Number 790

Death lounges in the neighbors’ window; flashing a sneer through the blinds.
He slinked into this house with teal shutters and battery-powered candles flickering in the windows the night before Labor Day when firecrackers were popping in the backyard and the burnt brown sugar of peach cobbler seeped into his nostrils from a crack in the kitchen door as it bubbled in a Teflon skillet on the stovetop.
They hardly suspected him through the clink of glass and silverware as they slid their chairs in to corn on the cob canned baked beans and a pot roast that was just slightly blackened at the edges.
Passing joggers, dog-walkers, vanpoolers, night strollers now strain to spot him from behind manicured shrubs; recycling is put out every Monday, dry leaves are raked into curbside drifts, and mail delivered to the white mailbox tacked with a brass 7-9-0 somewhere between half past three and quarter to four every afternoon.
When a gurney creaks down the driveway 11:34 p.m. Thursday night nobody notices.