I wait for Charlie to leave for work the next day before heading for my old apartment. My first obstacle is the stairs down to the subway and my second is the stairs back up again. I’ve lived in New York long enough to know that you don’t get into an empty subway car when the other cars are packed and you avoid the elevators unless absolutely necessary: two lessons I learned the hard way.
I regret my bravado when I emerge from my old subway stop and realize that I still have to climb seven stories up to the apartment. I walk slowly despite the frigid temperatures, stopping for a coffee on my way. I rest my leg and savor the gingerbread latte, letting it warm me from the inside out. The scar on my leg is throbbing, the muscles overused and tired from physical therapy the day before.
Standing at the bottom of the stairs and looking up at them, I have regrets. Regrets about coming here, regrets about not taking a cab, regrets about ever having thought that a seventh floor walk-up would be fine. I can’t imagine ever thinking it was a good idea. I try to get up the stairs through sheer force of will, but by the third floor landing, I have to sit. For an angry moment, I don’t even care that I’m blocking the stairs. I almost want an old lady to trip over me so I don’t have to walk all the way up.
A hand rests on my shoulder and gives me a shake. “Shit or get off the pot, girlie,” a grizzled voice says from behind me.
I twist quickly and spy a spry older woman, almost like I had willed her into existence. Her long coat is open and she has a colorful, homemade scarf that matches her striking ice-blue eyes. She narrows her eyes at me before recognition brightens them.
“Elia?” There is a touch of kindness in her voice that I didn’t anticipate. She had seemed like the quintessential New Yorker, in a rush to get where she’s going, intolerant of obstacles.
“Yes. Do we know each other?”
Her eyes harden, so extremely expressive. “We’ve only been neighbors for two years.” When I don’t confirm I know her, she continues. “What, you hit your head or something?”
“Actually, I was hit by a car, if you must know. I don’t remember much from the last few years.”
She seems to consider this as she walks around me, making an unintelligible noise in response to this revelation. “Good. Means a nice clean slate. Maybe you’ll make the right call and move out of this miserable building. Where have you been?” She stops on the landing in front of me, waiting for an answer. She doesn’t seem callous or mean, just matter-of-fact.
“I don’t know if you would believe me if I told you.” Sometimes I don’t even believe it.
“Well, good for you. Are you home for good?”
“I think I’m just going to live on this stair for the rest of my life.”
“It’s hardly the best that the building has to offer. What’s wrong with you?”
“I broke my ankle and hurt my knee. This building has a lot of stairs.”
“That’s why I like it. Keeps people from visiting me.” Her brow is scrunched, still puzzling over me. She reaches into her bag to pull out a bottle of acetaminophen with a bright red arthritis-friendly cap. With ease, she opens it and deposits two into her hand, handing them off to me.
“Thank you.” I dry-swallow the pills, grateful for them. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your name.”
She waves me off. “Letty. I live across the hall from you.”
I realize then that she might be my best link to my missing life...or at least the last two years. “Letty. Did I have a lot of visitors?”
She regards me shrewdly, her thin lips twisting. “It’s best to leave the past in the past. You seem healthy despite the bum leg. If you found a place with an elevator, stay there. Nothing good will come of poking about for skeletons in your own closet.” She checks her watch and I notice that it’s an old-fashioned analog one.
“That’s not an answer,” I point out.
She doesn’t care, continuing down the stairs. “If you’re smart, girl, you’ll listen to me,” she grumbles, adding under her breath, “Not that you ever did before.”
She doesn’t give me another chance to question her, disappearing down the stairs. I let the mystery of Letty hover over me for a few more minutes before dredging up the strength to continue on my way upstairs.
My faded welcome mat still greets me, informing anyone who knocks to not bother unless they have tacos. I twist the key and am met with a dusty smell, a reminder that the apartment has been vacant for months. My first visit had been so disorienting, warped by a haze of pain and confusion.
The heavy door slams shut behind me, enclosing me in the apartment. It’s more space than I remember, a rare find in New York City, a genuine one-bedroom that didn’t cost a small fortune. I walk into the bedroom, my fingers grazing the blanket my mother knit for me when I went to college. It’s on top of the family quilt that luckily survived the fire.
The first apartment Vivian and I had shared in New York had heat that would cut out unpredictably during the winter, so my mother had overnighted me the quilt with a handwritten note:May the love of family help keep you warm during these cold winter nights!On the back she’d hastily added:No boys!I know I saved the note and I hope I can find it somewhere.
Looking through my closet now, I find that weeding out clothes is quick and easy: I soon find that most of the clothes are the wrong sizes, and I can’t imagine ever wearing some of what hangs in there anyway. Most of it is flowy and loose, and maybe I could have gotten away with wearing some of it, but I know that it would be better to just donate the lot.
There is a nearly-empty box of trash bags under the sink and I use the last of them to bag everything up, telling myself that even if I can’t find somewhere to donate the clothes today, I can always leave the bags in the apartment to take care of later. I snap a picture, sending it to Vivian with an emoji with crossed eyes. Her response is immediate: she’s nearby and offers to meet for lunch. The idea of leaving and coming back is unbearable, so I invite her over instead.
She steps into the space with a similar reaction to mine. The apartment could be a short-term rental, for all the personal touches that are around -- a handful of photos tacked to one wall are the only giveaway that someone lived here, that it wasn’t just tired travelers coming and going. The Ikea furniture is bland and beaten and there isn’t any art to lend some personality to the white walls, whose paint is peeling in corners and around the door jamb. I’ve seen vacant apartments look more inviting than mine.
“So this is it? Well, I don’t blame you for staying with Charlie considering that those stairs are a bitch.” Vivian is breathing heavily, bracing a hand on the back of the couch.