Miguel heard them moving in on a Tuesday. The walls in the Riverside Gardens apartments were thin enough that he knew when his previous neighbor sneezed or watched television past ten. These new ones had children. He could tell by the quick footsteps, the sudden crying that started and stopped. He stood at his kitchen window, drinking instant coffee, watching the parking lot. A young black woman in scrubs carried boxes up the stairs. Two small children sat on the bottom step, the girl maybe six, the boy younger.
That evening, he warmed up leftover pozole and ate it standing at the counter. Rosa would have scolded him for that. She would have set the table properly, even for leftovers, even when it was just the two of them. The new neighbors were quiet now. Probably tired from moving.
Three days passed before he saw her again. He was checking his mail in the lobby when she came through the door, grocery bags in both hands, the children trailing behind.
"Let me," he said, reaching for one of the bags.
She pulled back slightly, then seemed to reconsider. "Thank you."
Her accent was different from any he knew. Not Mexican, not Central American. Something else. They climbed the stairs slowly, Miguel's knee giving him trouble like always.
"You are 2B?" she asked.
"Yes. Twenty-three years in 2B."
"We are 2C."
At her door, she took the bag back. The children stared at him with large, serious eyes.
"Thank you," she said again.
"De nada."
The next morning, Sunday, the smell woke him. Something with cumin and coriander, but different from Mexican food. Sweeter somehow. He lay in bed remembering how Rosa would wake early on Sundays to start the carnitas, the whole apartment filling with the smell of pork and orange peel.
He made himself get up, shower, shave. In the mirror, his face looked more lined than he remembered. When had that happened? He heated a can of refried beans and made a quesadilla on the stovetop. The smell from next door was stronger now. His stomach rumbled despite the food.
That afternoon, he was carrying his laundry to the basement when the woman's door opened.
"Excuse me," she said. "You know where is the closest pharmacy? My daughter, she has fever."
"CVS on Madison. Three blocks." He set down his laundry basket. "You have car?"
"No. We take bus."
"Is Sunday. Bus not good on Sunday. I drive you."
She hesitated. He understood. A stranger, an old Mexican man she didn't know.
"My name is Miguel," he said. "Miguel Herrera."
"Amina," she said. "Amina Abdullahi."
The girl was on the couch, a wet cloth on her forehead. The boy sat beside her, patting her arm. The apartment was the same layout as Miguel's but felt completely different. Bright fabrics on the walls, cushions on the floor, the smell of that morning's cooking still thick in the air.
"I get my keys," Miguel said.
At CVS, Amina counted bills carefully while the pharmacist explained the dosage. Miguel noticed she skipped the name-brand fever reducer for the generic. On the drive back, she sat straight in the passenger seat, the medicine bag clutched in her lap.
"You are from where?" Miguel asked.
"Somalia. You know Somalia?"
"Africa," he said, though he couldn't have pointed to it on a map.
"Yes. And you? Mexico?"
"Michoacán. Forty-eight years I am here now."
"Long time."
"Yes. Long time."
Back at the apartment, she thanked him again. "You are very kind."
"Is nothing."
But that night, there was a knock on his door. Amina stood there with a covered plate.
"Sambusas," she said. "I made this morning. For you."
The triangular pastries were still warm. He didn't know what to say. It had been two years since anyone had brought him food. After Rosa died, the church ladies had come for a while, but that stopped.
"Gracias," he said.
He ate them at his kitchen table, using a fork and knife though he suspected that wasn't right. The filling was beef and onions and something else, spices he didn't recognize. They were good. Very good. He saved two for tomorrow and washed the plate carefully.
The next evening, he knocked on her door with the clean plate and a aluminum pan covered in foil.
"Tamales," he said. "My wife's recipe."
She looked surprised. "Your wife?"
"She pass away. Two years now."
"I'm sorry."
"These are pork. Is okay? I don't know..."
"Is okay. We eat everything except pork. But thank you. Very kind."
