The Babysitter

Chapter 2 — The Man

Bedtime, Jess had learned across a dozen families, was ninety percent theater and ten percent actual sleepiness.

Dinner was the opening act. The lasagna went into the oven at 6:55 — twenty minutes at three-fifty, exactly like the briefing said — and while it heated, Tommy conducted a full inspection of her dinosaur knowledge using a battalion of plastic figures lined up on the living room rug.

“What’s this one?” He held up a horned one.

“Triceratops.”

“WRONG.” He looked delighted. “Styracosaurus. The frill is completely different. Honestly.”

“I stand corrected,” Jess said solemnly. “Test me again.”

He did, six more times, and she got four right, which he declared “acceptable for a beginner.” They ate lasagna at the kitchen island — Tommy surgically removing every mushroom with the focus of a bomb technician — and he told her, at length, about a kid at school named Brayden who had eaten a crayon “on purpose, for money.”

“How much money?”

“Probably like a dollar.”

“Worth it,” Jess said, and Tommy laughed so hard milk came out of his nose, which somehow made the whole evening feel like a success already.

One episode of a dinosaur cartoon — Jess half-watched, half-scrolled, and texted her friend Maya a photo of the chandelier with the caption *babysitting at the white house from a nancy meyers movie*. Maya wrote back: *is the kid cute* / *extremely. gap tooth. dinosaur phd* / *marry into the family*.

Bath at 7:45 on the dot. Jess waited in the hallway while Tommy splashed with the dedication of a kid who knew exactly how long he could stretch it. Teeth were brushed — mostly. Dinosaur pajamas were deployed: a stegosaurus, green with yellow spikes, the feet sewn into the legs so he shuffled when he walked.

“One story,” Jess said, holding up a finger.

“Two stories,” Tommy countered, holding up two fingers and his entire face. “The stegosaurus says two.” He made the dinosaur on his chest nod solemnly.

Jess read two. She did the voices — the dragon got a gravelly rumble, the knight got a nose-pinched whine, the princess got the voice of Jess’s Aunt Linda after two glasses of wine — and Tommy laughed into his pillow, and for a while the big golden house felt small and warm and exactly right.

Tommy interrupted twice to correct her — knights did not, apparently, sound like that, and dragons absolutely did not say “excuse me” before roasting things — and Jess let him, because it was Friday and because stalling at bedtime was a time-honored childhood tradition she respected. She noticed he kept one eye on the closet the whole time, though. Even mid-laugh, his gaze would dart over there, quick as a minnow, and then dart back.

At 8:55 she clicked off the lamp. The rocket-ship nightlight on the dresser took over, washing the room in soft blue. Tommy’s ceiling was covered in glow-in-the-dark stars, and Jess lay back on the rug for a second just to look at them, because they were genuinely excellent stars.

She noticed — because she always noticed — that Tommy had positioned his pillow so he could see the closet doors. And that during the second story, his eyes had flicked over there three times. She filed it away under *six-year-old stuff* and stood up to go.

“Jess?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

A pause. In the blue dark, his voice went very small.

“Don’t open the closet after nine.”

Jess smiled. “Why not? Is there a monster in there? Because I want you to know I am extremely brave about monsters. I once fought a — ”

“It’s not a monster.” He said it flatly, the way kids say things that are true. “It’s a man.”

The smile stayed on her face out of habit. But something in her chest did a small, cold flip.

“What man, Tommy?”

“He visits.” Tommy was sitting up now, the blanket pooled around his waist, his eyes huge in the nightlight glow. “Every night. Mom says it’s a dream. But it’s not a dream, because I hear his shoes.”

Jess’s babysitter instincts — the well-worn, laminated-card version — said: *reassure, redirect, do not feed it.* “Dreams can feel really real,” she said gently. “Especially the sound parts. Brains are weird like that. My brain once dreamed my phone was ringing and I answered a banana.”

He didn’t laugh. “Dreams don’t smell like outside.” He said it with total certainty. “He smells like outside and metal. Like the playground after rain.”

Okay. That was — specific. That was weirdly, uncomfortably specific, and Jess felt the hairs on her arms do something she did not care for.

She did what every adult in the history of babysitting had done. She got up, crossed the room, and slid the closet doors open.

Light from the hallway spilled in. Small shirts on small hangers. A row of tiny sneakers lined up with military precision. Shoeboxes stacked on the shelf above. She pushed the clothes aside with one hand, peered into the dark corners, even crouched to check behind the shoe rack. Her own heartbeat sounded absurdly loud in the small space. *This is ridiculous,* she told herself. *I’m seventeen years old and I’m hunting monsters in a first-grader’s closet.*

“See?” She kept her voice light and brave, for both of them. “Just clothes. No man. Not even a monster — I checked for those too, free of charge.”

“Close it all the way,” Tommy said. “He doesn’t like it open.”

Jess slid the doors shut until they clicked. “There. Fort Knox.” She sat on the edge of his bed and waited until she had his eyes. “Listen. There’s nobody in there. This is the safest room in the safest house on the street, and I’m right downstairs. You yell, I come running like a firefighter. Deal?”

“Deal,” he whispered. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the closet doors. Then, slowly, his gaze slid to the clock on his nightstand.

8:59.

“He’s not in there yet,” Tommy said.