Since the accident, Daniel kept his head down, barely glancing at the hedges that split his driveway from Linda’s. She’d started getting his mail by mistake, noticing but not asking about the new bruise each week. According to a 2023 study in the Journal of Social Psychology, neighbors often misinterpret withdrawal as hostility, yet 68% of those surveyed cited grief or stress as reasons for becoming distant.

One August evening, as Linda stepped out to water her roses, Daniel finally looked up; he clutched the misplaced mail tight, eyes rimmed red but dry. The only sound was her hose spattering the thirsty soil, and the sudden hush of their separate lives drawing, for a moment, into the space between them.