The Cardboard Boxes of Avenida Juárez

The first time I saw the apartment, I thought the landlord was joking. A two-bedroom place on Avenida Juárez, with a cracked tile floor and a water stain on the ceiling that looked like a faded map of a country I didn’t want to visit. But the rent was cheap, and my mother’s house was three blocks away. So I signed the lease, and I told myself that the stain was just a stain, and the way the building seemed to lean slightly to the left was just my tired eyes.

My daughter, Lucia, was a colicky baby. She cried from six in the evening until midnight, no matter what I did. I’d rock her, sing to her, walk her in the hallway until my arms ached. By the time she finally fell asleep, I was so exhausted that I’d collapse onto my bed, fully clothed, and not move until my phone alarm screamed at 4:15 AM. The drive to the border, the line, the crossing, the eight-hour shift at the insurance company, the drive back, the border crossing again — it was a blur of brake lights and beige cubicle walls. I was running on fumes, and every day I felt like I was one missed step away from crumbling.

That particular Thursday, I came home to find a stack of cardboard boxes in the hallway outside my door. They were the kind you get at a moving supply store, squat and corrugated, with labels that had been scratched out. I ignored them; the neighbors on the second floor were always moving in and out, and the landlord never cleared their leftovers quickly. I unlocked my door, fed Lucia, and put her to bed. She cried for her usual two hours, and I walked her in the musty hallway, past those boxes, and I noticed that they smelled faintly of mothballs and something else, something sweet and rotting, like the flowers in a funeral parlor. I pushed the thought away.

I finally got her to sleep around 11 PM. I didn’t even bother changing out of my work clothes. I lay down on my bed, and the moment my head hit the pillow, I was gone.

Then a voice said my name: “Maya.” It was a woman’s voice, low and soft, right next to my ear. I sat bolt upright, heart pounding. The room was dark except for the streetlight filtering through the thin curtains. Lucia was still asleep in her crib, her breath a steady whisper. I waited, holding my breath, but the only sound was the hum of the old refrigerator. I told myself it was a dream, a fragment of a dream. I lay back down, and just as sleep was pulling me under, the voice came again, more urgent this time: “Maya.” It was louder, like someone was standing in the corner of my room. I knew that voice. It was my grandmother’s voice, but my grandmother had been dead for ten years.

I turned on the lamp. The room was empty. I got up, checked the closet, checked under the bed. Nothing. I was about to blame my exhaustion, but then I noticed the cardboard boxes were gone from the hallway. The hallway was bare. I remember thinking, ‘Good, they took them away.’ I went back to bed, but I didn’t sleep again that night. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the voice to come back. It didn’t.

The next morning, I was a zombie. I got Lucia ready, drove to the border, waited an hour and a half in the line. At work, I was on my third cup of coffee, trying to stay awake, when my coworker, Ramón, asked me about the bruise on my arm. I looked down. There was a dark purple bruise on my forearm, shaped like four fingers and a thumb. I didn’t remember getting it. I shrugged it off, said I must have bumped into something.

When I came home that night, the boxes were back. Stacked neatly outside my door, exactly where they had been the night before. This time, I looked at them more closely. One of the labels had been scratched off, but I could see a faint ghost of an address: a street name I didn’t recognize, and a name, ‘Señora Valdez.’ I felt a chill. I had never heard of that name, but the woman who lived in the apartment before me, the one who had died, her name had been Valdez. The landlord had told me the previous tenant was an elderly woman who had passed away, that’s why the apartment was available. He had been vague about the details, and I had been too tired to ask.

That night, as I was putting Lucia to bed, I saw a shadow move under the door of the spare bedroom. I had never opened that door. I had assumed it was just an empty room, another layer of dust. But now, I saw a thin line of light coming from underneath it. I hadn’t turned on any light in there. I put Lucia down, and she fell asleep quickly, for once. I stood in the hallway, staring at that door. I reached out and turned the knob. It was unlocked.

I pushed the door open. The room was empty, except for a single wooden chair in the center. On the chair, there was a small, white card. I walked over and picked it up. It was an invitation. It read: ‘You are cordially invited to the birthday celebration of Señora Valdez, Thursday, 8 PM.’ That was today. And the address was my apartment number. The handwriting was neat, feminine, with ornate loops. I dropped the card as if it had burned me.

I stepped back into the hallway, and the cardboard boxes were now inside my apartment, stacked against the wall near the front door. I hadn’t heard them move. I stood there, my heart hammering, and then I heard the voice again, clear and close: “Maya, help me.” It was coming from the spare bedroom.

I don’t know what came over me, but I walked back to the doorway. The room was no longer empty. There was a bed in the corner, a nightstand, and on the bed lay an old woman, her face a mask of wrinkles, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling. She was wearing a floral dress, and her hands were folded over her chest. She looked exactly like the photo I had seen in the landlord’s office, the one of the previous tenant.

I couldn’t move. The woman’s lips parted, and a dry, raspy voice came out: “They buried me in the wrong grave. My bones are in a box, not a coffin. Please, find them and put me to rest.” Her eyes turned to me, and they were hollow, black pits.

I screamed. I backed away, ran down the hallway, grabbed Lucia, and fled the apartment. I didn’t even grab a coat. I drove to my mother’s house, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the wheel. My mother took one look at my face and didn’t ask questions. She put me and Lucia in the guest room, and I didn’t sleep a wink.

The next morning, I went back to the apartment, determined to get my things and never return. The door was unlocked. The apartment was empty. No boxes, no chair, no card. Everything was exactly as I had left it before the boxes appeared. I found a crack in the wall of the spare bedroom, near the baseboard. I knelt down and looked. Inside, there was something wrapped in a yellowed cloth. I pulled it out. It was a small, worn cardboard box, tied with a piece of string. I opened it. Inside, there were human finger bones, neatly arranged, and a lock of white hair.

I don’t know why I did it, but I took the box to the church on the corner. I gave it to the priest, and I told him to bury it in the cemetery, in a proper grave. He took it without judgment, just nodded. That night, I slept at my mother’s house. Lucia slept through the night without a cry.

The next day, I returned to the apartment to clean it out. When I arrived, the landlord was there, his face pale. He told me that the previous tenant, Señora Valdez, had died in the apartment, but her family had never claimed her body. The funeral home had, according to him, cremated her and stored her ashes in a cheap box that the family never picked up. He didn’t know where the box ended up.

I moved out that day. I found a new place in Tijuana, closer to my parents, still cheap, but with a better door. I never told anyone exactly what I saw, except to my mother, who just crossed herself and said, ‘You did the right thing.’ Sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night, I think I hear that voice calling my name, ‘Maya.’ But it’s always faint, distant, and it never seems to get closer. And for that, I’m grateful. I just hope the old woman found her rest, and that she never finds me again.