On my first day in my new apartment, I found a red slip of paper in the mailbox:
“After ten every night, don’t open the door to anyone knocking, even if it sounds like me.”
I laughed it off as a prank and tossed it into the trash.
That night, a bloodcurdling scream came from next door.
Then someone knocked on my door.
Outside, my mother’s gentle voice called, “Sweetie, open up. Mom brought you a late-night snack.”
But my mother had left the country on a business trip yesterday.