He felt foolish. Of course. Muslims didn't eat pork. He knew that.
"I make chicken ones tomorrow," he said.
"No, no. Please. You don't need—"
"I like to cook. Nobody to cook for now."
She smiled then, the first real smile he'd seen from her. "I understand."
The chicken tamales took him all morning. He had to go to three stores to find the right kind of corn husks. His hands weren't as steady as they used to be, and he dropped masa on the floor twice. But the rhythm of it, spreading the masa, adding the filling, folding and tying, brought Rosa back to him. Her hands guiding his the first time she taught him. "Not too much filling, Miguel. Like this, see?"
Amina accepted the tamales gratefully. Two days later, she brought him a container of stew with injera, the spongy bread she showed him how to use to scoop up the meat and lentils. They stood in his doorway while she demonstrated, laughing when he tore the bread wrong.
This went on for weeks. His enchiladas verdes for her rice and goat meat. His albondigas soup for her chicken suqaar. They began to eat together sometimes, usually in the hallway between their apartments, sitting on the floor with the children. The girl, Sahra, would practice her English by telling him about school. The boy, Abdi, mostly just smiled and ate.
"No husband?" Miguel asked one evening, then worried he'd been too forward.
"He left," Amina said simply. "One year ago. Said America was too hard."
"And Somalia was easy?"
She laughed, but it was bitter. "Nothing is easy."
Miguel understood that. Nothing had been easy since Rosa died. Getting up in the morning wasn't easy. Making coffee for one wasn't easy. Watching television alone wasn't easy.
"You have children?" Amina asked.
"Two. My son Carlos in San Francisco. My daughter Patricia in Los Angeles."
"They visit?"
"Sometimes. Christmas, maybe."
It was October now. The holidays seemed very far away.
One Thursday evening, Amina knocked on his door, frantic. "Miguel, please. I'm sorry. Can you watch them? Just two hours? My coworker is sick, I have to go to work, the babysitter cannot come—"
"Yes, yes. Of course."
She brought them over with coloring books and crayons. "They ate dinner. Bedtime is eight-thirty but if I'm late—"
"Go. Is fine."
The children sat at his kitchen table, coloring quietly. Miguel turned on the television to a cartoon channel. He made them hot chocolate with the Swiss Miss packets he found in the back of his cupboard. Sahra told him about her teacher, Mrs. Robinson, who was teaching them about butterflies.
"Butterflies go to Mexico," she said. "Monarchs."
"Yes. To Michoacán. Where I am from. Every year they come."
"Have you seen them?"
"When I was boy. The trees full of butterflies. Like orange leaves, but moving."
She drew him a picture of orange butterflies and wrote "FOR MIGUEL" in careful letters across the top. He put it on his refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a chile pepper.
When Amina returned at eleven, the children were asleep on his couch. She carried Abdi, Miguel carried Sahra, the girl's head heavy on his shoulder. It reminded him of carrying Patricia when she was small, how she would pretend to be asleep so he would carry her from the car.
"Thank you," Amina whispered. "I don't know what I would do..."
"Anytime," Miguel said, and meant it.
November came with rain. Miguel's knee hurt worse in the wet weather. He was slow getting down the stairs with his laundry when Amina caught up with him.
"Let me help."
"No, no. Is heavy."
But she took one end of the basket anyway. In the laundry room, they sat on the plastic chairs while the machines rumbled.
"In Somalia," she said, "we washed clothes by hand. My mother and aunts and me, all together by the river. Talking, singing sometimes."
"In Michoacán too. My mother had a washing stone. Broke your back, that work."
"Yes. But the machines are lonely."
Miguel understood. Everything was lonely here. Even the conveniences.
"Your family?" he asked. "In Somalia?"
"Dead. Most of them. The war."
He didn't know what to say to that. Rosa would have known. She always knew the right words.
"Is why I came here," Amina continued. "For the children. For safety."
