The mystery of 7:30 pm
Six months of Sundays, and Richard had never stayed past 7:30 p.m. Punctual as a Swiss watch. Each week, a different excuse: a client in Singapore, a plumber expected in the evening, the neighbor Mr. Mendez who couldn’t open his medication because of his arthritis…
Separately, each reason seemed plausible. Together, they rang false.
My 15-year-old daughter, Chloé, nicknamed him “Cinderella.” And frankly, she wasn’t wrong.
“He really does that,” she said, folding the napkins. “Every Sunday, boom, 7:30 p.m., he takes off like the pumpkin is about to explode.”
What troubled us even more was that in six months, my mother had never set foot in his house. And Chloé had seen him, twice, turn south after dinner, even though he claimed to live twenty minutes north.
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