I said I didn’t care.
She looked at me for a second too long, as if she sensed something had shifted, but neither of us said anything. Not over dinner. Not while Sonia told us about spelling practice. Not while we cleaned the dishes. Not while the house slowly surrendered to night.
Before bed, I stopped at Sonia’s doorway.
— Have you really seen him every night?
She nodded against her pillow.
— He always comes when it’s very dark. He carries something. Mom never screams. She just looks sad.
Sad.
That word should have slowed me down.
It didn’t.
My wife came to bed around eleven. She smelled like soap and something sterile I couldn’t place. She asked if I had taken my sleeping pill. I said yes and let her hear the bathroom tap running, but I spat the tablet into the sink and tucked it into my pocket instead.
Then I lay beside her in the dark and waited.
I made my breathing heavy.
Regular.
Convincing.
Beside me, her breathing was wrong too. Too careful. Too awake.
At 1:13, the bedroom door moved.
Not all at once.
Slowly.
Like someone who had done it before.
A thin line of hallway light slid across the floorboards.
Then a figure stepped inside.
A man.
Tall. Careful. Silent.
He closed the door without letting the latch click. In one hand he carried a narrow black case. He didn’t turn on the light. He knew exactly where he was going.
To her side of the bed.
My entire body locked.
My wife didn’t move, but I saw her eyes close tighter, not like someone sleeping, but like someone preparing.
The man stopped beside her. For a moment nobody spoke. Then he bent slightly, and in a voice so low it made my stomach twist, he whispered:
— It’ll only take a minute.
My wife gave the smallest nod.
I felt something primal rise inside me. Rage. Humiliation. The hot, dizzying kind that erases reason. I could already see myself lunging across the mattress.
Then I heard another sound.
The soft snap of rubber.
Full part: My daughter said a man enters our room every night… and that night I decided to pretend I was asleep to catch him.
