The elevator stopped with its usual jolt, its doors gliding open to reveal a brown paper bundle on the patterned carpet. Mrs. Parker, on her way back from the mailbox, hesitated before picking it up. The top envelope read "107B," but the handwriting looked almost like her own. She carried it inside, only realizing the mix-up after the door clicked behind her.

Inside, she flipped through the stack and spotted a worn recipe card, edges curled, the name “Mitchell’s Lemon Pound Cake” written in tidy blue ink. It wasn’t hers. She peered at the neighbor’s name, Mr. Levine, who she saw only on laundry day, shuffling with measured steps down the hallway. After a moment, she traced her own missing card from the pile—a scribbled recipe for apple cinnamon bread—now in his handwriting.

So she knocked, the cards in her hand, heart thudding too loudly for such a small task. Mr. Levine answered, straightening his glasses, eyes flicking from her to the cards. “I think this belongs to you,” she said, holding out the lemon cake recipe. He chuckled, glancing at her bread recipe. “Seems we’ve had a bit of a culinary mix-up here.”

They stood there, two neighbors divided mostly by walls and years, suddenly sharing stories of old kitchens and handwritten notes. He offered her a slice of shortbread, pale and buttery, from a tin on his counter. “You ever try cardamom in your bread?” he asked, smiling with a hint of mischief.

She grinned, already framing her response around the fading scent of cinnamon and the feeling of the recipe card between her fingers.