A zipper.
Her neighbor, a retired geologist named Frank, caught her staring one Tuesday morning. stair-step cracks in outside walls
Over the following weeks, she became a student of their geometry. She’d walk the perimeter with a cup of coffee, tracing the masonry seams like a blind person reading Braille. A new one appeared above the back door, its steps precise and deliberate. Another snaked from the downspout, fracturing the chimney’s corner into a puzzle of displaced bricks. A zipper