The elevator shuddered once, made a grinding sound, and stopped.
Esperanza Reyes felt her stomach drop, that familiar sensation of something going wrong. She'd been on her way down from 7B, her small one-bedroom, heading to the Cub Foods before the storm hit. The young woman beside her—Somali, Esperanza thought, from her hijab and the way she held herself—let out a small gasp.
"It's okay," Esperanza said, though she wasn't sure it was. Thunder rolled overhead, muffled through the elevator shaft. The lights flickered but stayed on. "These things happen."
The young woman pressed the alarm button. Nothing. She pressed it again, harder this time. Still nothing. Then she tried her cell phone, frowning at the screen.
"No signal," she said. Her English was clear, just a trace of accent. "The storm, maybe."
They were between the fourth and fifth floors, Esperanza figured. She could see the number 4 at eye level through the narrow gap where the doors hadn't quite aligned with the floor. The building was old, built in the seventies. The landlord, Mr. Peterson, was cheap about maintenance. Last month, the hot water had been out for three days.
"Someone will notice," Esperanza said. "The super checks things."
The young woman nodded but didn't look convinced. She moved to the far corner of the elevator, as far from Esperanza as the small space allowed. They stood like that for several minutes, not speaking, while the storm gathered force outside. Esperanza could hear rain now, driving against the building.
She studied the young woman without trying to seem like she was studying her. Early twenties, probably. Tall and slim, wearing jeans and a Minnesota Twins t-shirt under a light cardigan. Her hijab was deep blue, almost purple. She carried a backpack, heavy with what looked like textbooks. A student, then. There was a community college not far from here.
"I'm Esperanza," she said finally. "I live on seven."
"Khadija," the young woman said. "Six."
Another silence. Esperanza had seen her before, she realized. In the lobby, checking mail. Once at the bus stop on Lake Street. They'd never spoken. People didn't really speak in this building. Everyone kept to themselves.
The lights went out.
Khadija made a sound—not quite a scream, more like a sharp intake of breath. Emergency lighting kicked in, a dim green glow from a single bulb in the corner. It made everything look underwater.
"It's okay," Esperanza said again. "The backup generator should—"
But nothing happened. The emergency light was all they had.
"My mother," Khadija said. "She'll worry. She always worries when there's a storm."
"You live with your mother?"
"Yes. And my brothers. My sister." Khadija shifted her backpack. "My father... he didn't make it here."
Esperanza understood that 'didn't make it' could mean many things. She didn't ask which one.
She reached into her purse, felt around until she found the roll of butter rum Life Savers she always carried. A habit from her nursing days. You never knew when a patient might need something sweet, a small comfort.
"Would you like one?"
Khadija hesitated, then stepped closer and took one. "Thank you."
They sucked on the candy in the green-tinted darkness. The rain was really coming down now. Esperanza could hear it drumming on the elevator roof, finding its way through gaps somewhere above them. A drop landed on her hand.
"This is my fault," Khadija said suddenly. "I should have taken the stairs."
"Why would this be your fault?"
"I was being lazy. Only going up one floor. My mother always says I'm too lazy, too American." She laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Eight years here and she still says I'm becoming too American."
"Eight years. You were young when you came."
"Fourteen."
Esperanza did the math. Twenty-two now. Just a few years older than her daughter Monica had been when she left for California. That was five years ago. Monica had a baby now, a little boy Esperanza had seen only in photos.
"That must have been hard," Esperanza said. "Fourteen is a hard age to move."
"Everything was hard." Khadija shifted, and Esperanza heard her back slide down the wall until she was sitting. After a moment, Esperanza did the same. Her knees protested, but the floor was relatively clean. "The first winter, I thought I would die. I'd never seen snow. Never been that cold. My mother cried every night. My little brother stopped speaking for three months."
"But you stayed."
"Where else would we go?" Khadija pulled her knees up to her chest. "This is home now. Whatever that means."
Esperanza knew about that—the way home became a question instead of an answer. Thirty-five years in America, and she still dreamed in Tagalog sometimes. Still cooked adobo when she felt lonely, which was most nights now since Roberto died.
