They're two doors up. This is the conversation, almost verbatim, from when I met Hazel 11 summers ago:
Hazel: Oh it's too bad about Mildred [the woman we bought the house from]. She was a sweetheart but she never, you know, had control over that brother of hers, and his son? I think there was something wrong with him. In the yard, shooting things. Nothing ever grew there, you know.
Me: do you know many other neighbors?
Hazel: Well, most of them are renters up our way, and we don't interact much anymore. Henry and Viv, of course, have been around forever, and Len and Jackie. Helen across the street, but she doesn't get out much anymore. Mostly just her son and his vans, you know. Smelling like gasoline. Tsk. The men next door to you, of course, we haven't met. No sir. I did notice a moving van up the way at the old Yearson place. It's haunted, you know. Nobody stays there long. One night a few years back, the people living there, they'd just moved in, just bought the place, and in the middle of the night they started tossing stuff out onto the lawn from the second story windows! Just tossed it out and drove off in a panic. Came back the next day and got the stuff but never came back to live. Then it was for sale a long time, of course, but now somebody new's bought it, I see. I wonder how long they'll last.
Me: I love ghost stories like that.
Helen: Well, I'm sure there's a good one up there!
Me: So it's just you and your husband in your house now?
Helen: Gilbert and I just finished rehabbing the upstairs, but now we're moving downstairs to the other apartment, I guess we'll work on it. My daughter's moving home. She's pregnant, and the man she's married to didn't want kids after all. Walked out on her. We pray, but I just don't know. So she'll be upstairs with the baby and we'll see how that goes. I hope he comes around, but.
Me: Maybe he will. Maybe once he meets the baby he will.
Helen: Maybe. Say, you know who bought the house here between us? Dwayne Farthing.
Me: I don't know him, I haven't met him. I thought the postman lived here?
Helen: No, he sold out and retired. Sold to Dwayne Farthing. I guess we'll be building a fence. It's good to meet you, Bridgett. Glad you have a dog.
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