Mariana fell asleep beside me around eleven, and I lay awake in the dark, listening.

Near midnight I heard it: the faint click of the property’s side gate, and then the quiet creak of the exterior door to my father’s room.

This time my wife was asleep beside me, her breathing slow and even.

There was no mistaking it now, no silhouette my frightened mind could misassign.

Whoever was going into my father’s room was not Mariana.

I got up, and I walked barefoot down the hallway, and I stopped outside his door, and this time I did not freeze.