It was the last week of October, 2017, and I was sitting in a child's bedroom on Merriweather Lane, watching the nightlight flicker. The bed was empty—had been for three years—but the closet door kept opening an inch at a time. I'd been hired by the mother, a woman named Cora, to read bedtime stories to the room. She said it helped her sleep. But the door had its own rhythm, and the stuffed animals on the floor kept shifting positions when I blinked. I told myself it was the old house settling. Then the nightlight went out, and I heard a small voice from inside the closet say, 'You're not my mom.' I didn't run. I stayed, because I wanted to see who—or what—had been waiting in the dark all this time. This is what happened, and why I still think about that empty bed every night. There is no tidy ending here. Just the truth, as I lived it.