After Midnight by Milanka Sulejic
There were always rules at my grandmother's house.
Some were normal.
Take your shoes off.
Don't touch the good towels.
Don't open the refrigerator and stand there staring into it like food was going to introduce itself.
Don't eat the cookies before everyone gets there.
That last one was never followed.
There were other rules that didn't make as much sense.
Don't leave a glass of water uncovered overnight.
Don't whistle in the house.
Don't sit on the corner of the table if you're a girl, because apparently this meant something about marriage, although nobody ever explained what.
And, on Christmas Eve, my grandmother had one rule she never joked about.
If someone knocked on the door after midnight, we were not to answer.
Not me.
Not my cousins.
Not my mother.
Nobody.
I remember asking her why.
She was standing at the kitchen counter, rolling out dough with the same wooden rolling pin she'd had for as long as I could remember. There was flour on her hands and a little white mark on her cheek.
“Because I said so,” she told me.
“That doesn't count.”
She looked at me.
For a second, I thought she might laugh.
She didn't.
“After midnight,” she said, “you don't open the door.”
“Why?”
She went back to the dough.
“Some people are supposed to stay where they are.”
I thought she meant dead people.
I was old enough to know what she meant.
But I was young enough to believe dead people stayed dead.
That was before I learned that my family didn't always use those words interchangeably.
***
Christmas Eve at Grandma's house was loud.
There were too many coats piled on the bed in the spare room. Someone was always looking for a missing mitten. Someone's child was crying. Someone's husband was standing in the kitchen pretending he wasn't eating anything.
There were trays of cookies and cabbage rolls and bread and meat and enough food to feed twice as many people as we actually had.
My grandmother believed hunger was a personal insult.
If you said you weren't hungry, she looked at you like you'd accused her of something.
“You eat nothing.”
“I ate.”
“What?”
“I had a cookie.”
“A cookie is not food.”
“It had butter.”
She waved me away.
“Go sit down.”
That was Christmas.
People coming and going.
Doors opening.
Doors closing.
Boots leaving puddles by the entrance.
The smell of coffee and perfume and wet wool.
The adults talking in the kitchen about people I didn't know and people I was apparently related to somehow.
Sometimes Serbian.
Sometimes English.
Sometimes both in the same sentence.
The Christmas tree blinked in the corner.
And outside, Wisconsin was doing what Wisconsin does.
Snow against the windows.
Darkness before dinner.
Cold so sharp it made the air feel clean.
I loved those nights.
Even now, when I think about Christmas, I don't think about presents first.
I think about that house.
My grandmother in her kitchen.
The sound of everybody talking at once.
The little electric lights on the tree.
And the fact that, after midnight, everyone became quieter.
***
The first time I heard the knocking, I was eight.
I know that because I remember the pajamas I was wearing.
They had little red hearts on them even though it wasn't Valentine's Day, which my grandmother thought was ridiculous but had bought anyway.
Most of the adults were still awake.
The children had been sent upstairs.
We were supposed to sleep.
We weren't sleeping.
We were whispering and laughing under blankets, waiting for the adults to stop making noise.
Then—
Knock.
We all stopped.
Nobody said anything.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
My cousin whispered, “Someone's here.”
I sat up.
From downstairs came the sound of a chair scraping the floor.
Then silence.
I heard my grandmother say something.
I couldn't make out the words.
My mother answered her.
Then Grandma said, louder:
“No.”
Just that.
No.
I climbed out of bed.
My cousin grabbed my pajama sleeve.
“Don't.”
“I just want to see.”
“Grandma said no.”
“I know.”
We crept halfway down the stairs.
From there, we could see the front door.
My grandmother was standing in front of it.
She wasn't frightened.
That was what frightened me.
She was just standing there with her hands folded in front of her, looking at the door.
Someone knocked again.
Three slow knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
My grandmother whispered something in Serbian.
My mother touched her arm.
“Mom.”
Grandma shook her head.
“Don't.”
Then the knocking stopped.
Nobody moved.
We waited.
A minute.
Two.
Five.
Finally my uncle walked over and looked through the little glass window beside the door.
“There's nobody there.”
Grandma didn't answer.
She walked into the kitchen.
That was it.
Everyone went back to talking.
Someone turned the television up.
Someone made coffee.
My cousins went upstairs.
Christmas continued.
But I couldn't stop thinking about the knocking.
***
Years later, I asked my mother about it.
We were washing dishes after Christmas dinner.
I was older then.
Old enough to understand that families kept things from you.
Not always because they were cruel.
Sometimes because they thought they were protecting you.
“Why did Grandma never let us answer the door?”
My mother kept washing the same plate.
“She was superstitious.”
“About what?”
She shrugged.
“You know Grandma.”
That wasn't an answer.
It was a family answer.
The kind that meant:
Stop asking.
So I did.
For a while.
***
My grandmother died in January.
Not at Christmas.
Not dramatically.
There was no final warning.
No strange dream.
No last sentence that suddenly became meaningful later.
She was just gone.
And for a long time, I couldn't make myself go through her things.
When I finally did, I found the usual things.
Receipts.
Old church programs.
Photographs.
Recipes written on scraps of paper.
A button.
A dried-out pen.
A grocery list from a year when I had forgotten what groceries cost.
And, tucked inside an envelope, a small piece of paper folded four times.
I opened it.
There were three sentences.
