The room was small, suffocatingly so—smaller than anything Livia had ever imagined calling home. It measured exactly sixteen square metres, a tiny box that seemed to constrict even further the moment night fell. Darkness brought with it a tide of memories that simply didn’t fit within such confined dimensions. The walls were clad in roughly finished plaster that seemed to trap the ambient moisture, exuding a persistent, musty scent of damp earth. Ironically, over the last few weeks, she had grown accustomed to breathing that heavy air. The single bed in the corner groaned in protest at the slightest shift in weight, though that rarely mattered; Livia didn’t move much during the long, hollow nights.
Since losing Alice, Livia slept with a rigid tension, her body stiff as a board. It was as if she believed that shifting her position might somehow distance her even further from the fading memory of her daughter’s warmth. The transition to this life had been drastic, a freefall from the spacious, sun-drenched house in the suburbs to this adapted storage room at the back of a dilapidated building. It was a place where the residents kept their heads down, barely acknowledging one another, avoiding eye contact as if fear were contagious.
But this isolation was exactly what she had craved. She needed anonymity like she needed air. Here, in this forgotten corner of the city, nobody knew she had been a mother. Nobody approached her with those well-meaning but suffocating looks of pity. Nobody asked her the impossible question of how she was “dealing with everything.” Here, she was safe from the inquiries of friends, family, and most of all, safe from Daniel. Especially Daniel.
Daniel, who possessed eyes identical to Alice’s. Daniel, who wore the same crooked, mischievous smile that their daughter had inherited. Daniel, who had held her hand tightly in the sterile white light of the hospital room while the doctors tried to explain the inexplicable, their words turning into a meaningless hum. Daniel was no longer her husband; he was now just a signature on a divorce paper and the embodiment of a pain she could not bear to face. On her first night in the storeroom, Livia had hugged her thin pillow, turned her face toward the cold plaster wall, and let the tears flow in absolute silence. She didn’t want a soul to hear her.
She was so incredibly tired of being “the mother who lost her daughter.” She didn’t want an identity anymore. She just wanted to be a ghost. She wanted to be invisible, transparent, and eventually, forgotten. However, on the second night, the dam broke. The crying returned with a vengeance, stronger and more violent than before. Sobs escaped from her chest, slipping past the hands she pressed frantically against her mouth in a desperate attempt to muffle the sound.
That was when she heard it. Knock, knock, knock. Livia froze, her breath catching in her throat. The sounds came directly from the wall her body was leaning against. They were precise, firm, and deliberate, as if the person on the other side knew exactly where she was sitting. She held her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs, waiting for a voice or a complaint. Nothing else happened. Just silence.
On the third night, after a particularly grueling day, the grief ambushed her again. She had seen a little girl at the market—a child with blonde braids exactly like Alice’s. The image had burned into her mind. As soon as Livia closed the bedroom door, she burst into tears. This time, she didn’t even bother to stifle the sobs. She collapsed onto the floor, back against the wall, and let the pain flow out of her unchecked.
Knock, knock, knock. There they were again. The same three knocks, in the exact same rhythm, on the exact same spot on the wall. It wasn’t a coincidence. Someone was responding to her crying. For a fleeting moment, a flash of anger cut through her sorrow. What right did this neighbor have to intrude on her private moment of agony? Was this a passive-aggressive complaint about the noise? But as the echo faded, she realized there was something gentle in the rhythm of those knocks. They weren’t impatient or annoyed. They seemed kind, steady, like a voice saying, I’m here. I’m listening.
On the fourth night, when the inevitable wave of sadness arrived, Livia found herself waiting for the signal. The knocks came right on time, a clockwork comfort. This time, with a racing heart and trembling fingers, she raised her hand and responded. Knock, knock, knock. From the other side, after a brief, heavy silence, came a single rap on the wall. A confirmation. That was how their strange communication began, a secret code that only the two of them understood. Three knocks to say, I’m here. One knock to reply, I know.
Gradually, the nights became less terrifyingly lonely. Livia found herself waiting for the time to return to her room, not to cry, but for that strange, silent ritual that had become her only tether to the world. One month after moving in, she spotted a pile of old papers in an abandoned box in the building’s hallway. Without overthinking it, she grabbed a handful and took them to her room. That night, instead of starting with tears, she wrote a question: Who are you?
Carefully, she folded the paper until it was flat and pushed it through the small structural gap between the floorboards and the plaster wall. Then, she knocked three times. The response was slow, agonizingly so. Livia was almost on the verge of giving up when she heard the distinct sound of paper being dragged back across the floor on the other side. With trembling fingers, she waited for the return. Eventually, the note slid back. She pulled it out and read the handwriting: Someone trying to start over. Simple as that. No name, no history, just a phrase that somehow perfectly described her own existence.
