The first note was taped to his door on a Tuesday. Marcus had to lean close to read the small, tight handwriting.
"You received my delivery by mistake. I have yours. Please leave mine outside 3D. Do NOT knock. Thank you."
He stood there in the dim hallway holding the piece of paper, aware of the whiskey bottles in the box at his feet. Not his whiskey. Hers, apparently. Though when he'd opened the box earlier, confused by the green tea and stack of books about breathing, he'd assumed the delivery guy had screwed up entirely.
Marcus looked down the hall at 3D. Same faded beige door as his. Same scratched brass numbers. He'd lived here three years and couldn't picture who was behind that door. Asian woman, he thought. Nurse scrubs sometimes. That was all he had.
He carried the box to her door, set it down gently, knocked twice out of habit, then remembered the note. Do NOT knock. He retreated to his apartment.
Twenty minutes later, his bottles were outside his door. Four bottles of Maker's Mark, which would have lasted him through the week if he was careful. If he rationed. If he didn't have one of those nights where the saxophone in the closet called to him and he had to drink enough to make it stop.
There was another note taped to the box.
"I'm in recovery. Seeing those bottles was difficult. In the future, please ensure your orders are correctly delivered."
He brought the bottles inside, lined them on the counter. Read her note again. Recovery. Well, hell. He found a piece of paper, wrote back:
"Sorry about that. Delivery guy's mistake. Didn't mean to make things harder. -Marcus (3B)"
He taped it to her door that evening when he heard her TV through the walls. Knocked once, soft, and left.
The next morning, a new note on his door:
"It's fine. I shouldn't have been rude. The tea is good if you want to try it. Helps with sleep. -K"
He did try the tea. It tasted like grass and dirt, but he drank it anyway. That night he wrote:
"Tea wasn't bad. Like drinking a lawn, but not bad. Sorry again about the bottles. I know how it is. -M"
He'd written and crossed out "I'm trying to quit too" three times before settling on "I know how it is."
Her response came the next day:
"Do you? Know how it is?"
Just that. He stared at the note for a long time, then wrote:
"Two years ago I showed up drunk to play the Masonic Temple. Big show. Career-making show. Couldn't even hold my sax. So yeah, I know. -M"
This time her note came within an hour:
"I'm sorry. That must have been devastating. I was an ICU nurse. Started taking pills after a patient broke my ribs. Couldn't stop. Now I'm on leave. Maybe permanently. -K"
The notes continued. Every day, sometimes twice a day. They left them taped to each other's doors like kids passing secrets in class. Marcus learned her name was Keiko, that she was third-generation Japanese-American, that her grandfather had been interned during the war and never talked about it. She learned he'd played with some real musicians back in the day, that his son lived with his ex-wife in Chicago, that he hadn't touched his saxophone in two years.
"Why not?" she asked in one note.
"Afraid I forgot how. Afraid I didn't. Both equally terrifying. -M"
She understood that. She told him about the dreams where she was back at work, trying to save someone but her hands wouldn't work right, the pills making everything fuzzy and slow. He told her about waking up at 3 AM with his fingers moving through chord progressions, phantom music only he could hear.
Three weeks into their correspondence, she left a note that said:
"I miss live music. Haven't been to a show since before."
That night, Marcus stood in his living room for an hour, just looking at the closet. Finally, he opened it, took out the case. The saxophone lay there in its velvet bed like something from another life. He lifted it carefully, carried it to her door, left it there with a note:
"I can't play it yet. But maybe you'd like to have it for a while. Sometimes just looking at beautiful things helps. -M"
The next morning, the sax was back at his door with a baseball glove on top of it. The leather was worn soft, the pocket shaped by years of use.
"This was my father's. He took me to Tigers games before he died. I know you mentioned going with your son. Beautiful things should stay with their people, but thank you for trusting me. The glove is if you ever want to play catch. -K"
Marcus held the glove, slipped his hand inside. It fit perfectly. He started leaving longer notes. Stories about his son, about the music, about the way Detroit looked from the bus on his way to work at the hardware store. She wrote about her cat, Mr. Toshi, about learning to meditate, about her mother calling from California worried she'd relapsed.
"Have you?" he asked.
"Every day I don't is a surprise. You?"
"Bought three bottles last week. Poured two down the sink. Progress, I guess."
"That's huge. Don't minimize it."
He started signing his notes differently. Instead of just "M," he wrote "Your neighbor, Marcus." She started adding small drawings to hers - a cat, a plant, the view from her window that must have been identical to his.
