old man with an umbrella

two nights ago i woke to the sound of the old man next door knocking at his own door.  the dogs, who were let indoors in anticipation of rain, barking at the sound.  it was well past midnight and i knew his family next door had left for out of town.  
 
didn't he know?  i wondered.  although it took no genius to guess he probably didn't.  certainly one didn't have to be nosy to see the scrawny man must have fallen off from his family:  his wife makes no pretense of calling him well; his grown son does not talk to him.  it is not unheard of in this country how some men, while in their prime, leave their families for someone else; how these same men come back to the lives of their wives and children when they have grown old and sick and abandoned by their other women.  how their wives and children, morally obliged, take them in.  in the same way one takes in a very unwelcomed stranger.

the next door neighbors could be a classic.  although i'll never know from the few neighborly exchanges.  the wife had remarked twice or so about the frontyard plants, the fruit tree i was growing.  her grandchild's fondness for dogs.  the son and i had exchanged briefly about the weather, the water supply, the tiles, the routes, the breaking-in two doors away.

the old man attempts to make conversation; but is strange.  

the sound of his knocking made the dogs bark.  i called the dogs.  it had started to rain and i began to worry for the man.  how it must be:  to keep on knocking on one's own door late into the night, exhausted and never knowing it'll never be opened.  there's no one in.  

it pelted harder.  and i wondered about having him in.  he couldn't stay on the couch, the dogs wouldn't let him and would keep awake the entire neighborhood.  there was no extra room; upstairs being a large studio space and a bed i was sharing.  she was half awakened by the heavy rain, and the dull, exhausted and frustrated sound.  the old man knocking next door, i said. 

she went back to sleep.  i kept awake at the sound of heavy rain.  and the knocking that had stopped.  i got up from bed and looked through the window.  the old man was leaving, holding on to an umbrella, and dragging his one limp limb out into the open rain.