In the days that followed, the notes became more frequent, a lifeline slipped through a crack in the wall. When the tears came, instead of just hitting the plaster in frustration, Livia wrote, Today the burden is unbearable. And the response came back, steady and grounding: Breathe. One minute at a time. You made it this far. When he wrote, The past won’t let me sleep, she would reply, Do as I do. Count imaginary stars on the ceiling until your eyes grow heavy. They never discussed details. They never asked for names, ages, or professions.
It was as if they both intuitively understood that the magic of this connection lay precisely in its anonymity. It was the purity of two souls communicating without the baggage of social labels or judgment. One night, after three months of this ritual, Livia felt an overwhelming, physical need to talk about her daughter. It was Alice’s birthday. She would have turned seven years old that day.
The entire day had been an ordeal of silence and shadows. Every hour, every minute that ticked by was laden with memories of what they should have been doing if she were still there. The chocolate cake with the strawberry frosting that Alice loved so much. The purple and blue balloons she always insisted on having. The new dress that would have looked perfect on her small frame. With hands shaking more violently than usual, Livia picked up a yellowed sheet of paper and began to write.
Her name was Alice. She was six years old. Her eyes were the color of the sky. Her laughter sounded like a cartoon. She loved dancing with her father. Sleeping cuddled up with me. Sometimes, I still hear her little footsteps running down the hallway. I smell her hair. But I can no longer touch her… Sometimes I think that if I had done something differently, anything, perhaps she would still be here. The pain is such that even love seems to have been lost. But writing this, maybe it’s a way to keep alive the part of me that died with her.
She folded the paper with reverence, feeling as if she were handing over a piece of her own soul, and slipped it through the gap. She knocked three times and waited, her heart lodged in her throat. The response took much longer than usual. When she finally felt the paper being returned, Livia’s hands were trembling so badly she could barely unfold it. The writing was shaky but clear. Thank you for trusting me with this part of your story. I can’t say I fully understand your pain, but I know what it’s like to lose something that defines who you are. Today, celebrate Alice. Not for what could have been, but for what was. For the love you both shared. For the laughter you can still hear. For the dance that continues in your heart. She is no longer here, but the love you feel for her remains. And that is something no one can take away from you.
That was the first night in a very long time that Livia slept without crying. Another week passed, and the notes continued, bringing a silent, shared comfort to both sides of the wall. Livia began to open up more. She wrote about Daniel, about how deeply she loved him, but how each look at him was a painful reminder of Alice. She confessed the guilt she felt for having distanced herself, for not being able to handle the grief alongside him.
Her mysterious neighbor also began to reveal more of his own shadows. He wrote about the mistakes he had made, how he had let personal demons and addictions destroy his family, and about the crushing shame that prevented him from trying to fix things. It was a confessional booth built of plaster and paper.
Then came the stormy night that changed everything. Rain lashed against the city, making the old building groan and shudder under the force of the wind. Thunder reverberated through the thin walls, and the lights flickered threateningly overhead. Livia was curled up in bed, watching the shadows dance across the room with each lightning bolt, when the power finally gave out completely. Absolute darkness enveloped her. Instinctively, Livia moved closer to the wall, seeking that connection that had become her safe harbor in the storm.
She knocked three times. She waited. Nothing. She knocked again, harder this time. Anxiety began to bloom in her chest, cold and sharp. Silence. Something was wrong. He always answered. Always. Livia fumbled blindly around the bedside table until her fingers closed around the small flashlight she kept for emergencies. With her heart racing, she left her room and stepped into the dark, drafty hallway. Rainwater was invading the floor through leaks in the roof, forming puddles she had to carefully step around.
She stopped in front of the door next to hers. She hesitated for just a second before knocking on the wood. No one answered. She tried the doorknob. It seemed locked or stuck. She looked around, desperate, her beam of light cutting through the gloom, until her eyes fell on an old fire extinguisher hanging on the wall. As she reached for it, ready to strike the doorknob, a voice stopped her. It was the building’s superintendent, looking weary in the flickering light. Without asking about her intentions, he simply said that the door was swollen from the damp; it needed to be pushed with force.
With a stronger shove, the door gave way. Livia stumbled inside. The room was empty. Not completely empty, but devoid of life. There was an unmade bed and some personal items scattered about, but there was no one there. Livia swept the space with the shaking beam of her flashlight until her eyes found a cardboard box in the corner. She approached it slowly, her breath misting in the cold air.
