A mother and her young daughter move into an apartment in the narrator's building. One summer day while the narrator is fixing a leaky faucet, the toddler falls out of an open bedroom window to her death while the mother is on a phone call. The mother, who has no other family, spirals into deep mourning and isolation over the next few months. When the narrator checks on her due to complaints of late night sobbing, they find the mother deceased in the toddler's now locked and untouched bedroom, having taken her own life from the pain and loneliness of losing her only family.

1. A new spring and a new family is moving into the third floor of my building. Well a mother and a
daughter. She’s a simple woman, with caring brown eyes and straight brown hair. When she came
to look at the rental space she held the hand of a bright eyed little girl who would often try and break
away to wonder.
As the mother tried to get settled and start rebuilding the toddler’s railed bed, her daughter ran
around the room admiring the dove wallpaper singing “birdy, fly, fly.” The mother would watch her f or
a little while chuckle and get back to work.
After about a week or so the mother was finally settled on her third floor suite. Everything went fine
until an accident occurred. It was a beautiful summer day. I had come up from the floor below to fix
her leaky faucet. Her daughter was laying on her bed reading a picture book. The sweet summer
breeze from the open window filled the room. I left the room to work on the sink, while the mom
returned to her daughter in the room a couple minutes passed and I was almost finished when I
heard the house phone ring from the living room. I could hear the mother walk through and answer
the phone. The next thing I hear after the footsteps passed me once more was the mother
questionably calling for her toddler, and then a scream. I rush into the room, where I see half of her
hanging out of the window screaming. I quickly ran over and grabbed the hysterical mother away
from the window as she fought against me. She quickly ran out of the room and I heard the front
door slam shut. I then took this time to see what happened. I peered out the window to see the
distorted body of the toddler. The mother came out of the downstairs door and flung her body on the
small body crying. She was gone.
That weekend she held a funeral, and I attended. It was a small service. I felt obligated to go. I’m
glad I did go because unfortunately I was the only attendee, other than the mother and the preacher.
That’s when I realized that her baby was the only person the poor mom had in the world.
A month later the poor mourning mother was the talk of the building. The gossiping woman on the
fourth floor complained of sobbing late at night. It seemed she never left the building anymore. Out
of concern I visited her. It was almost winter now as I climbed the stairs I could feel the heat from my
floor and mix with the frigid breeze of hers. I knocked on the door and it swung open at my touch. My
stomach sank. The room was so cold I could see my breathe in front of my face. I carefully walked
through the floor looking through every room until I came to the deceased toddler’s room. It was closed,
unlike all the other rooms. I. knocked, when there came no answer I tried to open it. When I found that
it was locked I quickly rush to the other room and call 911.
Again the funeral was little to no attendance, the other six residence in the building and the preacher.
Afterward, while cleaning out her floor to make room for a new tenant I actively avoided the toddler’s
room, which had turned into a place of mourning for her mother. That room, the only room still
furnished, haunted me. When I finally gathered enough courage to enter the room of death I was taken
aback. I hadn't remembered the condition that the room had been in the last time I was there. When
paramedics surrounded the bloody body of the distressed mother. Her self -inflicted wounds showed me
her pain and loneliness that she felt. But in all the rush I had not noticed the torn wall paper and the
destroyed hard wood floor. Fingernail scratched dug into the wood where the little girl sat reading her
book, moments before her passing. And that's when I looked at that open window, that blew in the cold
breeze so peacefully and chilling. And I thought to myself "That, open window is what started it all ."