The week the clocks went back, I gained an hour and lost the only one I'd been sleeping through.
I'd sit at the kitchen table at 2am, which was suddenly 1am, watching the dog's water bowl catch the streetlight by the door.
Frank next door was seventy-one and had never once asked me a personal question in six years.
He saw me carrying trash out at odd hours, saw the lights on, saw me thinner each week. He said nothing about any of it.
Then one Tuesday morning there was a bag of ground coffee on my porch with a note that just said 'extra.'
Wednesday he replaced the bulb in my porch light without mentioning it. I only noticed because the shadow by the door changed shape.
He didn't knock. He didn't check on me. He just kept doing small, quiet things that made the house less empty.
I realized later that the people who actually help you never make you explain yourself. They just show up with the coffee.