Chapter One: The Widow in 3c
The air in Professor Leonardo Hargreaves’ office consistently reeks of old paper. Even with the windows slightly opened, allowing the sea breeze from the Brighton coast, the scent of decay continues. He loved it that way. It made him aware that everything was ephemeral.
His pen scratched pointedly across a student’s paper, the kind of red ink that exudes more than it is rectified.
“Repetition. Weak thesis. No insight. Rewrite.”
He highlighted the sentence thrice and turned over to the next page.
Outside, the mild sunlight struggled under a sky of grey clouds, casting dull shadows of light across the timber slat. Charlotte, his deceased wife would have detested it. The light, the silence, the way he kept the room just a barely warmer than before. She liked warmth, color, music. Neruda poems on the windowsill. Tulips in the corner vase. Now, everything she touched had been stripped bare, like a house being slowly unbuilt.
A timid knock interrupted him.
“Come in,” he said flatly.
A girl, second year student, maybe in her finals peeked in, holding a printed essay with trembling hands. “Professor Hargreaves, I just… I wanted to ask….”
“No resubmissions,” he said, without looking up. “If I gave everyone second chances, we’d all drown in mediocrity.”
“But I…..”
“Goodbye, Miss….whoever you are.” He flicked his hands dismissively.
The door fell shut in perfect silence.
Leonardo exhaled slowly and scrubbed his hands over his forehead. He wasn’t angry, not exactly. He just didn’t have patience for fragile things anymore. Not for underperforming students or sentimental essays. Not for nervous apologies. And especially not for young women with hopeful eyes and borrowed time. That kind of softness was dangerous. He’d loved softness once. It had nearly destroyed him.
He reached for his tea. He tossed it into the sink behind his desk and pulled on his coat, an old woolen thing with worn elbows and the faintest scent of Charlotte’s lavender sachets. He kept it in the lining. No one knew that.
Downstairs, the hallway reserved for staff resounded with end-of-term chatter. Laughter. Announcements. Plans. He quickened his steps, cutting through the sound like a sound that drifted like a whisper from the grave. The parking area was partially full, except for one obnoxiously parked Mini Cooper blocking his car.
He stood still for a moment, his teeth ground together.
Of course.
Mrs. Adele.
The widow in 3C. His neighbor for seven years. An unapologetic widow with a loud voice and sharper opinions. She taught piano in her hay days, constantly wore oversized sunglasses even in winter, and left her recycling bins half in the road.
Mrs Adele's silver hatchback was parked half a foot too close to Professor Hargreaves’ bumper in the narrow drive.
Leonardo knocked motionlessly on the driver's side window.
She rolled the window down slowly. “Oh. Professor Grump.”
“You’re blocking my car,” the Professor said.
"Would it be so impossible for you to respect boundaries? Or should I drive through your car next time?" The professor asked.
Mrs. Adele came out angrily from her car.
"Excuse me, professor?"
"You parked too close." he snapped.
“Oh, so I am now the obstacle in your life?”
"Some of us still need to get on with our lives." Mrs Adele narrowed her eyes.
He folded his arms, his anger rising like
She squinted over her sunglasses. “You couldn’t fit a bicycle between our bumpers, Leonardo.”
“I have somewhere to be.” He said.
Leonardo’s eyes narrowed. “Move the car, sad witch.”
She turned down the music. Her expression sharpened.
“You know, ever since Charlotte’s demise, you’ve been horrible,” she said, no longer smiling. “Snapping at students. Barking at everyone like we owe you something.”
He tensed up.
Her voice grew cold. “Do I look like cancer to you? Do I look like the cancer killed your wife?”
Leonardo’s breath hitched.
“You dare to speak to me condescendingly,” she said, eyes stung with unshed tears.
“You don’t have to incessantly crash into unsuspecting people with your bitter and melancholy modus operandi.”
He didn’t respond.
She shook her head, rolled up the window, and reversed her car with practiced flair, leaving space for him to exit.
Leonardo stood frozen. The wind picked up, he buried himself in the cost like armor. He got in his car, but didn’t turn the engine on. Instead, he sat there, tension settled in his jaw, eyes glazed, his heart kicked hard.
He blinked rapidly in succession, willing the sting behind his eyes to vanish. But the tears came anyway, hot and sudden. Not because Adele was cruel but because she wasn’t wrong.
In the silence of his car, Leonardo cried.
The kind of weeping that made no sound. The kind that comes after years of holding everything in, until grief finally learns how to speak again.
