The Rooms We Left in Other People

How it begins

The room inside Simon Bell had excellent light and no door.

Nora measured the far wall while he sat in her office trying not to sneeze. Survey work was delicate when the property belonged to a person who disliked being examined.

“Was it always this size?” she asked.

“I didn't know it was here.”

“Most people don't.”

The room contained a blue chair, a plant, and a bookshelf with three books turned face down. Someone had opened the window. Beyond it lay a view Nora could not see from any street in the city.

“How long since the separation?”

“Four months.”

“And the occupant?”

“My wife isn't dead.”

“I didn't suggest she was.”

He looked away.

Nora put down her tape measure.

People came expecting demolition. They wanted a clean interior, no trace of a former tenant, somewhere new furniture might fit. Sometimes that was possible. More often the room had become part of the structure.

From inside came the sound of a page turning.

Simon gripped the arms of his chair.

“She doesn't read those books.”

“Who does?”

“I do.”

Nora stepped carefully past the blue chair.

On the shelf stood a photograph of a seaside hotel. A receipt marked the page of an unfinished novel. The handwriting on it belonged to Simon.

“When did you last visit this room?”

“I told you. I didn't know.”

“When did you last do anything in it?”

He closed his eyes.

Outside the office, a delivery rider rang the wrong bell and apologized through the intercom. Ordinary noise entered the impossible room through its open window.

Nora took a pencil from her pocket.

“I can quote for a door.”

“What about removing it?”

She looked at the chair, placed exactly where the afternoon light would reach a reader's shoulder.

“Perhaps first,” she said, “we should find out whose room you think you're trying to lose.”