Sarah's new apartment felt like a cardboard box - empty, brown, and depressingly temporary. She stood in the middle of the barren living room, surrounded by towers of moving boxes labeled in her characteristic messy-yet-somehow-organized way, armed with nothing but a pizza cutter and an overwhelming urge to cry. (She'd packed her knife set somewhere in one of these identical boxes, naturally.)
The pizza wasn't even here yet. She'd ordered it forty-five minutes ago, and her phone battery was at 12% because obviously she'd packed her charger in one of the boxes too. Somewhere. The sun was setting, casting long shadows through naked windows - she'd have to figure out curtains at some point - and her body ached from carrying boxes up three flights of stairs because the elevator was "temporarily out of service." (She was beginning to suspect "temporarily" might be a rather flexible concept in this building.)
Her phone buzzed. Finally, the pizza. But no - it was her mother instead.
"Honey, how's the move going? All settled in?"
Sarah looked at the box labeled "KITCHEN STUFF PROBABLY" in front of her. She'd already opened it to find photo albums. "Yeah, Mom. It's... going great."
"You sound tired. Did you remember to pack your coffee maker?"
Sarah had, in fact, remembered her coffee maker. She just couldn't remember which box it was in. "Of course," she lied, then immediately felt guilty about it. Her mother had raised her better than that. "Actually, no. I mean, I packed it, but I have no idea where it is."
Her mother's laugh crackled through the phone. "That sounds more like my daughter. Do you need anything?"
"No, I'm fine," Sarah said automatically, even as her stomach growled and her phone battery dropped to 11%. "Just waiting for pizza."
After hanging up, Sarah sat on the floor, her back against a box that was supposedly full of winter clothes but felt suspiciously like books. The empty apartment seemed to mock her with its bare walls and echoing space. She closed her eyes, just for a moment.
A knock startled her awake. How long had she been dozing? The room was darker now, and her phone was dead.
She opened the door to find not the pizza delivery person, but her elderly neighbor from across the hall, Mrs. Chen, holding a steaming container and wearing a concerned expression.
"I heard you moving in earlier," Mrs. Chen said, her accent making the words dance. "My Carlos - that's my late husband - he always said empty apartments are the loneliest places in the world." She thrust the container forward. "It's congee. Rice porridge. Good for tired bodies."
Sarah blinked, thrown off by this unexpected kindness. "Oh, I... I actually ordered pizza..."
"Pizza?" Mrs. Chen waved her hand dismissively. "Delivery boy came while you were sleeping. I heard him knocking. No answer. He left." She pushed the container into Maya's hands. "Eat. I have plenty. And..." she hesitated, then smiled. "I have extra curtains, if you need. And a very good coffee maker I never use since Carlos..." She trailed off, then straightened her shoulders. "Well. You can borrow it until you find yours."
Sarah felt her throat tighten. "That's... that's really kind of you, but I couldn't-"
"Kindness isn't about could or couldn't," Mrs. Chen interrupted. "It's about do or don't. Carlos taught me that too." She turned to go, then paused. "Oh, and I have a phone charger. Same kind as yours - I saw you using it in the hallway earlier. Come over after you eat."
Standing in her empty apartment, holding warm congee, Sarah felt something shift. The space suddenly didn't seem quite so empty. She took a bite of the congee - it was delicious, warming her from the inside out - and noticed her eyes were wet. Probably just tired, she told herself, even though she knew that wasn't it.
Later that evening, sitting in Mrs. Chen's cluttered but cozy apartment, listening to stories about Carlos while her phone charged and the borrowed coffee maker gurgled promisingly, Sarah thought about kindness. How it could transform an empty apartment into something else entirely. How it could make a stranger feel like a neighbor. How it could turn a lonely evening into... whatever this was.
Her own voice surprised her: "Would you... would you like help organizing your photos sometime? I'm pretty good at that. When I'm not mixing them up with kitchen stuff, I mean."
Mrs. Chen's face lit up, and Maya felt that shift again - the one that made spaces feel less empty, that made cardboard boxes feel less like barriers and more like bridges waiting to be built.
(Sometimes, Sarah would later reflect, kindness works both ways - filling empty spaces in more hearts than one.)
Comments
Post a Comment