New York City

Up Three Flights

Dear Diary:

We had just finished moving my daughter into an apartment on DeKalb Avenue when she said that she and her roommate had bought a sofa from a woman in Queens and that we had to pick it up before 5.

It was starting to sleet, and I was contemplating how three women with little upper body strength were going to lug a heavy piece of furniture up three flights of stairs.

We got the sofa into the back of the van easily enough, but when we returned to the apartment we struggled to get it through the doorway.

A young man in an overcoat and hat walked by.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said. “Can you help us carry this sofa upstairs?”

“Of course,” he said, picking it up at one end and calling out instructions for how to angle it up the stairs.

After we had gotten it upstairs and I was on my way down, I asked the man if I could give him some money.

“Oh, no, absolutely not,” he said. “I live next door. I’m your neighbor.”

— Madeline Monde