"Is safe here," Miguel said, though he wondered if that was true. The neighborhood had changed a lot in twenty-three years. More broken windows, more young men standing on corners.
"Safer," she corrected. "Is safer."
That night, Carlos called. "Dad, I'm worried about you."
"Why worry? I'm fine."
"You sound tired."
"Is late."
"It's eight-thirty."
"I go to bed early now."
"Dad, Patricia and I have been talking. That apartment, those stairs with your knee. Maybe it's time to think about... other options."
Miguel knew what "other options" meant. Some assisted living place with beige walls and scheduled activities.
"I'm fine here."
"Dad—"
"I said I'm fine."
After he hung up, he stood at his window looking at the parking lot. A group of teenagers walked by, laughing loud. Somewhere a dog barked. Normal sounds. His sounds, after all these years.
The next morning, Amina's boy was sick. Miguel could hear him crying through the wall, that particular cry of a fevered child. He knocked softly.
"You need something?"
Amina looked exhausted. "I don't know. He won't eat. Won't drink."
"Wait."
Miguel returned with a bottle of Pedialyte and a package of paletas, the frozen fruit bars from the Mexican market.
"For Patricia when she was sick. Always worked."
The boy took the strawberry paleta eagerly, his fever-bright eyes grateful. Amina nearly cried.
"You save me again."
"Is nothing."
But it wasn't nothing. Miguel knew that. It was something. It was neighbors being neighbors, the way it used to be, the way Rosa always insisted it should be.
December arrived cold and clear. Miguel strung lights on his small balcony, the same lights Rosa had bought their first Christmas in the apartment. From Amina's balcony, no lights. He wondered if Muslims celebrated Christmas. Probably not.
One evening, he was making menudo when she knocked.
"Smells good," she said.
"You want some? Is soup for cold weather."
They ate together in his kitchen, the children with quesadillas because menudo was too spicy. His apartment felt less empty with them there. Sahra had learned to say grace in Spanish from school. "Gracias por la comida," she recited proudly.
"Perfect," Miguel said.
After dinner, Amina helped wash dishes while the children watched cartoons.
"My son comes for Christmas," Miguel said. "Carlos. From San Francisco."
"That's nice."
"Maybe you meet him. Maybe we all have dinner."
Amina dried a bowl carefully. "Maybe."
But something in her voice told him she understood what he was really saying. That Carlos might not understand. That Carlos, with his programmer job and his white girlfriend and his embarrassment about Miguel's English, might not want to have dinner with the Somali neighbors.
Carlos arrived on December 23rd, driving a Tesla that looked absurd in the apartment parking lot.
"Dad, this place looks worse every time."
"Is home."
"It doesn't have to be."
They went to dinner at a chain restaurant Carlos chose. The food was too salty, the music too loud. Carlos talked about his job, using words Miguel didn't understand. Cloud computing. User interface. Scalability.
"You eating okay?" Carlos asked. "You look thin."
"I eat fine."
"I worry about you here alone."
"I'm not alone."
"The neighbors? Dad, you don't even know these people."
That night, Miguel could hear Amina's family through the wall. The children laughing, music playing – not American music, something with drums and a woman's voice singing in their language. He thought about knocking, introducing Carlos, but he knew how it would go. Carlos would be polite but cold. He would whisper questions later. "Are they legal? Is it safe? Dad, you need to be careful."
Christmas Eve, Carlos insisted on cooking. He filled Miguel's kitchen with expensive ingredients from Whole Foods. Organic this, free-range that. The food was good but somehow tasteless. They ate in silence mostly.
"Remember when Mom made tamales for Christmas?" Carlos said finally.
"Every year. Hundreds of them."
"The whole family would come."
"Yes."
"Things change," Carlos said.
"Yes. Things change."
After Carlos went to bed in Patricia's old room, Miguel heard soft knocking. He opened the door to find Sahra and Abdi in their pajamas, Amina behind them.
