I hovered at the edge of B’s crib to see if he would wake up and need me. B? I whispered so quietly. B? I whispered a bit louder but he was asleep and fine all by himself and so I was alone and then I wasn’t and then I was really afraid.

Right now, I thought, right now I am afraid. I’m not laughing. I’m not imagining that I’m afraid. I really am, right now, here, crouching between the crib and the rent-al-company sofa. Click. The light in the kitchen, the last one, clicked off and the apartment was dark like the inside of a mouth. Click. It came back on again but brighter than it had been. I shut my eyes. Dishes clinked in the kitchen like a breeze was running through the cupboards. I pressed my hands to the side of my face covering my ears. Maybe if I was still enough this would go away. I wanted to wake B. B! I would have screamed. E! But my mouth was shut down tight and I couldn’t make any sounds come out.

There were footsteps running in the kitchen, plates being set on the table, and cups and glasses as if I were listening to my own ghost setting out breakfast. As if I were dead and still trying to get the kids ready to go to the park, slicing cold cucumbers with my so-sharp knives. You can hear me. Said the voice that I couldn’t hear. Said the voice in a voice that I knew. Come out come out wherever you are. I felt myself going white with cold that wasn’t really cold. A cold that was deeper than cold, that started from inside me, from inside my bones. I was trembling. Soon I would start to shake so much that I would give myself away. I would lose myself to that feeling pulling now right over me, that feeling of being about to be found. If you go down to the woods today, the voice said, you’re sure of a big surprise. And I whispered back in my shaking voice, because of course I couldn’t help it, If you go down to the woods today you’d better go in disguise. And there was a delighted laugh that came from close by and the sound of two hands clapping quick together.

The terrible thing, I thought. The terrible thing.

The light clicked on in the little hall between the kitchen and the living room. The light so bright in the shell of the burned-out bulb that it was as if my eyes weren’t squeezed shut tight. As if I were thrown suddenly into the sun. I could smell the electricity. The burning. The lights clicked off. Nimble running steps, pattering like rain on the carpet, so soft and dancing. Slipping one way, then another. The light clicked on again. The light clicked off.

B snored a bit and moved his arm. Fell deeper and deeper into the deep cold ocean of sleep and dreams and being away when people need you. Help me.