It had been 27 years since I had had a baby in the house but I still hopped out of bed like I was a brand new mother when I heard the familiar crying.
I was out my bedroom door and down the hallway when my brain caught up with my feet and I remembered there were no babies here and I lived alone. Chills ran down my spine as the sound continued.
“Hello?” I called out.
No response other than sobbing.
My skin felt clammy and my legs were shaking as I made my way downstairs.
I walked around the house making sure the TV was off, no radio had been left on, and that the sound wasn’t coming from my phone. Nothing.
And then, the crying stopped and I was left in stillness. The quiet did nothing to calm my nerves. It was 2:37 in the morning but I found I couldn’t fall back asleep. I lay in my bed for what felt like an eternity before giving up and making coffee.
Nothing else happened for a week. I was beginning to wonder if it had been a dream. But then, on the eight night, it happened again.
The baby sounded so desperate and the sobbing near broke my heart even as panic clutched at my heart. This time I opened my front door in my search but the sounds weren’t coming from outside. As I shut the door, the crying stopped.
It was another night of sleeplessness for me so I pulled out my phone and tried to find out what might make those sounds. I knew I didn’t have a baby and there wasn’t one in this house even if it was hard to separate that logic in the moments when I heard the crying.
Did you know bobcats can sound just like a crying baby? I didn’t either. I also didn’t think it was a bobcat that had made its way into my suburban home.
On the other hand, I learned criminals will also use babies to lure their victims. I felt a bit stupid for opening the front door and stepping outside now. And in the middle of the night in my nightgown! Carol across the street had a doorbell camera that recorded any movement. She was always bragging about it. I was pretty sure she’d have a sight to see when she checked it in the morning.
Regardless, neither of those things made a whole lot of sense since the sound would have been coming from outside my house and this was definitely something inside.
I called my son when the hour was a bit more reasonable and talked it over with him. I tried to focus on the crying and not the way it made me feel. Haunted. Like a worried mom in one second and like I was prey the next. Helpless all the while. I know he probably was chalking it up to something all in my head but he was nice enough to keep that to himself. He said it was possible that something in my house was picking up the sounds from a baby monitor.
That confused me but he seemed pretty certain it could actually happen. I was relieved for any type of explanation. He offered to come by and check the house but also suggested turning off the WiFi when I go to bed or when the crying started to see if it makes a difference.
Well, when he stopped by he couldn’t find anything that looked like it was picking anything up but we had a nice lunch anyway and I told him I would try the WiFi suggestion.
It was another two weeks before I needed to test it out. Unfortunately, when I popped out of bed and turned off the wireless internet nothing changed. The sobbing intensified if anything. I searched my house and couldn’t find the source of the sound.
I know I had told my son I would call him when I heard the sound again but I didn’t want to bother him with my problem. As much as it disturbed me, it only happened occasionally and it wasn’t really hurting me. Just a little loss of sleep. He’d probably think I was just more lonely than normal and trying to get him to spend more time with me.
The crying increased. Every night, I awoke to the sound of sobbing. Desperate sobbing. The baby sounded so hungry. I wanted to comfort it. I wanted to keep it from touching me. I wanted it to stop.
My motherly instincts were at war with the rest of me though because that sound gave me chills. I knew there was no baby.
There was no baby. No baby.
But there was sobbing and crying and dread in my heart every single night.
I looked everywhere. Places that didn’t make any sort of sense. In cabinets and drawers. Behind and underneath furniture. I checked through all of the boxes in my attic and basement. Sometimes, the sound seemed to be louder in one area. On those nights I thought for sure I would finally find my answer.
I didn’t.
Some nights I just stayed in bed and cried to myself. I’d squeeze the pillow over my ears but the sound still bounced around in my skull.
I started napping in the afternoon and I stopped going out. I theorized that someone might be coming in and planting something that was causing the sounds. One of my neighbors playing a mean little trick on an old lady. Probably the little boy that always cut my grass.
I peeked out my window and watched him walking down the sidewalk. He waved at me. I scowled.
I’ll be honest, I lost track of how much time had passed and how long we had been in this horrible pattern before my son came to visit. I had completely forgotten to call him!
I was sleeping on the couch when he came in. Apparently, he had been knocking for a while but I was just so tired I completely slept through it. I sat on the couch and looked around the living room. He was staring at it with something that looked a bit like horror and I realized how bad it must look. The rooms were all completely torn apart and the furniture had mostly been moved to the middle of the rooms. Picture frames thrown on the floor, shards of glass and dried blood next to them. Had I done that last night? Or had it been longer? I didn’t remember feeling any pain as I had stormed around the house but a glance at my feet confirmed I had definitely stepped in the glass.
“Mom, are you ok?”
“It’s just that I can’t find the baby! He’s here somewhere and I can’t find him! He cries so hard at night and I can’t help!”
I needed him to understand but the look on his face told me he didn’t.
“I think we should go see the doctor.”
“You don’t understand! It’s real! There is a baby here crying every single night.”