"They have something for you," she said apologetically. "They insisted, even though it's late."
The children handed him a wrapped box. Inside was a picture frame made of popsicle sticks, painted green and red. The picture was of all of them – Miguel, Amina, and the children – that Sahra had drawn.
"Merry Christmas, Mr. Miguel," Sahra said.
His throat felt tight. "Thank you. Is beautiful."
"We made cookies too," Abdi added, producing a paper plate of sugar cookies shaped like stars and trees.
"You come tomorrow?" Sahra asked. "Mama is making special dinner."
Miguel glanced at Amina. She nodded slightly.
"Maybe," he said. "If is okay."
After they left, he sat looking at the picture. In Sahra's drawing, they were all holding hands, standing in front of a building that might have been their apartment complex but looked nicer, surrounded by flowers and butterflies.
Christmas morning, Carlos slept late. Miguel made coffee and sat on his balcony despite the cold. He could hear Amina's family next door, the children excited about something. Present, probably, though he didn't know if Muslims gave Christmas presents.
"Dad?" Carlos stood in the doorway. "It's freezing out here."
"I like the cold. Wakes you up."
Carlos sat down beside him. "Dad, I need to talk to you about something."
Here it came. The assisted living pitch. The practical arguments.
"I've been looking at places—"
"Carlos." Miguel's voice was firm. "This is my home."
"Dad, you're seventy-two. Your knee is bad. You're alone here."
"I told you. I'm not alone."
As if to prove his point, Amina's door opened. She stepped onto her balcony with a mug of tea.
"Good morning, Miguel. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, Amina. This is my son, Carlos."
Carlos stood, awkward. "Hello."
"Nice to meet you. Miguel talks about you very much."
"Oh. That's... nice."
"We are having dinner at four if you like to come. Both of you."
"That's very kind," Carlos started, "but—"
"We come," Miguel said. "What to bring?"
"Nothing. Just come."
After she went inside, Carlos stared at him. "Dad, who is that?"
"My neighbor. My friend."
"She's... are they refugees?"
"They are neighbors."
"Dad—"
"Carlos, you know what your mother would say? She would say, 'Don't be pendejo.' She would say, 'These are good people, be good to them.'"
Carlos was quiet for a long moment. "Mom would have liked her?"
"Your mother would be cooking with her right now. Trading recipes. Watching the children."
That afternoon, Miguel made flan, Rosa's recipe. Carlos helped, cracking eggs and stirring sugar, not complaining for once. At four, they knocked on Amina's door.
The apartment smelled of cinnamon and cardamom. The table was full – rice with raisins and nuts, roasted chicken with berbere spice, vegetables Miguel didn't recognize, sambusas, injera bread. Amina had even made tamales.
"I asked the lady at the Mexican market how to make them," she said shyly. "They are not good like yours."
Miguel tasted one. The masa was a little dry, the chicken slightly bland, but the effort of it, the care, made his eyes water.
"Are perfect," he said.
They ate slowly, the children teaching Carlos words in Somali, laughing when he mispronounced them. Amina told them about Eid celebrations in Mogadishu before the war. Miguel talked about Christmas in Michoacán, midnight mass and ponche and the posadas. Carlos, warming up, showed the kids a game on his phone.
"Your flan," Amina said after tasting it. "Is like heaven."
"Rosa's recipe. She won all the church contests."
"You must teach me."
"Tomorrow," Miguel said. "We make together."
Later, walking back to Miguel's apartment, Carlos was quiet.
"What?" Miguel asked.
"Nothing. Just... you seem happy."
"I have good neighbors."
"It's more than that."
Miguel thought about it. "When your mother died, I thought I died too. Everything stopped. But life don't stop. It just goes different."
"And this?" Carlos gestured toward Amina's door. "This is different?"
"This is life."
Carlos left the next morning, but not before helping Miguel carry a basket of laundry downstairs. In the parking lot, he hugged Miguel longer than usual.
