The morning they found Paul’s body, Sarah and I made hashbrown patties in her apartment. They were the kind that came plastic-wrapped in a stack, a frozen accordion of greasy orange disks. Later, when I heard about how Paul’s body was discovered bloated and floating in False Creek, I connected the timelines and realized that just as he was being pulled from the water, Sarah was likely smearing ketchup on her patty like jam on toast. As he was zipped up in a black body bag, Sarah sat back, relaxed, and pointed to her stomach, telling me to look at her food baby. I was laughing, as Paul was likely stacked into an ambulance.

We had just finished the dishes when Sarah’s phone buzzed. A detective was downstairs. She pressed the necessary buttons and within seconds there was a knock on the door, and a crow-black-haired man named MacDonald was telling her that her husband’s body had been found. Sarah asked if he was okay. It seemed like such an odd question—of course he wasn’t okay, of course he was dead, of course the detective was not here to tell her that everything was alright, that his body was found and it’s fine. But even before the detective answered, Sarah let out an exhausted, angry breath, keeled over, touched the ground. The detective’s eyes shot around the apartment and landed on me, like I was misplaced. He looked at me almost accusingly, then crouched to Sarah’s level, patted her on the shoulder professionally, and gently told her that they would need her to identify the body soon. He got up, tiptoed around Sarah like she was part of an obstacle course, and came over to me to take my information. I looked down at his notebook as he scribbled my name, who I was, whether I had anyone at home. He underlined Leah, neighbour, apartment, alone, insurance agent, repeatedly before giving me his card. We’ll be in contact, he said. He walked past Sarah’s hunched, heaving body and exited the room. As the door closed, I dipped down and held her, pressing my face to her sweaty head.

I met Paul and Sarah several months before, when they first moved into the building. It was a Saturday in September. I was parked on a couch, reading, when I heard the loud rumble of their moving truck below. Looking out the window, I saw Paul first as he hopped out the passenger door and ran to the back of the truck. He was handsome like a matinee idol. There was a perfectly curated amount of scruff adorning his tightly-lined jaw, and his thick, inky black hair was carefully swept back, not quite like a ’50s greaser, but enough to evoke images of a modern-day, slightly rougher-hewn James Dean. As he hauled a cardboard box out of the truck, he became momentarily disheveled—a hair was strewn sideways—and Sarah, coming round from the other side of the truck, gently lifted her hand up to comb it back into place and kiss him on the cheek. She was practically bouncing with each step as she tied her auburn mane up into a loose bun, picked up a surprisingly big box, and hauled after Paul.

I heard them when they came into the hallway, the clink of their keys, Sarah laughing to herself, telling Paul that the hallway carpet reminded her of The Shining. I opened my door, and Sarah immediately turned to me, beaming. Paul put his box down in the entrance to prop their door open, then took Sarah’s box and stacked it on top of his. They introduced themselves, shaking my hand, and without thinking, I offered to help them move. Both of them brushed it off at first, but I pressed, said I would be leaving in an hour anyways and would be out of their hair. They accepted. “It’s always a plus to know your neighbours,” Sarah said. I nodded in agreement, despite having never spoken to the previous tenant, nor almost any of the other renters in the building, except for Stephen, the building manager who lived down the hall on the other side of Paul and Sarah. Even those exchanges, though, were often either to let me know of some maintenance issues or if I was being too loud, which was a rarity. I knew he was the son of Ken Brayden, whose company owned our building, but otherwise, he was a stranger.