Robert, at sixty, was a man neatly compartmentalized by his solitude. The divorce had been a quiet, definitive severance, and the departures of his children, though expected, had left a deep, echoing void in his sprawling, inherited life. His wealth afforded him a gentle, predictable ease, but it could not purchase warmth. The vast, fallow acreage surrounding his house—land that had always been a symbol of his family’s stability—now felt like a cold, empty buffer, keeping the rest of the world at bay.
The construction of the small rental units was his solution, an elegant, pragmatic bridge back to human connection without the messy obligations of commitment. He’d carefully planned them: four identical, cozy cottages, far enough apart to guarantee privacy, but close enough to form a miniature, self-contained community. Crucially, his meticulous screening process was solely focused on single or divorced women. He sought tenants who were also alone, people whose quiet lives wouldn't challenge his own stillness, but would merely provide a backdrop of muffled activity—a car door shutting, a distant light glowing, the faint sound of music carried on the evening air.
What no one knew, what lay carefully locked beneath the façade of the kind, sweet retired gentleman who baked cookies for new neighbors, was a meticulous, almost scientific need for control. Robert’s geniality was less a character trait and more a highly effective camouflage. He didn't want connection; he wanted observation.
Each of the four cottages was built not just to house a person, but to contain a life. The land wasn’t just large; it was a laboratory. His 'moderately rich' status was secured, yes, but he had leveraged every possible resource to ensure the construction was subtly unique. Within the walls of each unit, concealed from view, were layers of wiring that had nothing to do with standard electricity. The distance between the homes wasn't for privacy; it was for optimal isolation and signal integrity.
Robert hadn't built a community; he had built a carefully curated diorama of human loneliness to alleviate his own. He yearned to see the unedited truths of others' lives—their quiet desperation, their mundane habits, the small moments of unguarded joy—played out in the small, safe theaters he had constructed. The new tenants, all women navigating their own post-relationship loneliness, were his anchors to a world he was too polite, and too secretly broken, to re-enter.
