Leo

Nineteen years at this door. Oak and iron, barred. No one pays me.

I am here because my grandfather was. Once, when I was small, he told me: a door watched is a door that stays shut. I asked what was behind it. Nothing, probably. That is not the point. He died in this chair. I took his place, because someone ought to, and no one else offered.

Second bell, lamp trimmed. Then, beyond the door, a key turning in the lock.

“Is anyone there?” said a voice. “I have been knocking three days.”

“There is no king,” I said. “The throne has been empty forty years.”

“Well. Anyone who reads letters?”

I read. A letter slid under the door, thin as a blade. A woman to a brother she had not seen in twenty years: their mother died in the spring, the orchard did well, the house stands. No hurry, she wrote, but she thought of him.

“Her brother,” the traveler said, “was the last to guard a door at the end of a hall. Someone ought to be there, she said. That is not the point.”

My grandfather had a brother. I never once thought to ask his name.

I keep the letter in my coat, over my heart. A door watched is a door that stays shut. That was never about the door. It was about the watching.