Five weeks in, she left a note that was different:
"I've been thinking about what you said about being afraid to play. I'm afraid too. Afraid to go back to work. Afraid not to. Afraid I'm broken now. But maybe broken things can still work, just differently. Like that Rumi quote about the crack being where the light gets in. -K"
Marcus sat with that note for two days before responding:
"Leonard Cohen, not Rumi. 'There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.' But I like that you thought it was Rumi. Makes it seem older, more proven. Maybe you're right about broken things. -M"
The next note from her just said:
"Play something. Anything. For yourself. I'll be listening through the wall."
That night, Marcus took out the saxophone. Cleaned it carefully, fitted the reed, wet it with whiskey instead of water because old habits die hard. He played one note. Just one. It cracked and squawked and sounded like a dying bird. He could almost hear her laughing through the wall, and found himself laughing too.
He played another note. Better. Then another.
The power went out on a Thursday. The whole block, maybe the whole east side. Marcus was coming up the stairs with groceries when the lights cut. He stood there in the sudden dark, listening to doors opening, voices calling questions. Then he heard her door open.
"Marcus?"
First time he'd heard her voice since all this started. Quieter than he'd expected. He turned toward the sound.
"Yeah. You okay?"
"I have a flashlight somewhere. And candles."
"I've got a camping lantern. And that tea you recommended."
Silence. Then: "Would you like to... I mean, it's dark. Seems silly to sit alone in the dark."
They met in the hallway. He could barely see her outline, but when she turned on her flashlight, he caught a glimpse of her face. Younger than he'd thought. Pretty in a tired way. She was looking at him too, probably thinking he was older than she'd expected, more worn down.
"Your place or mine?" she asked.
"Yours. Mine's a mess."
Her apartment was the same layout as his but felt completely different. Cleaner, yes, but also somehow lighter even in the dark. She had plants everywhere, books stacked on every surface. He set his lantern on her coffee table while she lit candles.
"Tea?" she offered.
"Yeah. Thanks."
They sat on opposite ends of her couch, the cat between them like a chaperone. The silence wasn't awkward, exactly. It was the silence of people who'd already said the important things.
"I heard you playing the other night," she said finally.
"Sounded like shit."
"Sounded like a start."
He nodded, sipped the tea that still tasted like dirt but was growing on him. "I'm thinking about calling my son. Been six months."
"That's good. That's really good."
"Yeah. Maybe."
She pulled her knees up to her chest, made herself smaller. "I'm going back next week. To work. Just two shifts to start."
"Scared?"
"Terrified."
"You'll be okay."
"How do you know?"
He thought about it. "I don't. But you're here. We're here. Still here after everything. That's something."
She smiled. He could see it in the candlelight. "Your notes kept me sane. You know that?"
"Yeah, well. Likewise."
The power came back on around midnight. The sudden brightness made them both blink, laugh nervously. The spell was broken. Marcus stood to leave.
"We should do this again," she said. "I mean, without the power outage. Maybe coffee? When we're both ready."
"I'd like that."
He was at the door when she said, "Marcus? Will you play again? The saxophone, I mean. For real?"
He turned back. She was standing by the couch, holding her father's glove.
"Maybe. If you'll come listen."
"Deal."
Back in his apartment, Marcus sat at his kitchen table and wrote one more note:
"Thank you. For everything. For being behind that door. Your neighbor, Marcus."
He didn't tape it to her door. Didn't need to. Some things were better left unsaid, just felt and known. Instead, he took out his phone and scrolled to his son's number. It was late, but not too late. It was never too late until it was.
The phone rang three times before David answered.
"Dad? Is everything okay?"
Marcus looked at the baseball glove on his table, the saxophone case open on the couch, the last bottle of whiskey unopened on the counter.
"Yeah," he said. "Everything's okay. I just wanted to hear your voice."
Through the wall, he could hear Keiko's TV, the soft murmur of whatever she was watching. Tomorrow she'd go back to work. Tomorrow he'd try to play a whole song. Tomorrow they might pass in the hallway and actually speak. Or they might not. They might keep writing notes forever, these careful, necessary words that held them both up.
"Dad? You there?"
"I'm here," Marcus said. "Tell me what's new with you. Tell me everything."
And as his son started talking about school, about baseball, about the girl he liked, Marcus picked up a pen and paper. Not for a note this time. Just to draw. Simple shapes at first - circles, lines, the outline of a window. Then more detailed things - a saxophone, a baseball glove, the numbers 3B and 3D side by side. He drew while David talked, and for the first time in two years, his hands felt steady.
The next morning, there was a note on his door. Just three words in that small, precise handwriting:
"I'm still here."
He left his own that afternoon:
"Me too."
And they were. Still there in their separate spaces, their parallel struggles, their quiet victories that no one else would notice. The whiskey bottle gathered dust. The meditation books got read. The saxophone got played, badly at first, then better. The shifts got worked. The notes kept coming, shorter now but no less important.
