images of each other. There is also a side door leading out to the side of the house between the dining area and the kitchen.

Christopher walks over to the kitchen. "Kind of small, but easily usable. Simple, I like it." Then he walks through the kitchen to another door, and when he opens it he finds that it just leads to a storage room about half the size of the kitchen, which is a third bigger than the dining room.

He walks back into the entryway, and across he sees the stairs that lead up to the second floor and there is a door there that leads into the garage. There is a single step raised platform there before the stairs go up along the north wall.

He turns to his left or the west, and the living room is huge. "I like it! Looks like there is a good-sized closet built under the stairs. Sliding glass doors probably make it cold, but it should let the later half of the day's sun in."

He looks at the fireplace that is tucked in the southwest corner of the living room at a forty-five degree angle. He laughs, because it is almost the same style rock layout that he has in his home in the Hollywood Hills. "Looks like the television will have to go on the south wall, which is the kitchen divider wall. Well, you're definitely limited how you can set up the living room, but it is still nice."