The first was in my grandmother's handwriting.
DON'T OPEN THE DOOR AFTER MIDNIGHT.
The second was underneath it.
ESPECIALLY ON CHRISTMAS EVE.
And the third—
I almost didn't understand it.
Because it wasn't written by my grandmother.
It was written by my mother.
SHE CAME BACK ONCE.
I sat on the floor holding the paper.
I read it again.
And again.
Then I called my mother.
She didn't answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
I didn't know why I was suddenly afraid.
It was daylight.
I was in my own house.
There was no one at my door.
Still, I locked it.
***
My mother eventually called me back.
I asked her what the note meant.
There was a long silence.
Then she said:
“You found that?”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“Mom knew you would.”
“Who came back?”
She sighed.
“Your great-grandmother.”
I laughed.
I actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes your brain does that when somebody says something impossible.
“My great-grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“She was dead.”
“I know.”
“When did she come back?”
“Christmas Eve.”
I waited.
My mother said, “Before you were born.”
Then she told me the story.
My great-grandmother had died in the winter.
Christmas Eve.
There had been snow all day.
The family had been gathered at my grandmother's house, just as we always were.
After midnight, someone knocked.
Three times.
My grandmother was young then.
She was the one who almost opened the door.
My mother stopped her.
Because my mother had been given the rule by her own mother.
And before that, my great-grandmother had given it to her.
Nobody opened the door.
Nobody looked outside.
Nobody answered.
But the knocking continued.
For almost an hour.
Then came a voice.
My great-grandmother's voice.
Calling my grandmother's name.
“Open the door.”
My grandmother wanted to.
Of course she did.
She had just lost her mother.
She wanted to hear her.
She wanted to believe anything.
But my mother held her back.
Then the voice changed.
It stopped sounding like my great-grandmother.
It sounded younger.
Then older.
Then like someone neither of them knew.
And finally—
my mother's voice.
Calling from outside.
Even though my mother was standing inside the house.
My mother stopped talking.
I could hear her breathing through the phone.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The knocking stopped.”
“And?”
She whispered:
“Something walked away from the door.”
I waited.
“How do you know?”
“Because we could hear its footsteps in the snow.”
I looked toward my own front door.
My mother said, “That's why Grandma made you promise.”
“I never promised.”
“Yes, you did.”
I thought about it.
And then I remembered.
Eight years old.
Standing halfway down the stairs.
My grandmother looking directly at me.
Her finger against her lips.
Don't.
***
The following Christmas, I didn't go to Grandma's house.
There was no Grandma's house anymore.
My mother hosted.
There were too many coats.
Too much food.
Someone's child was crying.
Someone's husband was standing in the kitchen pretending he wasn't eating.
It was almost exactly the same.
Except I couldn't stop looking at the clock.
11:47.
11:58.
12:03.
Nothing happened.
I felt stupid.
At 12:30, people started laughing again.
Someone opened another bottle.
Someone put on music.
I finally relaxed.
Then—
Knock.
Nobody heard it.
Or nobody admitted they did.
I looked at my mother.
She looked at me.
Three seconds passed.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
My mother put down her glass.
No one else moved.
I could feel the whole room listening.
Then I heard it.
A woman's voice.
Very soft.
Right outside the door.
“Milanka.”
My mother grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
I didn't answer.
The voice came again.
“Milanka.”
It sounded like my grandmother.
Exactly like her.
The little laugh at the end of my name.
The way she used to say it when she wanted me to come into the kitchen.
I felt tears come into my eyes.
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
The voice came again.
This time, quieter.
“Come open the door.”
And then there was another voice.
A child's voice.
Behind her.
Laughing.
My mother began to cry.
I had never seen her cry like that.
We stood there in the kitchen while the Christmas tree blinked in the corner.
Nobody moved.
Nobody opened the door.
Eventually, the knocking stopped.
But before it did, something pressed against the other side of the door.
Three little taps.
Almost playful.
Then silence.
***
I don't know what my grandmother believed.
I don't know what my mother believes.
I don't even know what I believe.
I know only this:
There are rules in families that make no sense until suddenly they do.
There are things our grandmothers tell us without telling us why.
There are things they carry quietly because they think silence is another form of protection.
And sometimes, I think, love looks like a woman standing between you and a door.
Even when you don't understand what she's protecting you from.
Last Christmas, I was alone.
I was making coffee around midnight.
I don't usually stay up late anymore.
The house was quiet.
Outside, snow had started falling.
I was standing at the kitchen counter when I heard it.
Knock.
I froze.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
I didn't move.
I didn't breathe.
And then my grandmother's voice came through the door.
Very softly.
Just like I remembered it.
“Milanka.”
I closed my eyes.
For a moment I was eight years old again.
Halfway down the stairs.
Christmas lights blinking.
My grandmother watching the door.
Her hand reaching for mine.
Then I heard something I had never heard before.
Not my grandmother.
Not my mother.
A little girl.
Right outside.
She whispered:
“She doesn't know yet.”
I opened my eyes.
The Christmas tree was reflected in the dark window.
And behind my reflection stood a little girl in a yellow dress.
I didn't turn around.
I didn't answer.
I just stood there until the lights on the tree stopped blinking.
Then I heard my grandmother one last time.
Not angry.
Not frightened.
Almost tender.
“Good girl.”
And the knocking began again.