The first basket arrived on Monday. Rafi left it at Leen’s street gate, waved at her front window and hurried back to his delivery van.
Leen waved both crutches. The photograph she posted later showed the basket beneath the climbing roses.
“Lucky to have such good neighbours,” she wrote.
She couldn’t reach the basket.
The front steps were narrow. With her broken ankle in its stiff boot, she could manage the level hall and the chair by the front door. She hadn’t yet worked out a safe way down the steps. She called Rafi, but his van was already beyond phone range. By evening a cat had found the cheese.
Leen posted another photograph. This time she cropped out the cat.
On Tuesday she ate the last eggs. On Wednesday she made toast without butter and looked at the cheerful replies beneath her photographs. People had offered soup, bread, lifts and shopping. She had thanked them all without taking up any particular offer.
It had seemed easier to write “I’m doing well” than to explain where she could stand and how far she could carry a bag.
Rafi rang at nine on Thursday.
“I need my basket back,” he said. “The big wicker one. I use it for the market run.”
“Of course. Thank you again for everything.”
“Was the bread all right?”
Leen watched rain strike the window. “I haven’t tried it.”
There was a pause.
“It’s still at the gate?”
“Yes.”
“Leen, why didn’t you tell me?”
She had no answer she liked. “Could you bring fresh food to the door?”
“That food has been out for three days. It won’t be any good now. I can collect the basket, but I can’t shop before work. I’m already late.”
He came ten minutes later, took his basket and called through the open window that he’d try again at the weekend. He sounded tired, not angry. Leen closed the window and made the last slice of toast.
She opened her phone. Her first attempt at a new post began, “Still smiling!” She deleted it.
Then she wrote:
“I need a few groceries. I can reach the chair just inside my front door, but I can’t get to the gate. Could someone bring milk, bread and apples at four? You have permission to come through the open door and put the bag on the chair. Please ring once so I know you’re here. No photographs, please.”
She read it twice before pressing send.
June replied that she could come at four with her blue basket.
“I need the basket back tomorrow,” June added. “Can I collect it before work?”
Leen almost wrote, “I’ll have it waiting at the gate.” Her thumbs stopped.
“On the chair inside the door,” she wrote. “I’ll leave the door open at eight.”
At four, the bell rang once. June stepped into the hall with the basket balanced on her hip. Leen had moved her coat off the chair and set the crutches within reach.
“Here?” June asked.
“Yes. That’s the place.”
June put down milk, bread, six apples and a small packet of biscuits.
“Those weren’t on the list,” Leen said.
“I was buying some anyway. Don’t make a speech. I have to get my son from school.”
Leen laughed. June glanced at the boot, then back at her face.
“Anything else before I go?”
“Could you move the milk from the basket to this shelf? I can reach it from the kitchen side.”
June did. She did not rearrange the kitchen, photograph the groceries or tell Leen to be brave. She shut the outer gate on her way out.
That evening Leen sent Rafi a message. “The bread went to the cat. I was embarrassed to say I couldn’t get down. Next time, could we arrange a place I can reach?”
He answered from his last stop. “Yes. Chair by the door. Got it.”
She thanked June in a private message and set the empty blue basket on the chair before going to bed.
In the morning, rain ran down the glass again. Leen took a photograph of it. There was no basket in the picture and no smiling face reflected in the window.
“Wet morning,” she wrote. “My ankle hurts. The bread is within reach.”
She ate a piece while it was still warm from the toaster.
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