"I came here in 1989," she said. "From Manila. To work at Hennepin County Medical Center. My husband was already here, working construction. We thought it would be temporary. Five years, maybe. Save money, go home."
"But you stayed too."
"We had children. They became American. Their lives were here." She paused. "Then their lives were somewhere else. California. Texas. Children leave."
"Not in my family," Khadija said. "In my family, children stay. Especially daughters. My mother can't understand why I want my own apartment. She says, 'Why do you want to be alone? What's wrong with you?'"
"But you're still in the same building."
"Compromise." Khadija laughed again, and this time it sounded more genuine. "I'm on six, she's on three. Close enough to visit, far enough to breathe."
The emergency light flickered, dimmed for a moment, then came back. They both looked up at it.
"How long do you think?" Khadija asked.
"Hard to say. Depends on the storm. Could be an hour. Could be more."
"I have an exam tomorrow. Accounting. I should be studying."
"You're in school?"
"Minneapolis Community College. Accounting degree. My mother wanted me to be a nurse, like—" She stopped. "Sorry. She thinks all women should be nurses or teachers."
"Nothing wrong with accounting," Esperanza said. "Good steady work. Always need accountants."
They fell silent again. The rain had settled into a steady rhythm. Esperanza could hear her stomach growling. She'd skipped lunch, planning to buy something at the store. Now she wished she'd eaten the leftover rice and fish in her refrigerator.
"Can I ask you something?" Khadija said. "You don't have to answer."
"Ask."
"Do you get lonely? Living alone?"
Esperanza considered lying. It would be easier. But something about the darkness, the closed space, the girl's honest curiosity, made her tell the truth.
"Yes. Every day."
"My mother says loneliness is a Western disease. She says in Somalia, nobody was lonely because everyone was together. But I think she's lonely too. She just won't say it."
"Maybe loneliness is just part of it. Part of being here."
"Being immigrants, you mean?"
"Being human."
Khadija was quiet for a moment. Then: "I was born in a refugee camp in Kenya. I don't remember Somalia at all. But my mother talks about it like paradise. The house her father built. The garden. The smell of incense from the mosque. Everything was perfect before the war."
"Memory does that. Makes things perfect."
"Is that what you do? With the Philippines?"
Esperanza thought about it. Did she romanticize home? Probably. The jeepneys, the chaos of Manila traffic, the wet heat that pressed down like a blanket. Her mother's kitchen, always full of relatives and noise. But also the poverty, the corruption, the reason Roberto had left in the first place.
"Sometimes," she admitted. "Less now than before."
"Because your husband died?"
Esperanza was surprised by the directness of the question. Young people could do that—cut right through the polite distances.
"Three years ago," she said. "Heart attack. Very quick."
"I'm sorry."
"He was watching television. The news. He said he felt tired, went to lie down. When I went to check..." She stopped. She hadn't told this story in a long time. "The strange thing was, I knew. Before I touched him, I knew. Forty years of marriage, and I knew."
"My father was killed," Khadija said quietly. "By Al-Shabaab. Because he worked with the government. My mother saw it happen. She doesn't talk about it, but my aunt told me. She saw everything."
Esperanza wanted to reach out, touch the girl's hand, but didn't. Some griefs were too private for touch.
"How old were you?"
"Six. My brother was four. My sister was a baby." Khadija shifted in the darkness. "I don't really remember him. Just pieces. His hands were very large. He used to carry me on his shoulders. That's all I remember clearly—being up high, holding onto his head, feeling safe."
The emergency light flickered again. This time it went out for several seconds before coming back on, dimmer than before.
"If it goes out completely," Esperanza said, "I have a small flashlight in my purse. Old habit from the hospital. Always be prepared."
"You were a nurse for how long?"
"Thirty-seven years. Retired two years ago."
"Did you like it?"
"Some days. It's hard work. You see people at their worst. But also sometimes at their best." She thought of all the births she'd attended, all the deaths. The families who hugged her, who sent Christmas cards years later. The ones who screamed at her, blamed her for things beyond anyone's control. "Mostly, it was just work. A way to live."
