I knocked on 4B on a Sunday morning.
Not to apologize — I had nothing to apologize for. Not to retract anything. But because I had been thinking about Mrs. Okafor’s words and about the packages I had signed for all last winter and about what kind of building I wanted to live in, and about the fact that being right and being kind are not mutually exclusive.
He answered the door.
He looked exactly as Mrs. Okafor had described. Tired. Thinner than I remembered. He had the look of someone who has been using all their available energy for something else, something that takes everything, and has nothing left for the edges.
“Mrs. Collier,” he said.
“I heard your mother is unwell,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Pregnancy & Maternity
He looked at me for a moment.
“Mrs. Okafor,” he said.
“Yes.”
He nodded once. Not defensive. Just acknowledging.
“She’s in a place now,” he said. “Residential. She wasn’t safe at home anymore.” He paused. “I go every day. She doesn’t always know me.”
I thought about my own mother, nine years ago. The particular trajectory of that. The way it consumes you from outside in.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “That’s a very hard thing.”
He looked at the floor.
“The tea bags,” he said. “I wasn’t — I didn’t think about who was underneath. I didn’t think about it at all, which is —” He stopped. “That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” I said. “But I understand it better now.”
He looked up.
“You filed a formal complaint,” he said.
“You left me the note that said I should have just talked to you,” I said. “I wanted to say, in person: I did. Twice. And it didn’t work. The complaint wasn’t vindictive. It was the available mechanism.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I know,” he said. “I know. When I wrote the note I was — I was having a bad day. They told me she wouldn’t — she’s declining faster than they expected.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have written it.”
“It was an honest response,” I said. “Even if it was wrong.”
We stood in the doorway for a moment in the particular awkward quiet of two people who have been in a conflict and are finding their way to something else.
