Midnight Living-Room Window
It started as something small. A habit, really. I live alone in a two-bedroom apartment above a dry cleaner’s in a neighborhood that used to be quiet. The walls are thin, the heat cuts off randomly, and the windows rattle in the wind. But it’s close to the bus stop, and I’ve been here eight years now. You get used to things. I don’t sleep much anymore, not since Claire left. My daughter. She’s with her mother now, in a town I’ve never been to, even though I looked it up on the map more than once.
My nights are long. I used to fill them with TV shows, or cleaning, or pacing the hallway. But lately, I’ve been watching the neighbors across the street. Not in a creepy way, I don’t think. Just watching. Their window faces mine, and they never close the curtains. Most of the time, the room is empty. But on Wednesdays, around midnight, they set up a laptop on the coffee table, and for about an hour, they sit together on the couch and watch what I eventually figured out were therapy sessions. Real ones. Streamed, or recorded—I’m not sure. But I can see the therapist’s face on the screen, and I can tell it’s not a movie. The lighting’s too flat, the people too ordinary.
There’s a couple—mid-30s, maybe. I don’t know their names. The man has short hair and always wears sweatpants. The woman wears glasses and sits with her knees drawn up. Sometimes they hold hands. Sometimes they don’t. I started watching them by accident. I was washing dishes one night and looked out the window, and there it was—their living room, lit up like a small stage. The laptop screen glowed, and they sat still, listening. I couldn’t hear anything, obviously, but their faces told the story. The woman would nod slowly, or wipe her eyes. The man would shift in his seat, tense up, glance at her. I stood there for twenty minutes, just watching.
After that, I kept coming back. I’d wait until midnight on Wednesdays. I wouldn’t turn on any lights, just sit in my recliner by the window and watch. It became the only time all week that I felt connected to something. Their pain, I guess. Or their effort. I’d watch and think about Claire, about how I used to read her stories when she couldn’t sleep. About the last time I saw her, standing by her mother’s car, arms crossed, not looking at me. She had grown taller. I missed it happening.
I never told anyone about the window. I knew it sounded strange. But I wasn’t spying—I wasn’t writing things down or taking pictures. I just watched. I think I needed to see people trying. I needed to believe that people could sit together and work through something ugly. That maybe they could come out the other side better. That maybe I still could too.
Claire’s mother left two years ago, taking Claire with her. She said I wasn’t stable enough. I had lost my job at the time. I was drinking more than I should’ve. We argued a lot. I never hit her. I want to be clear about that. But I guess I scared her. And she was probably right—I wasn’t in a good place. I was angry all the time. I didn’t know how to talk about things. I just bottled them up until they spilled over. I didn’t know what to do with myself after they left. I spent months drifting. I applied for jobs, got a part-time one at a hardware store. Kept to myself. I wrote letters to Claire that I never sent. I still have them in a drawer.
One Wednesday night, I saw something different. The couple wasn’t on the couch. The laptop was there, open, but only the woman was in the room. She sat on the rug, cross-legged, staring at the screen. Her face looked tight, like she was trying not to cry. She reached out and touched the screen at one point, just for a second. Then she sat back, arms folded, and didn’t move. I waited for the man to come in, but he never did. I watched for the full hour, then the screen went dark. She stayed sitting there in the dark for a long time after. I did too.
It hit me harder than I expected. I don’t know why. Maybe because I had started to believe in them, in the idea that people could fix things if they just talked enough. But there she was, alone. And I felt this sharp twist in my chest, like I was watching something I had no right to see. I closed my curtains that night after the lights went out in their apartment. I didn’t get out of the chair for a while. I just sat there, listening to the radiator click and the city hum outside.
The next morning, I got up early and bought a notebook. I sat at the kitchen table and wrote a letter to Claire. Not like the others. This one was different. I told her about the time we went to the shore and she collected rocks with holes in them. I told her I still had one in my drawer, and how I sometimes held it when I couldn’t sleep. I told her I’d messed up. That I hadn’t known how to be the kind of person she needed. I didn’t make excuses. I just told her I missed her. And I mailed it this time. First letter in almost a year that I actually sent.
I didn’t hear back. Not for weeks. I figured she probably threw it out. Or her mother did. But one Wednesday night, I looked out the window at midnight and saw both of them again. The couple. Back on the couch. The laptop was open. They weren’t touching, but they were sitting close. The man leaned forward sometimes, like he was trying to hear better. The woman didn’t seem as tense. I watched the whole hour, and when it was over, they stayed there, talking. I couldn’t hear them, but I could see how their hands moved. They were trying again.
I watched them less after that. Not because I didn’t care, but because I started using those nights for something else. I signed up for a group therapy class online. Not live—just recordings. Like the ones they watched. I’d make coffee, sit by my laptop, and take notes. I didn’t tell anyone about it. It was just for me. I wanted to understand where I had gone wrong. I wanted to learn how to talk about things without shutting down or lashing out.
About a month later, I got a postcard in the mail. It was from Claire. Just a picture of a dog she liked, and a sentence: “I got your letter. Thanks.” That was it. But I held that card like it was made of glass. I didn’t know what to write back at first. I just kept it on the fridge, looking at it every morning like it was proof that I still had a chance.
Sometimes I still watch the couple. Not every week, but now and then. I never see them argue. I don’t know if that means they’re doing better or just quieter. But I like to think they’re still trying. I know I am.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from those late nights at the window, it’s this: most people are doing their best with what they’ve got. Sometimes that doesn’t look like much. Sometimes it’s just two people watching a screen together, not saying anything. But trying. And in a world where so many things fall apart, trying counts for a lot more than we give it credit for.