"That's what my mother doesn't understand," Khadija said. "She thinks I'm betraying something by studying accounting. But I'm good with numbers. They make sense. People don't always make sense, but numbers do."
"Your mother will understand. Give her time."
"Time." Khadija laughed softly. "How much time does it take? She's been here eight years and still calls this place 'the cold country.' Still cooks the same food, watches the same Somali news programs on YouTube, talks only to other Somalis. It's like she's built a little Somalia in her apartment."
"And you? What have you built?"
Khadija was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know. Something in between, maybe. Not Somali, not American. Something else."
"Maybe that's okay. To be something else."
"Is it? Are you something else?"
Esperanza thought about it. Was she? Filipino still, certainly. But also American. Minnesotan, even, strange as that would have seemed to her younger self. She knew how to drive in snow now, how to make hotdish for church potlucks, how to say "you betcha" without irony. But she also still removed her shoes at the door, still called older people Tito and Tita, still felt most herself when she was cooking sinigang.
"I suppose I am," she said.
The rain had slowed. She could no longer hear thunder. Maybe the storm was passing. Someone would come soon. The super, or another resident, or the fire department if it came to that. This strange interlude would end.
"I should tell you something," Khadija said. "I've seen you before. Many times. In the lobby, at the bus stop. Once at the halal market on Cedar Avenue."
"Oh?"
"You were buying fish. Tilapia. You asked the man behind the counter if it was fresh, and when he said yes, you made this face—like you didn't believe him but were too polite to say so."
Esperanza laughed. She remembered that day. The fish had looked questionable.
"I almost said hello," Khadija continued. "But I didn't know what to say. 'Hello, we live in the same building?' It seemed stupid."
"But now we're talking."
"Now we're stuck."
"Is that the only reason? Because we're stuck?"
Khadija seemed to consider this. "No. I think... I think I've been waiting to talk to someone. Anyone. But I didn't know how to start."
"It's hard to start."
"My mother has friends. Other Somali women. They come over, drink tea, gossip. But I don't fit with them. And at school, everyone's so young. They talk about parties and dating and things that seem..." She trailed off.
"Unimportant?"
"Foreign. More foreign than America was when I first came here."
Esperanza understood. After Roberto died, her friends from church had tried to include her in things. Widows' groups. Bible study. Potlucks. But she'd felt like she was floating above it all, watching from a distance, unable to touch down.
"I talk to the grocery store clerks," Esperanza admitted. "Sometimes that's the only conversation I have all day. 'Did you find everything?' 'Yes, thank you.' 'Have a nice day.' 'You too.'"
"That's so sad."
"Is it? Sometimes I think it's just life. This is what life is."
"It shouldn't be."
The emergency light went out completely this time. The darkness was absolute. Esperanza heard Khadija's sharp intake of breath, then fumbled in her purse for the flashlight. Her fingers found it, clicked it on. The beam was weak but enough to push back the black.
"Thank God," Khadija said.
Esperanza set the flashlight on the floor between them, pointing up. It made a small circle of light on the ceiling, like a tiny moon.
"My daughter Monica called last week," Esperanza said, surprising herself. She hadn't planned to talk about Monica. "She's pregnant again. Another boy."
"That's good news, isn't it?"
"She wants me to move to California. To help with the children."
"Will you?"
"I don't know. It makes sense. But California..." She thought about Monica's house in Fremont, the two-car garage, the yard with its perfect grass. The guest room Monica had already decorated for her, all beige and rose, like a hotel. "It doesn't feel real there."
"And this feels real? Minneapolis?"
"More real. I know that doesn't make sense."
"It makes perfect sense," Khadija said. "My mother's sisters are in Columbus. They want us to move there. Bigger Somali community, they say. Better for my mother. But this is where we landed. This is where we became whatever we are now."
The flashlight beam wavered as the batteries weakened. They both looked at it.
"How long do batteries last?" Khadija asked.
"Depends. These are old."
"Everything's old in this building."
"Including me."
"You're not old. My grandmother was old. You're just..." Khadija paused. "Experienced."
Esperanza laughed. "That's a kind way to put it."
They heard something then—a banging from somewhere above. Then voices, muffled but definitely voices.
