For more than two decades, the woman on the eighth floor was little more than a passing silhouette in our building. She didn’t smile. She didn’t chat in the hallway. She moved like life had trained her to shrink herself — eyes lowered, steps soft, presence barely there.
To everyone, she was simply the quiet lady upstairs. Not rude. Not unkind. Just unreachable.
So when she passed away last month, I felt… neutral. We had never spoken beyond a nod. She lived her life, I lived mine.
But the next morning, two officers knocked on my door.
“Are you listed as her emergency contact?”
I literally laughed out of confusion. Me? They had to be wrong.
But they weren’t.
“You were the only person she listed,” the officer said gently.
I was stunned. My name didn’t belong in her world. Yet suddenly, I was the one responsible for accessing her apartment and sorting through her belongings.
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