The Keeper of the Ornaments

Cole lives alone, has no pets, and has grown accustomed to a homelife of profound quiet (not to say tedium). When Daphne and her two young children move into the apartment next door, the noise is extraordinary--impossible to believe, really--and Cole assumes he'll have to move. But his new neighbors, and their very odd cats, see him differently than he sees himself, and he soon adopts an entirely new persona, that of an older gentleman in a cardigan, ready to assist and advise. This short story, the third installment in The Forgetters series of minibooks, builds into a powerful meditation on forgiveness, grace, and the happiness of being called upon.