"Hello!" Khadija shouted, jumping to her feet. "We're in here! The elevator!"
More banging, then a man's voice, closer now: "Hang tight! Power's out in the whole neighborhood. We're working on it!"
"How long?" Esperanza called out.
"Maybe an hour, maybe two. You folks okay?"
"Yes," they both answered at once.
"Got water? Any medical conditions?"
"We're fine," Esperanza said. "Just please hurry."
"Doing our best, ma'am."
The voices faded. They were alone again, but it felt different now. Help was coming. This would end.
"An hour or two," Khadija said, sitting back down. "I'll definitely miss my study group."
"They'll understand."
"I suppose." She was quiet for a moment. "Can I tell you something strange? Part of me doesn't want this to end. Is that crazy?"
"No," Esperanza said. "I understand."
"When we get out, we'll go back to being strangers. People who live in the same building but never talk."
"We don't have to."
"But we will. That's how it works."
Esperanza wanted to argue, but she knew the girl was probably right. Tomorrow or the next day, they'd pass in the lobby, maybe nod, maybe smile, but the strange intimacy of this dark space would be gone. They'd return to their separate loneliness.
"My husband used to say that life was just intervals," Esperanza said. "Spaces between things. Between birth and death, between sleeping and waking, between one breath and the next. He was a philosopher when he drank. Two beers and he'd solve the mysteries of the universe."
"Was he right? About the intervals?"
"Maybe. But I think he was wrong about one thing. The intervals aren't empty. They're where everything happens."
The flashlight dimmed suddenly, the beam shrinking to almost nothing. They both leaned closer to it, as if they could will it to stay bright.
"When I first came here," Khadija said softly, "I didn't speak for two weeks. Not a word. My mother thought something was wrong with me, but I just didn't have any words that fit. Everything I knew how to say belonged to a different world."
"And then?"
"Then one day, in ESL class, the teacher asked me to read a sentence out loud. 'The cat sits on the mat.' And I did. Just like that. 'The cat sits on the mat.' It was like a door opening."
"'The cat sits on the mat,'" Esperanza repeated. "My first English sentence was 'Where is the bathroom?'"
They both laughed.
"Practical," Khadija said.
"Necessary."
The flashlight gave one last flicker and died. The darkness returned, complete and somehow less frightening than before.
"I have candy still," Esperanza said, reaching for her purse again. "And..." She felt around. "Half a granola bar. And some crackers."
"A feast."
They shared the food in the dark, passing the crackers back and forth, making them last. Esperanza could hear Khadija's breathing, steady and calm now. She could smell her perfume—something floral, young.
"What will you do?" Khadija asked. "About California?"
"I don't know. What will you do about your mother wanting you to stay?"
"I don't know either."
"Maybe not knowing is okay."
"Maybe."
They heard the banging again, closer this time. Then a grinding sound, mechanical.
"They're working on it," Esperanza said.
"Yes."
They sat quietly for a while. Esperanza thought about Monica's phone call, the careful way she'd presented the California plan. "It just makes sense, Mom. You shouldn't be alone." As if being alone was a problem to be solved, not a condition to be lived with.
"I want to tell you something," she said to Khadija. "About being alone."
"Yes?"
"It's not the worst thing. Everyone acts like it is, but it's not. The worst thing is being with people and still feeling alone."
"Is that how you felt? With your husband?"
"No. Roberto and I... we were good together. But before him, after him, with other people sometimes. That loneliness is worse than this kind."
"This kind?"
"The clean kind. The kind where you know exactly where you stand."
Khadija was quiet, absorbing this. Then: "My mother is lonely for a place that doesn't exist anymore. The Somalia she remembers is gone. But she can't let it go."
"And you? What are you lonely for?"
"I don't know. Something I haven't found yet. Or maybe something I haven't invented yet."
The grinding sound got louder. The elevator shuddered, dropped an inch. They both gasped, reached out instinctively in the dark. Esperanza's hand found Khadija's arm.
"It's okay," she said, though her heart was racing. "They're trying to move it manually."
They stayed like that, Esperanza's hand on Khadija's arm, until the elevator settled again.
"I'm scared," Khadija said quietly.
