Read After Her for Free Online Page B

six-month birthday. Mention was made of my first tooth, and a time when—hearing Andy Williams singing “Moon River” on the radio—I’d reputedly run to get our copy of Goodnight Moon and started dancing. My mother had stopped writing in the book not long after this.
    I made a new title page now: “The Mysterious Life of Albert Armitage,” and wrote the date, along with our stated mission—to learn everything we could about our inscrutable neighbor ( inscrutable: a word from my fifth-grade extra-credit vocab list), though what the purpose might be for our project we never said.
    For Christmas that year, our father had given me a Polaroid camera and five rolls of film that I’d been saving ever since. I decided to dedicate these to the project of documenting the life and habits of Albert Armitage.
    We wanted to include Mrs. Armitage in our project too, but sightings of her were so rare, we would have nothing to put in our scrapbook if we relied on documenting her brief forays into the neighborhood. The hope was that once we understood more of the husband’s story, we’d get an idea of what was going on with his wife.
    We began our scrapbook with the more mundane aspects of our neighbor’s existence: Mr. Armitage carrying out his daily routines of heading up the mountain for his morning hike with his dog, walking to the bus stop, and picking up the Sunday paper on the curb. With no lawn to mow, he spent little time on yard work, though we had spotted him once or twice standing on the edge of his cement-covered plot of ground, pulling up the occasional dandelion that made its way through the cracks. Another time we saw him lining up the rocks that edged the cement blocks. Patty and I exchanged a meaningful look when we saw him doing this—both of us concluding that it would be a poor idea to try stealing rocks from this house anytime in the future. He kept close tabs, evidently.
    Recognizing what Mr. Armitage’s attitude was likely to be concerning the idea of our taking pictures of him, we had cooked up a method for concealing our actions. This called for Patty to stand in front of whatever location it was where we spotted our subject, but slightly off to one side or the other. She’d strike an elaborate pose (hand on hip, waving to the camera) while I aimed the camera in such a way as to capture an image not of my sister at all, but of Mr. Armitage and, on occasion, the dog. To complete the ruse, I’d announce in a loud voice, “Great shot, Patty,” or “You really looked cute in that one.”
    On our way up the street toward home we’d peel back the paper on our latest Polaroid and watch the image develop before our eyes: Mr. Armitage checking his watch. Mr. Armitage hosing down his rocks. Mr. Armitage getting his mail. The most exciting page of our scrapbook featured photographs we’d taken (while pretending to be fixing my bicycle chain) of Mr. Armitage giving his dog a bath.
    Patty participated in our investigation, but unenthusiastically. From the first time we encountered Mr. Armitage, my sister maintained a protective attitude where he was concerned. He was a dog lover. That’s all she cared about.
    â€œHe’s just a person,” she said. “He isn’t hurting anybody. I bet he’s just sad because of his wife’s accident.”
    My sister was referring here to an idea I’d proposed as an explanation for why we only laid eyes on Mrs. Armitage at night, and hardly ever, even then. “Someone threw acid on her face,” I had suggested. “She used to be incredibly beautiful, but now she doesn’t want anyone to see her.” Of all the scenarios I’d suggested to explain the Armitages’ odd behavior, my sister chose to subscribe to the theory that Mrs. Armitage was a tragically disfigured burn victim, and she felt sorry for them.
    But for me, there remained something troubling about the