“I’m okay,” he says at once, already curling into himself. Blocking me off.

I sit on the edge of his bed but don’t touch him. “Same dream?”

After a moment, he nods.

All kids fear the boogeyman. My son fears the candyman. I could blame a late-night movie he saw when he was far too young, but there’s more to it than that. When Eli was six years old, a little boy who lived a few streets over went missing. Billy Peak had been playing at our house that day, but he left to walk home by himself. There were stories about a man in a white van who’d offered candy, but that had never been proven. They’d found one of his shoes in Riverscape Park, on the shore of the Great Miami River in downtown Dayton. The boy himself had never been found, and nobody had ever been able to explain how he might have wandered so far all on his own. After that, Eli’s nightmares had taken the shape of a man trying to steal him away. My happy little boy became sullen, quiet, and afraid of everything.

“He was trying to get me to go with him,” Eli whispers with a hitch in his voice.

“The …” I cough to clear my voice. “Candyman?”

“Not him. Billy. He kept trying to get me to go with him …” His voice shakes.

“You haven’t had that one in a long time.” I let my hand rest on the covers, close to his leg but still not touching. My heart aches for him.

Eli sighs and puts the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He shakes his head. “No. Not like that.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

The dreams come when Eli is stressed, but they also happen when everything seems fine. I wait a second before I ask, “Is there something going on at school you want to talk about?”

“Nothing is going on at school. It was just a stupid dream.” He sits up and leans back against the headboard. His shoulders rise and fall with his breathing, still too fast.

We say nothing for a minute.

“I was looking at something on a forum,” Eli begins.

Ken’s voice interrupts him from the doorway. “Hey, Champ.”

His hair is sleep-rumpled. His pajamas match, top and bottom. The shirt is, as always, fully buttoned.

Eli rolls his eyes at the nickname he hates. “I’m fine. You can both go back to bed.”

Ken raps on the doorframe with his knuckles. “All good?”

It’s not all good, of course. Our son has nightmares that wake him, screaming. Eli scoots down onto his pillows, already turning to face the wall. Ken leaves, and I remain, not sure of what to say.

“What were you looking at?” I ask.

“Never mind. It’s stupid. It’s nothing.”

“You know you can always talk to me, Eli. About anything. If something’s bothering you—”

“Nothing is bothering me. I need to sleep. That’s all. I’m sorry I woke you up.”