Dante Johnson's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Dante Johnson had lived in Evergreen Place for six months, and he still knew no one's name. He liked it that way. Or he told himself he did. Every evening he sat on his porch with tea he never finished. He watched the light fade behind the old olive tree. His parents died when he was small. After that, one foster family gave him up, then another, then a dozen more. He had learned to expect people to leave. So he kept his door shut and his sorrow locked behind it. He wanted, more than anything, someone he could tell. He also feared no such person existed. A moving truck had rumbled in next door all afternoon. Boxes stacked on the cottage porch. Dante ignored it, as he ignored most things. Then a voice called across the yard. "You've got the best tree on the whole street." He looked up. A young woman stood beneath the olive's twisted branches. Paint stained her jeans in red and green. She tilted her head back and studied the silver leaves like she was already deciding how to paint them. "I'm Charity," she said. "I just moved in." She crossed the grass and stuck out her hand. Her smile came easy, the kind that dared you to frown near it. Dante stood but did not take her hand right away. "Dante," he said. "You always sit out here alone?" She asked it plainly, no cruelty in it. "I prefer it." "Liar." She grinned wider. "Nobody makes two cups of tea for one person." He looked down. A second cup sat on the rail beside his. He had poured it out of habit, the way he had for years, for no one. His throat tightened. He could not remember the last time someone had noticed a small thing about him. Charity picked up the extra cup before he could speak. She sat on his top step like she had done it a hundred times. "I came here to paint," she said. "The city was too loud. I wanted quiet. But quiet gets lonely fast. You must know that." Dante sat back down. Something in his chest loosened, a knot he had tied so long ago he had forgotten it was there. "Yes," he said. "I know that." It was the truest thing he had said aloud in months. She stayed until the sky went dark. She talked about her paintings, her old apartment, the truck driver who got lost twice. Dante mostly listened. But near the end, she asked him where his family lived. He went still. "I don't have any," he said. Then, quieter, "It's a long story." Charity did not flinch or fill the silence. She just looked at him with those steady green eyes. "I've got time," she said. "I live right there now." For the first time, Dante felt the danger of hope. Someone had come close enough to ask. Now he had to decide whether to answer.