I didn’t notice it the first time.
That’s what haunts me now.
Because when something is truly wrong inside your own home, your brain doesn’t scream — it whispers. It normalizes. It files the moment away under probably nothing and moves on.
The first time I saw my mom standing outside the bathroom while I showered, I thought she was just passing by.
The second time, I assumed she was waiting to use the sink.
By the tenth time, I was terrified.
Moving Back Home
I was twenty-six when my life quietly collapsed.
A breakup I didn’t see coming. A job that downsized my entire department in a single meeting. A landlord who decided he wanted to sell the building and gave me thirty days to leave.
My mom, Margaret, told me to come home.
“You’ll get back on your feet here,” she said. “I don’t want you struggling alone.”
She’d been widowed for six years. My dad’s sudden heart attack left her in a big empty house with too many rooms and too much silence. I thought moving back would be good for both of us.
The house hadn’t changed since I left for college — the same beige striped wallpaper in the hallway, the same polished wooden floors that reflected light like mirrors, the same framed family photos watching you from every wall.
It felt safe.
At first.
The First Night
The guest room — my old bedroom — was across the hall from the bathroom. The door stuck unless you pulled it just right. The house creaked in ways you didn’t hear until the middle of the night.
That first evening, I took a long, hot shower. I stood under the water until the steam blurred the glass doors and my shoulders stopped feeling like they were carrying my entire failed life.
When I shut off the water, I heard a faint shuffle outside.
I opened the shower door and saw my mom walking down the hall, her beige cardigan wrapped tightly around her.
“Hey,” I said, towel in hand.
She startled like I’d caught her doing something wrong.
“Oh — I didn’t realize you were still in there,” she said too quickly. “I was just… making sure you were okay.”
I smiled, embarrassed.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
She nodded, patted my shoulder, and went into the living room.
I didn’t think about it again.
A Pattern Forms
By the end of the first week, I started noticing things.
My mom always seemed to be awake when I showered — even late at night. I’d hear her bedroom door open. Soft footsteps. The faint creak of the hallway floorboards.
Once, I cracked the bathroom door open while the water was running and saw her standing there, just beyond the frame. Her head tilted toward the door, hands clasped together under her chin like she was praying.
I closed the door again, heart pounding, telling myself she was probably worried about the water heater or something equally mundane.
But it kept happening.
Morning showers. Evening showers. Long showers, short ones — it didn’t matter.
She was always there.
The Orange Light
One night I forgot to turn on the overhead light in the bathroom before stepping into the shower. I relied on the faint glow from the hall instead.
Through the steam, I noticed something strange.
A bright orange-yellow light seeping in from under the door.
Not the normal warm lamp light from the living room — this was stronger, concentrated, almost like a small fire burning in the hallway.
When I shut off the water, the glow vanished instantly.
I opened the door.
My mom was standing there again, cardigan buttoned crookedly, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles were white.
The hallway behind her was dim — no orange glow anywhere.
“What’s that light?” I asked.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
“What light?”
“The one under the door.”
She stared at the floor like she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“You must be tired,” she said gently. “This move has been hard on you.”
Then she reached out and brushed my damp hair back from my face, something she hadn’t done since I was a kid.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Asking Questions
I tried to confront her casually.
“Hey, Mom, you don’t have to wait outside the bathroom when I shower. I’m not going to drown.”
She froze halfway through loading the dishwasher.
“I don’t do that,” she said.
I laughed nervously. “You do. Almost every night.”
She turned to face me, eyes shiny, mouth pulled too tight.
“I worry,” she whispered. “That’s what mothers do.”
Something about the way she said worry made my stomach clench.
The Locked Door
The next night, I locked the bathroom door.
I didn’t mean it as an accusation — I just needed to know if I was imagining things.
Halfway through my shower, I heard the handle jiggle.
Once.
Twice.
Then a soft knock.
“Honey?” my mom whispered. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I called, water roaring in my ears. “I just locked the door.”
Silence.
I finished quickly, hands shaking as I dried off. The orange light returned — brighter this time, flooding the thin gap beneath the door like something alive.
When I unlocked it, the light snapped off again.
She stood there, eyes rimmed with red.
“You scared me,” she said.
The Journal
Two weeks later, I was dusting the bookshelf in the living room when I knocked over a small stack of photo albums.
Behind them, hidden in the shadows, was a thin leather-bound journal I’d never seen before.
It wasn’t locked.
The first page was dated the day my dad died.
I shouldn’t have read it.
But I did.
I hear him in the walls at night. The house is too quiet without his breathing.
The entries grew stranger as the years went on.
I think she’s lonely now. She doesn’t hear him yet. She will.
Water makes the veil thin. I can feel him when the pipes sing.
My hands were numb.
I flipped to the most recent entry — written the day I moved back in.
She’s home again. I won’t let him take her too.
I closed the journal when I heard footsteps in the hall.
That night, I didn’t shower.
And for the first time since I moved back, my mom didn’t stand outside the door.
She stood inside my bedroom instead.
Staring at me while I pretended to sleep.
