In the months since Anne passed, I’ve been sleeping less and less. I sometimes wondered if it was worth going to bed. And when I slept I almost wished I wouldn’t wake up. What was the point?

I know the way to the bathroom in the dark. No need for light. Not that my vision is all that great. Even so, sometimes I look out the little window. The small courtyard is dark. The one big tree died last year, and earlier this month it was taken down. I suppose they’ll plant a new one one of these days.

When Anne and I moved here almost fifty years ago, there was a swing on the old tree, and we always talked about trying it out but somehow we never got around to it. Anyway, with the tree gone, I can see across to the townhomes opposite. Not that there was anything to see. The one directly across had been vacant for months. So it was a surprise when the light came on in the little first floor powder room. 2:30 AM—who would be up but someone like me, someone too old to sleep through the night?

But it wasn’t someone like me. It was a young woman. A beautiful young woman. And, as far as I could tell, she was completely naked. I stepped back from my window. I’m not a peeping Tom. I’m not a voyeur. Or at least I hadn’t been up to now. But that woman was just too beautiful. I stepped back to my window.

Her window was open a crack. She was at the window, and I thought she was going to close it. I hoped she would open it more. She did neither. She just stared out. I was all but certain she couldn’t see me. And then it occurred to me that she might be looking at her reflection in the pane. The light in her bathroom would have made her window almost a mirror. The woman had a somewhat dreamy expression. I tried to imagine it from her point of view. My mind slipped into a brief fantasy. The woman was touching herself.

Maybe influencing my fantasy was my memory of Anne, the way she looked when she touched herself. In any case, the woman across the way stared out the window for some time, that dreamy expression remaining on her face, and I realized I had an erection, my first in I don’t know how long.

Yes, the woman was at the window for quite a while, but all too soon she stepped away, and I felt a pang of—I don’t know—longing? I wanted her at the window forever, or at least for the rest of the night.