It all started with a lost package. One day, I received a message from a stranger on LinkedIn: “You don’t know me but I live across the street and I believe I have a package for you.”
Our buildings and our apartment numbers were similar. Even our first names were similar. “Thank you so much for taking the time to look for me, I answered. I can pick it up right away.
“Can you wait a bit?” My baby is sleeping and I don’t want the intercom to wake him up. I am on my own and I really have to work.”
I went to pick up my package later that day. I had taken some yellow tulips from the local bodega. She opened the door for me. She was waiting for me at the door to her apartment, which was open only a few centimeters, her dark hair in a loose ponytail, her face pale above the mask.
“Thanks again”, I said, handing her the flowers.
She stared at them as if she didn’t quite know what it was, then blurted out: “It’s been a very long time since someone did this for me.”
We stood there in silence for a while and then her baby started crying. She turned around, mumbled a “merci” distracted and closed the door.
confession of loneliness
Two weeks later, there was another mess, but this time it was me who received his package, a large plastic bag of Gap clothes. I texted her to let her know, she said she was too busy to come by and asked if I could keep it overnight.
“Sure. You can drop by anytime during the weekend.”
She contacted me a few hours later: “Do you mind if I pass now?
– Not at all.”
Ten minutes later there she was, a black KN95 mask [à peu près l’équivalent du FFP2] on the face and a cozy from which a chubby baby of six months looked at me with delight. Her eyes were dark circles and she looked completely exhausted.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked.
She reinstalled her baby thinking. There was a new variant, everyone was wary. “It is better not”, she answered. However, she did not move to leave. She was waddling from one foot to the other.
“You are fine ?” I asked.
She blinked and then blurted out: “I’m a single mom, I work from home, my babysitter didn’t come, my daughter is teething, I haven’t slept for three nights and I’m all alone.” She tried to control herself, her mouth trembling. “I’m just too lonely.
“Do you have anyone around who can help you?”
She shook her head. “My family doesn’t live here and I have a low-rent two-bedroom apartment, so I can’t afford to move.”
Did she know any other young moms in the neighborhood who could support her?
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