Voices in Apartment 3B

Voices in Apartment 3B

By Nadeem Shah

When I moved into Apartment 3B, the super handed me the keys with a hesitant smile.

“Place is quiet,” he said. “Good light. Freshly painted. If anything… odd happens, just let me know.”

Odd?

I should’ve pressed him on that. But I was tired, recently divorced, and all I wanted was a quiet place where no one knew my name. Apartment 3B was tucked into a three-story brownstone in a sleepy neighborhood. The walls were pale blue, the floors creaked like old bones, and a bay window overlooked a lonely courtyard filled with weeds and broken garden statues.

I unpacked in silence, humming to myself, determined to start over. That night, I fell asleep with the window cracked open, letting in the chill of autumn.

It began around 2:14 a.m.—a whisper. Not a full voice. Not even words. Just the fluttering hush of breath where no breath should be.

I sat up, heart pounding.

“Hello?” I called out.

Silence.

The next night, it returned.

Whispers. Close. Faint. Unmistakable.

I pressed my ear to the wall near the kitchen, where the sound seemed strongest. It was like a conversation happening in another room, but softer, sadder. I couldn’t make out the words, but the cadence was unmistakable—pleading, maybe. Regretful.

Over the next few days, the whispers became a routine part of my nights. Always at the same time. Always just beneath perception. It wasn’t frightening—not at first. There was a rhythm to the sound, like someone gently rocking in a chair and murmuring to themselves.

On the fifth night, I heard a name.

“Eva.”

Clear as a bell.

I froze. The name was spoken softly, almost reverently.

The next morning, I went down to talk to the super.

“Did someone named Eva ever live in my apartment?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

His eyes darted away.

“Old tenant. Passed away a year ago. Lived there for decades. Lonely lady. Quiet.”

“How’d she die?”

“Heart failure, I think. Natural causes.”

I nodded and left. But nothing about what I was experiencing felt natural.

I began researching. The building was old—built in the 1920s. It had changed owners many times. I couldn’t find much on Eva, except a newspaper clipping in the local library archive. Eva Martinez, 84, passed peacefully in her sleep. Survived by no immediate family.

I started talking to neighbors. Most hadn’t known her. One old man on the second floor remembered her as “the lady with too many cats and sad eyes.”

I tried to ignore the whispers. I told myself it was stress, old pipes, the wind through cracks in the brick. But one night, I had a dream—or maybe it was something else.

I was in my apartment, but everything was from a different era. Floral wallpaper. A lace tablecloth. A transistor radio playing a Spanish lullaby.

And a woman—thin, gray-haired, wearing a worn blue sweater—was sitting by the window, writing a letter. She looked up at me, startled.

“Can you hear me?” she whispered.

I jolted awake.

The dream haunted me. I began searching the apartment, hoping—dreading—that I might find something of hers left behind. In the bedroom closet, beneath a loose floorboard, I did.

A box.

Inside: letters. All addressed to someone named “Isabel.” Dozens of them, neatly tied with twine. The paper was yellowed, the ink faded.

The first letter broke my heart.

"Mi querida Isabel,"

I hope one day you read these. I know you may never forgive me for giving you away, but I had nothing then. No home. No hope. I still remember your cry the day they took you. I pray you are safe. Loved. Happy. I am none of these things without you.

Love always,

Mamá

The rest were just as gut-wrenching—updates on Eva’s life, her regrets, her empty birthdays, her unanswered prayers.

Suddenly, the whispers made sense. They were echoes of guilt. Of love never returned. Of a mother’s voice carried through walls, seeking absolution.

I sat for hours reading every letter. At the end, I wept for a woman I had never met.

That night, I did something I never expected—I answered.

“I hear you, Eva,” I whispered into the wall. “She may never come, but someone is listening now.”

The whispers stopped.

For weeks, the apartment was silent. Not cold—just still. Peaceful. As if something had finally settled.

Then, one morning, I found a single white envelope slid under my door. No stamp. Just a name written in fragile cursive.

Isabel Martinez.

Inside, one of Eva’s letters.

I stared in disbelief.

That day, I posted the entire collection of letters online with a plea: Looking for Isabel Martinez. Born 1960. Possibly adopted in New York.

It went viral within a week.

A month later, I received a message from a woman in Florida. Her name was Isabel Reyes—born Martinez. Adopted at birth. She had no information on her biological family… until now.

We spoke on the phone. She cried when she read the letters. “She never stopped loving me,” she said. “I thought she’d forgotten.”

I sent her everything. The box. The letters. A piece of her mother’s soul.

Apartment 3B is quiet now. The whispers are gone. But sometimes, when I sit by the window in the moonlight, I think I feel a presence—a warmth. Like someone finally found their way home.

And every time I hear the wind brush against the walls, I smile.

Because I know:

Some stories don’t end with silence.

Some voices just need to be heard.