Paloma was a street painter. At the end of a narrow alley there was a gray wall, and one morning she painted a door on it. It was green, with a brass handle and a letter slot. Children on their way to school knocked on it and waited, pretending it would open.
Three weeks later Mr. Duarte, a city councillor, signed an order. On Monday the wall would be painted gray again, because a door that does not open is "a lie on a wall".
But on Saturday morning Paloma found notes pushed into the painted slot. "Good morning, door." Someone had fixed a red mailbox under it, and by Sunday night it held forty letters, all addressed "To the Green Door".
On Monday Mr. Duarte came to watch the painters. He opened the mailbox and found a letter for himself, written in crayon: "Dear Mr. Duarte, please don't close the door. Sami, age seven." He read it twice and sent the painters home. Paloma put a doormat in front of the door. The next morning there was one more letter in the box: "Dear door, I am sorry I almost closed you."
