This is the new house. The houses here are built low, surrounded by sky, fenced by mountains. As if life would begin now, yet again. Too many beginnings and streets too wide for crossing.

None of our boxes have come yet. There's only the two chairs left behind, greyish and frail. Three streets down, across the freeway, several houses are boarded up and there is lot of gravel and glass. Crime spills over in the summer, retreats in winter.

My brother tells me that there is no point in becoming too intimate with the neighbors here. We'll move soon, he says. We're living here to budget, until things are back to normal, until he feels safe. Until he can let me go.

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