THE SPACE BETWEEN US

The apartment above Miller’s Laundromat always smelled like soap and heat. Even in winter. Even when the radiators clicked and clanged like they were arguing with the walls. Nora liked the smell when she was little. It felt clean. Safe. Like nothing bad could survive in a place that smelled like fresh laundry. By nine, she knew better. The hallway light outside their apartment flickered constantly. It hummed, too — a faint electric buzz that never quite stopped. Nora used to count the seconds between flickers while she waited for her mother to come home from work. Sometimes it was five seconds. Sometimes three. Sometimes the light stayed dark long enough that she felt her chest tighten. On those nights, she imagined the bulb finally giving up. Her mother had once said, standing on a chair with a new bulb in her hand, “Everything burns out eventually.” Nora didn’t know why that sentence stayed with her. Their apartment had two bedrooms, though one was really just a narrow space with a window that faced a brick wall. Nora’s room. She didn’t mind it. The brick kept the sun from waking her too early. From her bed, she could hear the laundromat machines downstairs — the steady churn of washers, the metallic slam of dryer doors. The rhythm became background noise. A heartbeat for the building. Her father worked maintenance at a distribution warehouse across town. He left before sunrise most mornings, boots heavy against the peeling linoleum. Her mother used to leave after him. Used to. Now she stood in the kitchen longer than necessary, staring at the sink like it held answers. “Nora, cereal’s on the counter,” she’d say without turning around. The milk would already be poured. Soggy by the time Nora sat down. It wasn’t always like this. There had been mornings filled with music from the old radio. Her mother dancing in socks while flipping pancakes. Kissing Nora’s forehead. Laughing easily. The laughter left first. Then the music. Then the pancakes. The cereal stayed. One afternoon, Nora came home from school and found her mother sitting on the couch in the dark. The curtains were drawn even though it was only four. “Mom?” Nora asked softly. Her mother blinked, as if surfacing from underwater. “Oh,” she said. “You’re home already.” It was the way she said already that felt wrong. Like she hadn’t realized time was moving. “Did you forget to go to work?” Nora asked. Her mother smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I took the day off.” She’d been taking a lot of days off. The blue notebook appeared around that time. It wasn’t new. The edges were bent, the cover soft from handling. Her mother kept it beside her on the couch, on the kitchen table, once even on the bathroom counter. Nora asked about it once. “Just thoughts,” her mother said. “What kind of thoughts?” “Grown-up ones.” That ended the conversation. But children are observant in ways adults underestimate. One Saturday morning, while her mother was showering, Nora opened the notebook. She didn’t mean to snoop. She just wanted to understand. The handwriting slanted sharply, like it had been written quickly. I am so tired. I don’t know how to fix this. I am trying. Nora read the sentences twice. They didn’t make sense. Tired from what? She slept all the time lately. Fix what? Trying what? The words felt heavy anyway. She closed the notebook before the shower stopped. She never told anyone she’d read it. The arguments started getting louder. At first they were whispers behind the bedroom door. Then voices carried into the hallway. Her father saying, “We can figure this out.” Her mother saying, “You don’t understand.” “I’m trying.” “I know.” But knowing didn’t seem to help. One night Nora sat at the top of the hallway stairs and heard her name. “She needs stability,” her father said. Silence. Then her mother’s voice, breaking around the edges. “I’m trying to be better.” Nora went back to her room and lay in bed very still. She decided something that night. If she was easier, quieter, smaller — maybe her mother wouldn’t have to try so hard. The night of the sirens was strangely ordinary. Spaghetti for dinner. The television murmuring in the background. Her mother complaining about a headache. “I’m going to lie down,” she said, pressing her fingers to her temples. Nora nodded. She was used to that. Her father washed dishes. The laundromat machines hummed downstairs. The hallway light flickered. Time passed. Then it stopped. Not literally. But the air shifted. Her father called her mother’s name once. Then again. Then louder. Nora stood from the couch. There was a crash. A sound she would replay in her mind for years. The sirens came quickly. In Eastbrook Heights, sirens were normal. But not outside your building. Red and blue light spilled through the thin curtains, painting the kitchen walls in flashing color. A neighbor pulled Nora into the hallway. “Let’s give them space,” the woman said gently. Space for what? No one explained. Adults moved around her in urgent, quiet ways. Someone covered her ears at one point. She didn’t know why. The next morning, the apartment felt hollow. Her father sat at the kitchen table with his face in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were red in a way she had never seen before. “Mom was very sick,” he said. Sick. Nora pictured a fever. A hospital bed. Medicine. “She’s not coming back,” he added, voice breaking. The hallway light flickered. Five seconds. Three. Dark. Nora waited for it to turn back on. It didn’t. That was the first time she understood something without fully understanding it. People could disappear. Even when they were still in the next room. Even when you loved them. Even when you tried to be small.