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Not jealous but he might've been lonely. So he drove past the house in the early evening. Her house that had been his until the divorce. And she had custody of their daughter, except for precisely scheduled visits with Daddy. Whatever you want, he'd said, if you want it so badly. He wasn't jealous of her new life (of which he heard from mutual friends, without inquiring)-hey look: he had a new life, too. He wasn't angry, not by nature an angry man, but he was a man you wouldn't want to provoke, like his uncle in Minnesota, of whom it was said with a bemused shake of the head you wouldn't want to make an enemy of if you could avoid it.
Just it felt necessary some nights to get into his car and drive past the house. Not every night (he had his own life! ) but two or three times a week maybe. Along Ridge Road to the cul-de-sac a mile or so beyond the house, turning and driving back casually at a time of evening when his car was one of numerous cars of no special distinction, as he knew himself to be a man of no special distinction, not young, not old, might've been any husband-father-homeowner in the neighborhood returning to what's called home. For in fact he was one of these men, he belonged here. Some nights driving past 11 Ridge Road in the early evening and seeing no lights, or just a kitchen light, or lights in most of the house, meaning they were certainly home, the bluish flicker of the TV like water rippling behind glass, seeing her car (white, compact) in the carport, and if not her car the baby-sitter's car (dark green) in the driveway, meaning she wasn't home yet from work; sometimes he'd glimpse both her car and the baby-sitter's car and a third car, intrusive and jarring to his eye, a new-- model Lexus belonging to no one R--- knew, and he would know he'd be returning later that night, around midnight, when all lights at 11 Ridge Road should be out, and there was just the single (white) car in the carport; and he would park his car on the road at...