"Me too."
"You don't seem scared."
"I learned to hide it. All those years in the hospital. You can't show fear around patients."
"But you're not working now."
"Old habits."
The elevator shuddered again, but this time it began to move—slowly, jerkily, but definitely moving. Down. The emergency lights came back on suddenly, blindingly bright after so long in darkness.
They looked at each other, blinking. Khadija's hijab had shifted slightly, revealing a strand of dark hair. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Esperanza wondered what she herself looked like.
"We're moving," Khadija said, wonderingly.
"Yes."
The elevator stopped at the third floor. The doors opened halfway, and they could see faces—the super, two firefighters, a handful of residents including a Somali woman who must have been Khadija's mother.
"Khadija!" the woman cried out in accented English, then a stream of Somali.
Khadija answered in Somali, then squeezed through the half-open doors. Esperanza followed more slowly, her knees stiff from sitting so long.
"You okay, ma'am?" one of the firefighters asked, taking her arm.
"Fine. Just fine."
The small crowd dispersed quickly. Khadija was being led away by her mother, who was talking rapidly, gesticulating. At the stairwell door, Khadija turned back.
"Thank you," she said to Esperanza. "For the candy. For the talking."
"Thank you too."
Khadija smiled—the first real smile Esperanza had seen from her—then disappeared into the stairwell with her mother.
The super was explaining something about the power grid, the backup generator, repairs needed. Esperanza nodded without really listening. The firefighters packed up their equipment. Someone mentioned that power should be restored within the hour.
She climbed the stairs to the seventh floor slowly. Her apartment was dark but familiar. She found candles, lit them, sat at her kitchen table. The storm had passed. Through her window, she could see patches of clear sky between the clouds, the first stars appearing.
She thought about calling Monica, telling her about the elevator, the power outage. But what would she say? That she'd been trapped with a young Somali woman? That they'd talked? That for two hours she'd felt less alone than she had in three years?
Instead, she opened her refrigerator, took out the leftover rice and fish. She'd eat by candlelight, then go to bed early. Tomorrow she'd go to Cub Foods, buy groceries, continue her routine.
But maybe she'd also knock on 6B, check on Khadija. Ask about her exam. Offer to help with studying—she'd always been good with numbers too.
Or maybe she wouldn't. Maybe they'd just nod when they passed in the lobby, two people who'd shared an interval, a space between things where something quiet and necessary had happened.
The power came back on all at once. The overhead light blazed, the refrigerator hummed to life, the microwave beeped. Esperanza blew out the candles and sat in the electric brightness, eating cold rice with her fingers, thinking about intervals and loneliness and the way strangers could become, for a brief moment in the dark, something else.
Three days later, there was a knock at her door. When she opened it, Khadija stood there holding a textbook.
"I passed my exam," she said. "A-minus."
"That's wonderful."
"I wanted to thank you. For the other night."
"No need to thank me."
Khadija shifted the textbook to her other arm. "Actually, I was wondering. I have another exam next week. Cost accounting. I could use help studying."
Esperanza looked at her—this young woman caught between worlds, making her own way.
"I could make dinner," Esperanza said. "We could study after."
"I'd like that."
"Filipino food. Is that okay?"
"I'll bring Somali tea."
They stood there for a moment, smiling at each other, two people who were learning that loneliness didn't have to be the only story, that intervals could be filled with more than waiting.
"Saturday?" Esperanza asked.
"Saturday."
After Khadija left, Esperanza stood at her window looking out at Minneapolis—this unlikely home, this cold country that she'd learned to live in. The city sprawled before her, all its separate loneliness, all its hidden connections. Somewhere out there, Monica was putting her son to bed in California. Somewhere, Khadija's mother was watching Somali news on YouTube. Somewhere, people were stuck in elevators, in traffic, in lives they hadn't quite chosen.
But also, somewhere, people were finding each other. In small ways, in quiet moments, in the spaces between one life and another.
She turned from the window and went to her kitchen to plan Saturday's meal. Adobo, she thought. And rice. And maybe lumpia if she had time. Food that said welcome, food that said home—whatever that meant now, whatever it could become.