It was a wonder the neighbors didn't complain. And I know it's irrational, maybe even paranoid, but I imagined the old guy upstairs must have heard me crying lately and was mocking my ... [+]
Originally published in Creative Nonfiction magazine's Sunday Short Reads series
After my father toured what would become our neighborhood in Fairfax, California, he knocked on the nearest door and asked the man who answered if it was nice living there.That man told me this story years later as he walked me across the street to the house my father bought after their meeting.I knocked.I used to live here, I said to the stranger who answered. Can I look around?***Even though I was born in Los Angeles, where my parents lived in the only non-development house they'd ever buy, I always felt held by the brown hills of the Fairfax valley, dotted with green treetops like a model t