Margen
My neighbour watered her garden at three in the morning. For years I thought it was insomnia. The night I couldn't sleep and looked out the window, I understood she wasn't watering plants.
There were no plants. Instead there were small mounds of earth lined up with a gardener's care, and she went from one to the next with the watering can, whispering something to them the glass wouldn't let me hear.
The next morning I went down on some excuse. The garden was ordinary: rose bushes, a fig tree, an iron bench. I asked her, as if in passing, whether she slept well.
—I water at night so it won't be noticed —she said, smiling—. By day, everyone would want to know what grows here.
I went home and said nothing. That night, at three, I kept the blind down. There are whole neighbourhoods held together by the questions one chooses not to ask.