"Good day today. -K"
"Played 'Round Midnight' all the way through. -M"
"Mr. Toshi says hello."
"Tell him I said what's up."
Sometimes Marcus would see her in the hallway, in her scrubs again, looking tired but okay. They'd nod, maybe smile, but they didn't stop to talk. The notes were enough. The notes were everything.
One evening, three months after the power outage, Marcus found a flyer taped to his door. Local jazz club, open mic night, Tuesday at eight.
"I'll be there if you play. -K"
He stood in the hallway for a long time, holding the flyer. Then he went inside and picked up his saxophone. Practiced for three hours straight, until his lips were numb and his neighbors probably wanted to kill him. All except one.
Tuesday came fast. Marcus stood backstage at the club, saxophone in hand, hands shaking slightly. He peaked out at the small crowd. There she was, at a table near the back, sipping water, waiting. She saw him and raised her glass slightly. A toast to broken things still working.
He walked on stage. Adjusted the mic. Looked out at the lights and the faces and felt that old fear rise up. Then he saw her again, nodding encouragement, and he thought about all those notes, all those words they'd exchanged without ever really talking. How sometimes the most important conversations happen in writing, in the space between doors, in the careful distance that makes honesty possible.
"This is called 'Notes from 3B,'" he said into the mic. "It's new."
He put the horn to his lips and played. Not perfect. Not like before. But his own sound, shaped by everything that had happened, everything that had broken and begun to heal. The notes filled the room, and even from the stage, even through the lights, he could see her smiling.
When he finished, the applause was modest but real. He bowed, walked off stage, and went to her table.
"Buy you a coffee?" she asked.
"Yeah. Yeah, that'd be good."
They walked to an all-night diner down the street, sat in a booth with cracked vinyl seats. Ordered coffee and pie. Talked about nothing important - the weather, Mr. Toshi's latest antics, whether the Tigers had a shot this year. The easy conversation of people who'd already said the hard things.
"I kept all your notes," she said suddenly. "Every one."
"Yeah? Me too."
"Why do you think we never talked? I mean, really talked, face to face?"
Marcus thought about it. "Maybe we needed the distance. The paper. The time to think."
"Maybe." She stirred her coffee. "Or maybe we were both too scared to be real people to each other. Easier to be words on paper."
"We're real now."
"Are we?"
He reached across the table, touched her hand briefly. Real skin, real warmth. "Real enough."
They walked back to their building together. At the third floor, they paused in the hallway between their doors.
"Thank you for playing tonight," she said.
"Thank you for listening. Then and now."
She started toward her door, then turned back. "Marcus? Keep writing to me. Even though we can talk now. I like the notes."
"Okay."
"Okay."
She went inside. He went inside. Twenty minutes later, he taped a note to her door:
"Coffee was good. Pie was better. Company was best. Your neighbor, Marcus."
In the morning, there was a note on his door with a small drawing of a coffee cup and a slice of pie:
"Next Tuesday? Same time? Your neighbor, K."
He wrote back: "Wouldn't miss it."
And he didn't. Not that Tuesday or the next or the next. They kept meeting for coffee after his sets, kept leaving notes on each other's doors, kept living their parallel lives that occasionally, beautifully, intersected. The whiskey bottles became fewer. The pills stayed untaken. The music got stronger, surer.
One night, six months after that first mixed-up delivery, Marcus came home to find a package outside his door. Inside was a new reed for his saxophone and a note:
"For your birthday. (I asked the super when it was.) Thank you for being my neighbor. Thank you for the notes. Thank you for showing me that broken doesn't mean finished. -K"
He sat on his couch, holding the reed, reading the note again and again. Then he picked up his pen and wrote:
"Dear Keiko, You saved my life. I think I saved yours too. Maybe that's what neighbors do. Maybe that's what happens when we're brave enough to leave notes, to answer them, to keep answering even when it's hard. Thank you for being behind that door. Thank you for being here. Your friend (still your neighbor), Marcus."
He taped it to her door, knocked twice - their signal now - and went back inside. Through the wall, he heard her door open, heard the soft sound of paper being unfolded. Then, a few minutes later, a knock on his door. Two taps, soft but sure.
The note said: "Play something beautiful. I'm listening."
So he did. He played something beautiful and broken and healing. He played for her, for himself, for everyone fighting their way back from somewhere dark. The notes rose and fell, escaped through the windows, drifted over Detroit like a blessing or a prayer.
And in 3D, Keiko sat with her cat and her tea and her father's glove, listening to her neighbor make music out of nothing but breath and brass and the determination to keep going. Tomorrow she had a double shift. Tomorrow he had to call his sponsor. Tomorrow they'd leave more notes, drink more coffee, live more life.
But tonight, there was just the music and the walls between them that were somehow, impossibly, exactly the right distance apart.