“Mom –”
“Stay tonight. Stay a few nights. If I hear it and you don’t, then we’ll both know that it’s something I need to get help with. But if you do hear it you have to help me! Or at least know it’s not something I’m making up sweetie.”
My son agreed. Jason had always been my helper. While my others had moved to other parts of the country and didn’t always remember to call me, Jason usually called once a week or so and we had a monthly dinner together. He was here when I needed my gutters cleaned or and always helped to put my decorations up.
Normally, he would have helped me move the furniture too. Reminded me that it was too heavy for me to try to move on my own and that I would hurt myself. For something big like that, he might even bring his friends with him and then I would have a full house again. Their childhood hadn’t been all sunshine and roses, especially after their father had disappeared on us, but I missed it so much. I missed having the house full of noise and I missed cooking for a huge group of hungry people and sharing a meal and hearing about everyone’s lives.
Cathy called fairly regularly too, even though I knew she was busy with her own family now. She would sometimes video call me while she ate lunch and we would eat together then.
That night was silent. It was the first night in so long that I had not been awoken by the sounds of crying that I woke myself up around 4 am, the quiet felt wrong. I almost got up to look anyway but like any exhausted mother, I went back to sleep. Hadn’t I always been told to sleep when the baby sleeps?
The next night was the same. While it was nice to have Jason there in his old bedroom, I knew he was doubting me even more than he had initially.
“Did you hear anything last night mom?
“No, it was perfectly quiet.”
In the evenings, he had started to help me put the house back together and I would cook him one of his favorite dinners.
I wondered, briefly, if I had been hearing the crying because I was lonely. Maybe I should get a dog to help fill the emptiness in the house.
On the fourth night, we met in the hallway with the sound of crying surrounding us.
“You don’t have to tell me, I should have trusted you.”
His face was pale as a ghost. Goosebumps coaxed his arms.
He searched the same way I had. He turned off the WiFi, searched outside, moved furniture.
Over coffee, and after the crying had finally stopped, he suggested I move.
“Mom, we know it’s not really a baby. Or it’s a baby and it’s not really in this house.”
I conceded the point but refused to move. There was something in this house that needed me. I wanted to be needed more than I was scared of what it needed from me.
And I had weathered harder storms than this one without losing my home. I wasn’t leaving just because of whatever this was
As I write this, I want you to know that I still feel that way. I can’t run from my home just because things get hard.
The crying continued every night, as if it had just waited to introduce itself to Jason and now it was back on its previous schedule.
“Mom, I don’t want to scare you, so I’m warning you now. I’m checking the walls.”
“For the baby?”
“For a baby monitor. Or a speaker maybe. We talked about this, there’s no way it’s an actual baby.”
“So should we start moving stuff to the center of the rooms?”
“That’s the other thing. Cathy, Mary, and Brian are all going to be here tomorrow night and they’re going to help you move. I know you don’t want to, but at least temporarily. You can stay in my guest room. We’ll put your stuff in storage for the moment so I want you to pack a few boxes with the things you want to bring to my house and we’ll pack up the rest of your stuff for storage.”
“I told you I don’t want to move Jason.”
“And I told you I’m going to start tearing down your walls mom. It’s going to be a construction zone here and it won’t be safe for you to live in.”
“Will you help me move back once you’ve torn it all apart and we get it rebuilt?”
“Absolutely. Although who knows, maybe you’ll like living with me. You could make the move permanent if you wanted.”
Honestly, that sounded so nice. To have one of my children under the same roof as me again. And as annoyed as I was that he went over my head and told his siblings it warmed my heart that they were all taking the time to come help me
“We’ll see,” I said through a smile.
“Now, I’m going to go to my house for the night so I can be ready to start the hard work tomorrow. Want to come with me?”
“No, I want one more night here before we get started. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I ran my hand down one of the walls as he left. I loved my home. I loved the way it looked and the way it made me feel. It had always made me feel safe to be here.
The crying had changed that. I felt anxious every night, knowing that somewhere in my house was a cry for help and I could do nothing.
Maybe Jason was right about something being hidden in the walls. We’d checked the entrance to the vents before but if it had been sealed up we’d have been none the wiser. Soon we would know.
I started to pack up the things I needed in my room and went down to the basement to grab more boxes.
The crying started, louder this time than it had been before. In the far corner, I saw a door.
Now, I have lived in this house for 35 years. I know every square foot of this house by heart so well I could navigate it in the dark. That door was new. New to me at least, because the thing itself looked old. The frame was wooden and reminded me of the logs after a bonfire had been put out. I walked towards it and placed my ear to the door. The sounds of crying were coming from behind it.
I’ve been sitting on the basement stairs, typing this story very slowly on my phone. I know if I tell Jason, or any of my other children, they would stop me. I don’t want them to think I’ve disappeared on them like their father did. I know that was incredibly traumatic in their formative years. But there is a baby behind that door and it needs me. The crying and sobbing has been getting more intense and I have tears running down my face just thinking about it. I’m going to open that door and I’ll go in but I don’t think I’ll be coming back out when I do.
My children, I’ll miss you but I think you have a new little sibling who needs me more now. Maybe someday we’ll come back so you can meet.