It started with a leaky faucet.
When Julia moved into the old brick apartment on Calle Belgrano, she was thrilled. It was cheap, spacious, and just a few blocks from her new job at the hospital. The landlord, a quiet man named Señor Rivas, handed her the keys with a strange warning: “Don’t worry if you hear footsteps at night. The building creaks.”
She laughed it off. Old buildings always made noise.
But the sounds weren’t creaks. They were deliberate. Footsteps across the hall. A soft knock on her bedroom door at 3:12 a.m. every night. She checked the hallway each time — empty. No neighbors. The other units were vacant, according to Rivas.
One morning, she found a mug of cold coffee on her kitchen table. She lived alone.
She asked Rivas again. He hesitated, then admitted the truth: the last tenant, a nurse named Elena, had died in the apartment two years ago. Heart failure. Alone. She was found days later, sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in front of her.
Julia didn’t sleep that night. At 3:12 a.m., the knock came again. This time, she whispered, “Elena?”
Silence.
Then, the faucet stopped leaking.
The next morning, she found a note on the table. In shaky handwriting: “Thank you for remembering me.”
Julia stayed. The knocks stopped. But every few weeks, she leaves a mug of coffee on the table overnight. Just in case.
