I was eight years old when it started. Every single night at exactly 2:17 a.m., I heard three soft knocks on my bedroom window.
Tap… tap… tap.
Never earlier. Never later.
At first, I thought it was just the wind or tree branches. But even on calm nights, the knocks came without fail. One evening, I gathered enough courage to open the window.
No one was there.
Only a small folded note resting on the windowsill.
It read:
“Don’t be afraid. I’m watching over you.”
I told my parents, but they laughed and said I must have been dreaming. The notes stopped a few months later, and eventually I forgot all about them.
Fifteen years passed.
After my grandmother died, I helped clean out her attic. Hidden inside an old wooden chest was a faded diary with her name written on the cover.
As I flipped through the pages, my heart stopped.
Every entry was written at 2:17 a.m.
On one page, she had written:
“Walked to his window again tonight. Left another note. I hope he never feels alone after his parents’ accident.”
I froze.
My parents had always told me they stayed home every night after the accident.
They hadn’t.
Grandma had secretly walked across town for months, knocking softly on my window to comfort a frightened little boy who thought the world had forgotten him.
The mystery I feared as a child turned out to be the greatest act of love I never knew existed.
