The Wine Bottle Incident & The Deafening Silence Next Door

Project 365, Day 38

My next-door neighbors moved out today. As I understand it, they, or at least one of them, had lived in that unit for something like 15 years. We weren’t particularly close with them, but pleasant enough to exchange words in the hallway when we found ourselves there together. A few days after we moved in several years back, we heard a knock on the door. Our home (and bodies) in near shambles, we opened the door and found the two of them standing there with a bottle of wine in their hands. It was a gesture of welcome. “Wow, that was so nice of them,” both Charles and I said to each other in stereo when we closed the door.

As I tend to do when I’m awkwardly unsure of what to say, I overextend my niceties and say “we’ll save this for when our place is in better shape, and we have you over to share with us!” I always mean the things that I say, but I can’t just let something be a nice gesture. I have to take it somewhere else. How do I know they even wanted to be invited in one day, to share that bottle? Maybe they didn’t. But anyway, I said it. The weeks passed, the beach cooler that was our make-shift coffee table continued to be our make-shift coffee table.

Then, when enough time has elapsed that it would have been awkward to bring up the wine bottle to them again, the one we were supposed to share, we drank it. Charles and I. Alone, without our neighbors. We didn’t plan for that. We weren’t waiting to drink it without them. It just kind of happened. “Why did we do that?” Charles asked every time he thought about that wine bottle. “I don’t know…” I’d always say back. He carried around the weight of guilt literally until today…nearly three years later.

That unshared wine bottle had become the elephant that promptly stood next to us every time we ran into our neighbors.

That unshared wine bottle had become the elephant that promptly stood next to us every time we ran into our neighbors. We could both imagine them getting out of our earshot and saying “I can’t believe they never invited us over to share that bottle we bought them.” Chances are, this never, ever happened. They likely were just presenting a gesture, a welcome to the building, and never intended on me opening my big, awkward mouth to theoretically pencil in a dinner date that neither of us had planned for.

The other night, when I knew their move date was coming, I asked Charles “Do you think we should get them a bottle of champagne or something?” We heard from another neighbor that they had bought a house, so I thought a little bubbly would be an impersonal enough gift for a couple we hardly knew, but nice enough to say “hey, thanks for being good neighbors. Good luck in your new life.” He agreed we should. “It’s the least we could do after the wine thing,” he brought up. See…three years later, still thinking about it.

I bought the champagne, a nice enough bottle that I wouldn’t feel embarrassed if they saw the price at the grocery store, but not so nice that they’d feel strange about us giving them a very nice bottle of champagne. Then, I found some ribbon, and tied a bow around its neck. I placed it on our mantel by the front door, thinking maybe I’d need to grab it without notice in case I heard them leaving. “How do we give them this bottle without it being strange?” I asked Charles. I remember when we were moving across the country, and how overwhelming it was. How emotionally drained and tired we were, so I didn’t want to be a burden or a nuisance by just showing up, bottle in hand, when they were armpit deep in bubble wrap.

This morning, I was stirred awake by the sound of heavy footsteps and furniture being moved. Well, that’s actually a lie. I was HARD asleep this morning, but I should have been stirred awake by the sound of heavy footsteps and furniture being moved. I walked out to the front window in the living room and spotted the moving van. Today was the day for them. The neighbors we barely knew were leaving, and I needed to find a way to hand off the champagne bottle they didn’t know we had for them. There were a few times when I thought “eh, maybe I shouldn’t bother,” but that’s my typical avoidance tendencies that took over my mind. That was never really an option, just something that had to play out in my imagination.

As we dipped out to go grab a morning drink—coffee for me, tea for Charles—we ran into one of our neighbors, hands full of bags halfway down the stairs. “We have something small for you, but know you’re busy.” He asked if we were going to get breakfast, I said no, just coffee, and offered to pick something up for them. He politely declined, and we were back within the half-hour. “I gotta give them this champagne,” I said again to Charles, as I sipped my iced double shot espresso. That champagne bottle was boring a hole in my mantel and in my head. What if we miss them, what if I go shower, and then they’re gone, I thought. I kept checking the window to see how the moving truck filling was progressing. I deduced I still had some time.

On our way out the door we went again a few hours later, this time, I grabbed the bottle knowing that by the time we got back, they might actually be gone. My neighbor was by his car, playing Tetris with some items in his trunk, and we presented the bottle. “We’ll still be around a few more hours,” he said, but we weren’t sure when we’d be back and didn’t want to miss them, I said in return. We congratulated them on the new house, wished them luck, and we went in search of lunch for ourselves.

Out for more time than we originally thought we’d be—we took the scenic route—when we pulled into our street, it was clear they were gone. Both cars we knew were theirs weren’t parked where they’d normally be. The moving truck had vanished. As I walked up our shared driveway, I could see nothing but empty walls through their front window. “Wow, this is sad,” I said to Charles. He agreed.

I looked at their door and could hear the emptiness of their home through it. I could feel the silence.

Our two units shared a landing. Their side had always been filled with plants, a little entry table, and most recently, a baby stroller. All that was gone. There was nothing left there but crunchy, dried up leaves. I looked at their door and could hear the stillness of their home through it. I could feel the silence. The hubbub of the morning move was gone. The balance of energies that used to be on our floor was one-sided now, and it felt a bit odd, to be honest. Now, what’s left, is waiting. Waiting to see who might fill the emptiness next door. We may not have known our neighbors that well, but we knew what to expect from them. They were quiet, polite, responsible. I got used to the sound of their baby cooing through the walls, the thumping of their footsteps down the hallway that ran parallel to ours. What comes next?

I’m not sure, of course. We’ll soon see, I suppose.

The offer to share that initial bottle of wine as neighbors no longer hangs in the air between us. I’ll maybe always carry around a little bit of guilt for that. But also, maybe I’ll just let it go. We had their wine, they have our champagne. Part of the guilt, I think, comes from what might have been. Maybe there was a seed of friendship that never got the chance to sprout, because they had potted it, but we never watered it. Ah, the what-ifs of life. I’ll tell you what, though…we’ll probably welcome our new neighbors when they move in with a nice bottle of wine gesture, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll offer to have us over to share it, but I’ll let them off the hook if they never do.

See you tomorrow, friends.