Knock Knock
by Amy Henry Robinson
Kate’s keys on the kitchen table.
Just the front door and deadbolt keys, tethered on a chain to the palm-sized plastic black bird, a lightbulb in his belly shining out of his beak when you give him a squeeze.
Kate forgot her keys when she ran down to the bodega after dinner that Thursday night. That was fine, she didn’t need to take them. I was always here to let her in when she knocked.
I can’t tell you why they were on the kitchen table here. They don’t match this front door. My new place doesn’t have a deadbolt. I guess I put them there out of habit when I unpacked. Tossed them in a familiar spot in an unfamiliar room, like hanging tools on a newly organized garage wall before the outlines of hammers, wrenches, and saws were drawn.
I walk through the canyons of boxes that line the hallway to the bedroom. Our life sorted and stuffed into easily transported containers. I’ll open them up soon, let them breathe memory into the new space. Just... not yet, there is too much in there for me to remember on my own. I’m holding the past for both of us now.
The bed is new. It’s softer than the one we shared, because my back never aches like hers used to. It’s easy to just lie there, listen to the unfamiliar sounds of unfamiliar neighbors walking up the stairway and down the hallway outside to their own front doors. Easy to watch the sun roll down from jeweled violet into indigo, filtered through unfamiliar trees and shading this room from light to dark, blowing breezes through the screen from a world that spins like it doesn’t realize that everything has changed.
There’s a knock on the front door. A hard rap, quick as an aneurysm. It’s only 7:45. This new pizza place delivers faster than I’m used to.
“Hold on! Be right there!” I yell down the hall, grabbing my wallet for a cash tip.
I open the door to an empty hall. Ten minutes later the pizza guy shows up with my pie.
The next night, I crawl into bed right after work. It’s still light outside. I should make an effort to meet the family next door. I hear them laughing, practicing piano, streaming anime movies.
They seem normal. I should introduce myself, but I’m tired. I am always tired. My skin, like a loose-fitting scarf draped around my bones of air and ash and ache, is a relic of who I used to be.
I can hear footfalls of the two kids, trampling down the hallway outside my apartment. It’s almost 8 p.m. Seems like it should be bedtime for someone so young. A quick knock at my door. Apparently, they agree, that we should meet each other.
“Hold on!” I yell down the hall while tugging my jeans back up over my hips.
I open the door to an empty hallway. Maybe I took too long to answer. Kids can be impatient.
It’s getting easier to breathe. The first Christmas without Kate passed and I’m now living in a year she’ll never get to know. The ache of her absence became a scar, healing, no longer an open wound, but always tender and on the surface.
I’ve opened the boxes, put her books on the bookshelf. Her collection of miniature, jade owls placed around her urn. Small pieces of her to shade in the new reality.
A few of her flannel shirts hang in the closet, everything else is in bags, ready to donate.
There is Tupperware in the kitchen that should be returned to Joel and Mary next door. The cookies they brought over are long gone.
I’m standing in the kitchen, washing up the plate I used for dinner, so when I hear the knock on the door, I open it within seconds. The hallway is empty.
I’ve been in my new apartment for 8 months now. Every Thursday, at 7:45 p.m., somebody knocks on the door. If I don’t answer, they knock again. If I answer, nobody is there.
Kate’s keys (plus one) on the kitchen table.
There is a new key, added to the metal circle tethered to that bird light. It’s fresh from the automatic key-making kiosk in front of the ACE Hardware store. I chose the key blank with the picture of an owl.
The knocking has stopped. She just needed a key. She just needed a way to come back home.
About the Author
Amy Henry Robinson is haunted by the ghosts of who she was and who she hopes to be. She is a Sr. Editor at Apparition Literary magazine, has published poems and flash fiction (Strange Horizons, Pearl Literary, Flash Fiction Press), leads writing workshop, but mostly hangs out with her cats & procrastinates on Twitter @amyqotwf.
© Knock, Knock by Amy Henry Robinson. 2022. All rights reserved.