Inside the box, she found a photograph. It showed a man with a tired but kind face, smiling next to a girl of about eight years old. The child’s eyes were intense, full of life, and painfully reminiscent of Alice’s spirit. Beside the photo was a letter, carefully folded. It read: If you are reading this, it’s because I’m gone. I lost my family because of my addictions. I walked away thinking it would be for the best, that sparing them the shame would be a form of love. But your words reminded me of the value of presence, of the courage to continue even when everything hurts. Thank you for reminding me what it means to be a father. I will come back. I will try to rebuild.
Livia fell to her knees, tears streaming freely down her face. The letter trembled in her hands. That stranger, separated from her by nothing but a thin plaster wall, had touched her soul in ways she couldn’t explain. And now, he had left. Not to flee, but to face his life. To rebuild.
What if? The question struck her like a lightning bolt, illuminating a path that had been hidden in the shadows of her grief. She didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. When the first weak rays of sunlight began to filter through the cracks in the window, she had already made her decision. She took a sheet of paper and wrote her final note. You saved me too. I discovered that I still love my husband. I’ve always loved him… But the pain was so great that it made me forget that. Thank you for reminding me that behind the loss, there is still love.
She folded it carefully and placed it in the crack in the wall where it all began. It was a farewell, and a thank you to someone whose name she would never know, but whose presence had changed the trajectory of her life. With trembling hands, Livia picked up her phone. Daniel’s number was still on speed dial, sitting there unused for months. She took a deep breath and pressed the button.
One ring. Two. Three.
“Livia?” His voice was hoarse, thick with surprise. She closed her eyes, letting the familiarity of that sound envelop her. How much time had she wasted running away from him when they could have been facing the pain together?
“Daniel.” Her voice came out choked, barely a whisper. “Can you find me?”
There was a moment of silence on the line that seemed to last an eternity, a precipice between their past and future.
“I never stopped looking for you.”
Six words. Six simple words that shattered the last wall she had built around her heart. They arranged to meet in the late afternoon at the same café where they used to go on Sundays, back before everything changed, before they took Alice to the park. It was the place where they had seen each other for the last time before the divorce papers were signed.
Livia arrived first. She chose a table near the window, a vantage point where she could watch the world passing by. Every face that appeared at the glass door made her heart leap into her throat. And then, he was there. Daniel looked thinner, and there was more grey in his hair than she remembered. But his eyes—the same eyes that had hurt her so much because they were a mirror of Alice—now seemed like a comfort. They were a connection to what they had created together, to the love they still shared.
He approached slowly, tentatively, as if afraid she might dissolve into mist at any moment. He sat across from her, his hands restless on the table.
“You are…” he began, but the words seemed inadequate for the weight of the moment.
“Surviving,” she completed for him, offering a sad, small smile. “And you?”
“One day at a time,” he replied.
There was so much familiarity in that phrase that they both felt Alice’s presence between them. But this time, she wasn’t a painful shadow haunting them; she was a light that united them. They talked for hours—about the pain, about the guilt, about the fear. They spoke of how each of them had faced grief in different ways, and how they had drifted apart exactly when they needed each other the most.
“I thought looking at you would always be a reminder of what we lost,” Livia confessed, her voice trembling. “But now I realize that looking at you is a reminder of everything we still have.”
Daniel reached his hand across the table, hesitant. Livia looked at those fingers that had held hers so many times, that had caressed Alice’s face, that had dried her tears. And she reached out and held them. There, in that simple touch, there were no grand promises of eternal happiness. There were no guarantees that the pain would disappear. There were only two broken hearts that finally understood that together, they could carry the weight that had crushed them when they were alone.
“We can start slowly,” she suggested, her voice almost a whisper.
“We have all the time in the world,” he replied, softly squeezing her hand.
As they left the café, the sky was painted in shades of orange and pink, the sun bidding farewell with a promise to return the next morning. They walked side by side, not holding hands yet, but close enough to feel the warmth radiating from each other. Before they parted ways, Daniel turned to her.
“What made you change your mind? After so long?”
Livia smiled, her thoughts drifting to the stranger on the other side of the wall, to the knocks that had become her anchor, and the notes that had rebuilt her soul.
“Someone reminded me that sometimes we need a wall between us to really start communicating.”
He didn’t fully understand, but he nodded anyway. There would be time for explanations, for stories, for new beginnings. When Livia returned to her small storage room-turned-bedroom that night, she didn’t feel suffocated for the first time. The walls didn’t seem to be closing in on her.
She sat on the bed, looking at the spot on the wall where it all began. She raised her hand and knocked three times. There was no response, of course. But somehow, she knew that somewhere out there, someone was also starting anew. Someone who, like her, had found the courage to face the past instead of running from it. And in that small room, which once felt like a prison and now was just a temporary stop, Livia fell asleep with a comforting thought: sometimes, we need to completely lose ourselves to find our way back home.
