After the divorce, she lived in a storage unit. One night, she heard a knock from the other side of the wall, and what followed left her frozen…

The room was small, smaller than Livia ever imagined she would live in one day, sixteen square metres that seemed to shrink even more when night fell, bringing with it memories that didn’t fit in that space. The roughly finished plaster walls trapped the moisture, exuding a musty smell that, ironically, she had grown accustomed to breathing. The single bed creaked with every movement, not that Livia moved much during the nights.

Since losing Alice, she slept rigidly, as if any change in position could distance her even further from the memories of her daughter. It had been a drastic change. From the spacious house in the suburbs to this adapted storeroom at the back of a run-down building where the residents barely looked each other in the eyes.

It was exactly what she needed, anonymity. There, nobody knew she had been a mother. Nobody came with those pitying looks.

Nobody asked how she was dealing with everything. Not even Daniel. Especially Daniel.

Daniel, with his eyes identical to Alice’s. Daniel with the same crooked smile that the girl had inherited. Daniel who held her hand in the hospital while the doctors tried to explain the inexplicable.

Daniel who was now just a signature on a divorce paper and a pain she could not face. On that first night in the storeroom bedroom, Livia hugged the pillow, turned towards the wall and let the tears flow silently. She didn’t want anyone to hear her.

She was tired of being the mother who lost the daughter. She just wanted to be a ghost. Invisible.

Forgotten. On the second night, however, the crying came stronger. The sobs escaped between her hands pressed against her mouth as she tried to muffle the sound.

That was when she heard, knock, knock, knock. Livia froze. The knocks came from the wall against which her body was leaning, precise, firm, as if someone on the other side knew exactly that she was there…