Three years of welcome back

The doorman has been saying it for three years and I never thought to wonder who he meant.

Oh, you came back from your trip. Bright, easy, the kind of phrase that's supposed to be a small kindness. I have nodded into it a hundred times. Tonight I heard it land on a woman who has clearly been in and out of this building while I was at work, and I stood in the lobby with my keys on the tile and my hand still open and I did not pick them up. One minute. I counted by the elevator dings. The philodendron upstairs would have judged me if plants could, which is why I like it.

Yerin went quiet for so long I checked the call three times. When she finally spoke her voice was small and wrecked and she said Appa has been saying the same thing — Im knows how he likes his pillow fluffed, Im made his favorite egg roll. I sat on the entryway floor with my bag beside me and understood something I am not going to write in a way I can show anyone. Im gets the egg roll. I get the ABANDONED POST notice and a flag and a drawer I will not open tonight. The condition I set myself yesterday is holding. I did not call Maa. I called Yerin. I think that counts.