I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers

first time Michael had heard them arguing through the conjoining wall of his building and their house he thought maybe a burglar had broken into their home. But then he’d recognised Josh’s accent in the muffled shouts, Samantha’s pitch in her tearful retorts.

    For both Samantha and Josh, Michael appeared at this stage in their lives as someone unattached to their pasts, or to any of the areas of their marriage in which its stresses were bred. He wasn’t a work colleague of Josh’s, a university friend of Samantha’s, or a parent with a child at Lucy’s nursery or Rachel’s school. He was free of association with their histories, and as such their only shared acquaintance. All their other friends were either Samantha’s or Josh’s before becoming “theirs.” It often felt as if in Michael’s presence Samantha and Josh were able to forget their married past, and yet remember the best of themselves, too, and that this was why, beyond anything he ever brought himself, they’d become so attached to having him in their home.
    In a similar way, Michael was surprised to find relief in Samantha and Josh’s unfamiliarity with Caroline. Josh thought he may have once seen one of her reports when staying at a hotel in Berlin, but he couldn’t be sure. What was certain was that neither of them had ever known her in person. Her death, for Samantha and Josh, was just another fact of Michael’s life. Something with which he’d arrived at their door along with the rest of his past, rather than a loss with which he’d been burdened, as some of his older friends had seen it. To Samantha and Josh, Caroline existed only in Michael’s telling of her. When he talked about her with them, he found himself speaking about her life, not her death. So for them, there was no “before” Caroline, but just this echo of a person, still sounding in the man sitting at their table, not as an absence, but as a part of him.
    Over those first few weeks after meeting Josh and Samantha, Michael came to realise that rather than avoiding the questions of strangers, perhaps he should have been seeking them all along. In the Nelsons’ lack of familiarity with Caroline he’d discovered a taste not just of what his life might be like in the years to come, but also what it had been like before her death, and even—and at this a sharp guilt would stab through him—of what it had been like before her.

―
    “Michael Turner? The Michael Turner who wrote BrotherHoods ?” Tony pumped Michael’s hand harder as he said yes, that was right, he’d written BrotherHoods.
    When Michael and Josh had reentered the party Michael had said he thought he should be going after all. But Josh had been insistent. He must meet Tony. He was taking over the digital arm of a company here. He’d love him; he was a great guy. Josh had known him since sophomore year. Michael was a writer, Tony was a publisher. So of course he should meet him. With a hand on Michael’s shoulder once more, Josh had guided him back into the talk and the drink of the front room.
    Tony Epplin was a tall, balding man with the hollowed cheeks of a distance runner. On being introduced to Michael, described by Josh as “our writer neighbour,” he’d extended a polite but wary hand. On hearing Michael’s name, however, his expression discovered a new vitality.
    “It’s great to meet you,” he said, finally letting go of Michael’s hand. “That was a great book. I loved it, I really did.”
    “You two know each other?” Josh asked, looking up at Tony from between them.
    “Yeah,” Tony said. “Well, no. Not each other. But Michael’s book? I know that for sure. It was a big deal. Everyone knew it.”
    Michael thought he saw a glimpse of their teenage dynamics in Josh’s reaction. Smiling and nodding, he turned to look at Michael as if seeing him for the first time. “Yeah? That so? You should have said!” Tony, Michael felt, had long been in possession of a taste to which Josh