6. Kristin
KRISTIN
The baby monitor glowed faintly on my nightstand, and a soft blue light pulsed every time Henry let out one of his tiny breaths. I curled up under the blanket, trying to get as cozy as possible, but I couldn’t settle down. My mind wasn’t the sort that quieted just because the house did.
“Patrick?” I whispered into the dark.
He didn’t answer at first. He was flat on his back, hands resting over his chest like a cadaver in a coffin, already drifting away.
I envied him, resented him, for how quickly he could fall into a slumber.
No matter what was going on in our lives, no matter the stress, problems at work, at home, you name it, once his head hit the pillow, he was gone.
And there I was, staring into the dark, pleading for sleep to find me the way it always found him.
“Patrick,” I said again, this time a little louder.
“Yeah?”
“What are we supposed to do about the casserole?”
He let out an exhausted sigh. “There’s nothing to do.”
“What do you mean, ‘there’s nothing to do’?”
“It was just a little old is all.”
I shifted onto my side so I could see the outline of him. “It wasn’t just a little old. It had maggots growing inside it.” My voice tightened. “Why would someone knowingly drop off rotten food?”
Patrick exhaled slowly, annoyed that I wasn’t letting him fall back asleep. “Kris, come on. I’m sure it was just a mistake.”
“But how do you know that?”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But more often than not, the simplest explanation is the right one.” He turned his head toward me, his expression softening.
“Maybe it was an old person. Someone struggling with memory issues. Someone trying to be nice but not remembering when they cooked it or when they purchased the ingredients.”
“That doesn’t explain everything.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Please don’t start this again.”
I opened my mouth, but the words crowded in my throat. The warning over the baby monitor. Lights turning on by themselves. The rafter groaning as if something heavy shifted above it. The woman in the window. The child in the basement. The constant sense of being watched, no matter where I stood.
I thought about telling him. I wanted to—wanted to unload it all and let someone else decide what it meant. But the last time I’d done that, back in the city, everything had spiraled. Every fear treated like proof. Every question like a crisis.
So I held it in. Because I wasn’t sure what was real anymore—and what might just be the result of two hours of sleep and a body that still hadn’t found its way back to equilibrium.
“I’m not,” I whispered. “Something just feels . . . off.”
Patrick nudged my foot under the blankets. “You’re exhausted. You’ve been running on empty for twelve weeks straight. Everything feels off when you haven’t slept.”
The baby monitor crackled a burst of static, followed by Henry’s gentle snoring.
I closed my eyes and let his angelic breaths anchor me. “I can’t remember what I was like after Hailey was born. It seems so long ago, but everything from back then feels like a warm, hazy dream.” I chewed on my lower lip. “Maybe this will feel that way someday too.”
Patrick squeezed my hand. “It will.”
I tried to believe him. Just as I was quieting my mind and the first signs of sleep were appearing behind my eyelids, the doorbell rang.
Patrick bolted upright. “What the—?”
I reached for my phone. “It’s eleven o’clock. Who the hell is here this late?”
The bell rang again, this time longer and harder.
“I’ll go check,” Patrick said, already swinging his legs off the bed. He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and flicked on his bedside lamp. “You stay here.”
“No, I’m coming with.” I followed right behind him before he could object, my pulse thudding in my ears.
As we reached the hallway, Hailey’s door cracked open.
Her head poked out, dark hair wild, eyes bleary with fear and teenage annoyance. “Who the hell is ringing the doorbell so late?”
“Shh. It’s fine. Just go back to sleep,” Patrick said.
“But—”
“Hailey.”
“Whatever,” she groaned, pushing her door closed. “Yell if someone starts murdering you, so I can get a head start out the window.”
The bell didn’t ring again, like whoever was there somehow knew we were on our way. Patrick unlocked the dead bolt and pulled open the door. A blast of cold air hit us first—then I saw her.
The old woman from earlier, the one standing outside my kitchen window, peering in, watching me. Except now, she stood on our porch, real and present and still.
She was bundled in a long gray coat, and her blond hair was brittle and graying, cut in a straight, unforgiving line at her earlobes.
Her face was a map of deep wrinkles, each one etched with purposeful cruelty or worry, I couldn’t tell which.
She wasn’t just small, she was diminished.
Yet somehow, she took up the whole doorway.
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to answer.”
Then why would you ring our doorbell? I thought to myself.
Patrick stepped forward. “Can we help you?”
“My name is Judi. Judi Vee,” she said. “I’m here for my casserole dishes.” She bounced up on her feet a bit, arms outstretched as though she were trick-or-treating.
“It’s . . . eleven o’clock.”
The flat smile on her face disappeared. “I didn’t ask for the time, young man,” she snapped. “I asked for my dishes.”
Patrick and I exchanged a glance, his confused and uneasy, mine more I told you so.
“Right,” he said. “Kristin, can you go grab them?”
I groaned and went to retrieve them, begrudgingly.
The three dishes sat stacked on the kitchen counter.
They were clean because I couldn’t bring myself to hand them back dirty, even though the food inside had been rotten.
It felt wrong, returning them to her so soon.
She’d dropped them off this morning, surely intending there to be three evenings’ worth of meals, and now here she appeared in the dead of night to already collect them.
“Here,” I said, handing them back to her.
“How were they?” Judi asked.
There was something in her tone, like she already knew the answer and was waiting to see if I’d lie.
“Actually—”
“Delicious,” Patrick interrupted. “Compliments to the chef. And thank you for thinking of us, it was very kind of you.”
Her lips curled into a slow smile. “I’m glad you liked it.”
Patrick cleared his throat. “Do you, uh . . . need help getting home?” His eyes searched the night beyond her.
Her gaze flicked to him, and for the first time, she looked offended. “No,” she said. “I know the way.”
Judi turned and stepped off the porch, her gait uneven as she followed the concrete path. We watched her figure grow smaller and smaller until she disappeared.
Patrick closed the door, locking it behind him. “That was odd,” he said, looking to me.
“Why didn’t you let me tell her about the maggots?” I hissed.
“Because I’m not calling out an old woman who tried to do something nice for us.”
“That wasn’t nice, Patrick.”
He rubbed his hands over his face.
“And she showed up at eleven o’clock at night to collect her dishes,” I continued. “It’s like she’s trying to creep us out. Trying to terrorize us.”
“Kris, that old woman is clearly confused,” he said. “Let’s not turn this into something it’s not.”
I started to argue, but the words wouldn’t line up. They slipped apart before I could grab them, so I nodded instead.
Patrick wrapped his arm around me. “Let’s go back to bed.”
Just as we reached our bedroom door, Henry’s cry stopped me.
“I’ll get him,” I said.
Patrick brushed a quick kiss against my temple. “Good night, Kris.” He stepped into our bedroom, leaving me alone in the weak glow of the hallway night-light.
I walked past Hailey’s room. The faint sliver of light under her door let me know that she was awake, doomscrolling on her phone until her brain rotted out of her head, but I didn’t stop. I was too on edge to deal with another one of her sarcastic quips.
Halfway to the nursery, a flicker crossed my vision. A light in the living room, or maybe it was the kitchen, flared on just long enough to paint a strip of brightness across the end of the hall. I snapped my gaze toward it, but darkness swallowed it back. A cold prickle crawled up my spine.
Henry cried louder, grabbing my attention.
“Coming, sweetie,” I whispered.
I kept moving, refusing to investigate, and I stepped into the nursery, where, at least for the moment, something made sense.