"Dad, I'm sorry. About pushing you. About the assisted living stuff."
"Is okay. You worry. Is what children do."
"She seems nice. Amina."
"She is nice."
"And the kids are cute."
"Very cute."
Carlos got in his Tesla, then rolled down the window. "Dad? Maybe I could visit more often. Not just holidays."
"I would like that."
After Carlos drove away, Miguel stood in the parking lot for a moment. The sun was warming up the day. Somewhere, someone was playing music. Latin music, guitars and accordions. From another apartment, the smell of curry. America, he thought. This messy, difficult, beautiful America.
Back upstairs, Amina's door was open. She was mopping her kitchen floor while the children played in the living room.
"Carlos gone?"
"Yes. Back to San Francisco."
"He seems like good son."
"He is. Just worried."
"All children worry."
Miguel watched her mop, the steady back and forth motion.
"You want help?"
"No, sit. I make tea."
He sat at her kitchen table. The afternoon sun came through the window, lighting up the tiny dust particles floating in the air. Rosa used to call them angels, those specks of dust in sunlight. "Look, Miguel, the angels are dancing."
Amina made tea with cardamom and ginger. They drank it slowly while the floor dried.
"In Somalia," she said, "we have saying. 'Nabad iyo caano.' Peace and milk. Is what you wish for someone. Good life."
"In Mexico, we say 'Salud, dinero y amor.' Health, money, and love."
"Both are good wishes."
"Yes. Both good."
Sahra came into the kitchen with her drawing pad. "Mr. Miguel, can you teach me Spanish?"
"Claro que sí. Of course."
She climbed onto his lap, something she'd never done before. She smelled like crayons and bubble gum. "How do you say butterfly?"
"Mariposa."
"Mariposa," she repeated carefully. "Like the ones that go to Mexico?"
"Yes. Like those."
He thought about the monarchs returning to Michoacán, generation after generation, finding their way home to trees they'd never seen. How did they know where to go? Some deep memory in their small bodies, some pull toward a place that meant safety, meant home.
"Mama, can Mr. Miguel eat dinner with us again?"
Amina smiled. "If he wants."
"I always want dinner," Miguel said, and Sahra laughed.
That evening, they ate leftover tamales and rice. Miguel taught the children to play lotería with an old set he found in his closet. Amina made more tea. It was nothing special. Just neighbors sharing a meal, filling the empty spaces with food and conversation and the small kindnesses that make a life bearable.
When it was time for the children to go to bed, Miguel returned to his apartment. He washed the dishes, watched the news in Spanish, took his pills. Normal things. But the apartment didn't feel empty anymore. Through the thin walls, he could hear Amina singing to her children, a soft lullaby in Somali. He didn't understand the words, but he understood the feeling. Comfort. Safety. Home.
He thought about calling Carlos, telling him about the evening, but decided against it. Carlos would understand or he wouldn't. It didn't matter. What mattered was this: tomorrow, Amina would knock on his door with a plate of something. He would have Rosa's soup simmering on the stove. The children would practice their Spanish. Life would continue, different than before but still good.
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance. A dog barked. The teenagers gathered in the parking lot, their voices carrying up. The sounds of the city, of this place he'd lived for twenty-three years. Not the Michoacán of his childhood, not the America of Carlos's success, but something in between. Something that belonged to people like him and Amina, people who had traveled far and lost much and still got up each morning to make breakfast, to go to work, to care for their children or their memories.
Miguel turned off the lights and got ready for bed. Through the wall, Amina's apartment had gone quiet. Tomorrow, he would teach her to make flan. She would teach him to make that tea properly. The children would draw more pictures for his refrigerator. Small things. Ordinary things. The things that keep you alive when you think you might disappear.
"Buenas noches, Rosa," he whispered to the darkness, a habit he couldn't break.
And for the first time in two years, he could almost hear her answer: "Buenas noches, mi amor. Sleep well."