I took the stairs instead of the elevator.
Every step felt heavier.
I kept hearing my own words from the night before.
I’m not your family.
Leave me alone.
When I reached her door, I raised my hand.
Then stopped.
For the first time, I understood what knocking meant to her.
It carried four days of regret.
I knocked anyway.
Three times.
Pause.
Two more.
Nothing.
My heart accelerated.
I knocked again.
“Mrs. Delaney?”
Slow footsteps came from inside.
The lock turned.
She opened the door.
Her eyes were red.
“Daniel.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked away.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yes. I do.”
“No, you were right. I was bothering you.”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“I didn’t know.”
Her expression changed.
“He told you.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
Then stepped aside.
“Would you like tea?”
Her apartment was full of photographs.
A husband in military uniform.
Two children at different ages.
Grandchildren.
A ceramic bowl filled with wrapped candy.
A clock ticked loudly on the wall.
She poured tea into two mismatched mugs.
“The man before me,” I said. “What was his name?”
“Walter Pike.”
She smiled faintly.
“He was annoying.”
I almost laughed.
“He played television too loudly and complained about everyone’s shoes in the hallway.”
“What happened to him?”
“Heart attack.”
“They said it was probably quick?”
She nodded.
“Very.”
“Then you couldn’t have saved him.”
“I know.”
She said it immediately.
“But knowing and believing are different things.”
She told me Walter had lived alone for nearly twelve years.
His daughter lived across the country.
Mrs. Delaney and Walter were not close, but they had a routine.
They passed in the hall.
Argued about the laundry room.
Sometimes shared grocery deliveries.
She knew the sounds of his life.
His television around seven-thirty.
The kettle around eight.
His recliner scraping the floor around 8:17.
Then one evening, nothing.
She noticed.
She stood at her door with her hand on the knob.
Then thought:
Don’t be ridiculous.
The next day, silence.
Still, she told herself he might be visiting someone.
By the fourth day, he was dead.
After that, she started paying attention to doors.
“When you moved in, you were quiet,” she said.
“I like quiet.”
“No.”
Her voice was gentle.
“You needed quiet.”
The walls were thin.
She had heard me pacing.
Then one night, she heard me crying.
It had probably been the night my divorce became final.
I remembered sitting on the floor with a bottle of wine, ashamed even to hear my own voice.
“I almost knocked that night,” she said.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because of Walter.”
Then I understood.
She was afraid of getting it wrong again.
Too early.
Too late.
Too intrusive.
Too absent.
“So you waited until the next night.”
She nodded.
“At 8:17.”
“Why exactly then?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because if I had knocked on Walter’s door at 8:17, at least I would know I had tried.”
I looked around at all the photographs.
“Do your children visit?”
“My son lives in Oregon.”
“And your daughter?”
Her eyes dropped.
“She died eleven years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Cancer.”
Maybe that explained the depth of it.
Mrs. Delaney had lost too many people behind doors she couldn’t open.
I apologized again.
“I was cruel.”
“You were hurting.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No.”
She met my eyes.
“But it explains.”
Before I left, she said:
“I won’t knock anymore.”
Part of me wanted to say good.
Instead I said:
“You can.”
She shook her head.
“No. You asked me to stop.”
“I know. Maybe not every night.”
For the first time, she smiled properly.
“Fair.”
“How about Sundays?”
“Seven-thirty?”
“Deal.”
For the next month, every Sunday, I sat at her kitchen table.
She told me about her husband Frank.
About teaching third grade for thirty-six years.
About Walter and his terrible television.
About her daughter Elaine.
I told her about Hannah.
About losing my job.
About how I had spent months pretending I wanted to be alone when what I really wanted was not to feel like a failure in front of anyone.
Mrs. Delaney never gave speeches.
She just said:
“That sounds hard.”
Sometimes that is enough.
Then one Sunday, I knocked at seven-thirty.
No answer.
I waited.
Knocked again.
Nothing.
A cold feeling moved through me.
I called her phone.
I could hear it ringing inside.
No footsteps.
No voice.
For one terrible second, I understood exactly what she had felt outside Walter’s door.
I ran downstairs for Mr. Alvarez.
We returned with the master key.
He opened the door.
Mrs. Delaney was lying on the kitchen floor.
Alive.
But barely conscious.
And this time, someone had knocked.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Night I Knocked Back
Every Night at 8:17, Mrs. Delaney Knocked on My Door — Until the Night I Finally Told Her to Stop
Part 2 of 5
