“He’s a delivery driver. He brought me a package, and we fell in love.”
I waited for her to laugh, but she remained serious. Before I could ask anything else, she took the groceries and closed the door.
Two days later, I saw Alex leaving her house.
He looked barely twenty, dressed in faded jeans and worn sneakers. When he saw me, he said, “You must be Greta.” The fact that he knew my name unsettled me.
Over the next two weeks, Dorothy disappeared from view. She stopped collecting her mail and answering my calls. Alex came and went almost daily, sometimes staying overnight. Soon, I saw him unlocking her door with his own key.Doors & Windows
Whenever I called Dorothy, I received the same message:
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
It did not sound like her. Dorothy usually wrote long messages full of advice and unnecessary details. These replies were identical and unnatural.
Then a package meant for Dorothy was delivered to my porch.
I carried it next door and knocked repeatedly.
No answer.
I called her name.
Silence.
I retrieved the emergency key she had given me years earlier and entered.
The house was spotless—too spotless. Everything looked arranged and untouched.Home & Garden
Neither Dorothy nor Alex was there.
Then I heard a faint knocking beneath the floor.
It came from the basement.
PART 2
I hurried downstairs and heard Dorothy’s weak voice behind the storage-room door.
The handle would not turn. I pushed against the old wood until the latch finally broke.
Dorothy sat on the floor beside several cardboard boxes, one hand resting on her ankle. An overturned stool lay nearby.Construction & Maintenance
She had climbed up to reach a shelf, fallen, and become trapped when the door swung shut.
“Where is Alex?” I demanded.
“He went to the pharmacy.”
Before I could say more, the front door slammed upstairs. Alex’s footsteps raced through the house. When he appeared, his face went pale, and the pharmacy bag slipped from his hand.
He rushed toward Dorothy.
“I was gone for twenty minutes,” he said, his hands shaking.
“That was long enough,” I snapped.
I called the paramedics. While we waited, Alex placed a folded blanket beneath Dorothy’s leg and spoke softly to her.
“Stay with me, Dot. Help is coming.”
“I am not dying,” she muttered.
“I know.”
“Then stop looking at me that way.”
His expression tightened, and I realized he was fighting tears.
The paramedics confirmed that Dorothy had badly sprained her ankle but had not broken it. After they left, I turned toward Alex.
“What is happening here?”
He looked at Dorothy.
“She should tell you.”
I faced her.
“You stopped answering my calls. He has a key, you haven’t left the house, and the messages from your phone don’t sound like you.”Home & Garden
“They weren’t written by me.”
My stomach dropped.
Alex raised his hands.
“She asked me to send them.”
“Why?”
The package Alex had delivered a month earlier contained personal medical supplies. It had split open on her porch. Dorothy was embarrassed by her changing health and had been too ashamed to tell me.
She expected Alex to laugh.
Instead, he quietly gathered everything, carried it inside, and asked whether she needed help.
