Neighbors did not come.
That sentence kept arriving like a miracle I did not trust. A mower. A radio. A kid yelling at a basketball hoop three houses down. Nobody at my door with a casserole of concern. The world continued its Saturday as if a man in a faded logo shirt had not just stopped being a problem in my driveway.
I looked at the clipboard. Addresses. Times. My house number in his handwriting, the last digit corrected. The mall written underneath in a hurry, food court, a first name I could finally read.
Mira.
I said it once, under my breath, and the garage made it sound like a plan.
I still had to pick her up or someone would ask where the shuttle was. Dispatch would keep calling. The dealership would notice a van that did not return. A wife would notice a husband who did not come home from a loop he could drive asleep. The noose was already in the cup holder. I had used phones every day of my adult life and never once thought about what they remembered.
I thought about leaving her. I thought about driving the van into the river and walking home along the tracks like a man who had only lost his keys. Mira would wait, then complain, then take a rideshare, then live. Luis would still be in my garage. The math did not forgive me either way.
I wrapped what I had to wrap. I put the moving blanket where it needed to be. I rinsed the knife a second time because once is a superstition and twice is a habit. I looked at my face in the dark glass of the garage door window and did not recognize the calm. Calm is not peace. Calm is a postponement.
The clipboard said Mira. The mall said now. The van said I was already late for a life I had just ended.
I opened the garage. Daylight felt like a spotlight that had not been aimed yet. I backed out slow, the way a man backs out when he is only going to the hardware store. The logo on the door caught the sun. I waited for a shout. I waited for a face in a window. I got a kid on a bike who did not even turn his head.