Alan did not reach for them. So I read them to him.
The first was from the emergency room. Severe asthma attack, likely triggered by smoke exposure. Recommendation, eliminate secondhand smoke in the home.
The second was the notice our building sent every tenant last month. No smoking within twenty five feet of any window, door, or balcony. Designated smoking area by the east parking lot. Violations would be treated as a breach of the lease.
He was standing six feet below the bedroom window of my daughter.
The woman from the second floor, Mrs. Castillo, called down from her balcony. She said she had asked him too. Her husband has a heart condition. She said she was going to call the office in the morning, and I could put her name next to mine.
A whole year of being called the neighbor who wants to control everybody, and the rule I needed had been taped to the mailroom wall for a month.
Alan put out his cigarette on the railing. He went inside without a word.
I filed the complaint that morning with the ER report attached. The property manager, a woman named Denise, called me by lunch. She said a written warning was going out to Alan that day. She also said she was sorry. She had not known a child in the building was being hospitalized.
Alan did not smoke under our window again. We saw him walking out to the east lot every evening after that, in his old Army jacket, head down.
My daughter slept through the night for the first time in months. Her doctor adjusted her treatment plan, and with the smoke gone, it started working. We went a whole month without the nebulizer. Then two.
In December, there was a knock on our door. It was Alan. He was holding a small paper bag.
He said he wanted to apologize. He said he read the ER report I left in his mailbox with the complaint, and he had not stopped thinking about it. He said he had a granddaughter the same age in Ohio who he did not get to see much. He said he would never want someone doing that to her.
Then he said he quit. Three weeks cold. It was the hardest thing he had done since basic training.
In the bag was a stuffed bear in a little camouflage jacket. He said it was for my daughter. She took it very seriously and named it Sergeant.
Alan is on his fourth month now without a cigarette. He sits out on his patio in the evenings with coffee instead. Sometimes my daughter waves to him from her window, and he salutes her back.
Last week she drew him a picture of Sergeant and slid it under his door. He taped it to his fridge. Mrs. Castillo saw it when she brought him soup.
It has been the best winter we have had in years. The window cracked open, and nothing coming up but clean air.