“How come you’re not asking about the envelope?” she said. I froze. I had no idea what she meant. She explained that while checking the bedroom after I moved out, she found a white envelope taped underneath the bottom drawer of the old dresser. My name was written across the front. I told her I had never seen it before, and for a moment neither of us knew what to say.

She asked if she could bring it to me instead of opening it. That afternoon, we met outside my new apartment. The handwriting on the envelope belonged to her late husband, who had managed the building before he passed away two years earlier. Inside was a short note thanking me for helping him carry groceries upstairs, checking on him when he was sick, and never complaining when repairs took longer than expected. I had almost forgotten those little moments.

Then a bank envelope slipped out behind the letter. Inside was a cashier’s check for $4,000. His note explained that he had quietly set aside money from the security deposits of several longtime tenants he considered “good people,” intending to return more than they had paid when they eventually moved. My landlady looked just as shocked as I was. Apparently, he had never told her about it.

I tried to give the check back, but she refused. “He clearly wanted you to have it,” she said.

I had spent the entire night before worrying that moving out meant closing an old chapter of my life.

Instead, one final kindness from someone I thought I had barely mattered to followed me into the next one.