I tried to comfort myself, telling myself that everything would be all right and that I only needed time to adjust.
For the first few days in my son’s luxurious condo, I believed my worries had been unnecessary. The new life was not as suffocating as I had imagined.
Instead, it seemed filled with genuine care.
In the mornings, after Nicholas left for work, Hazel would often take me to the farmers market. She would not let me carry anything and always asked what I wanted to eat.
She listened patiently to my scattered stories about my years of teaching and my old students. Sometimes, she took me to a large shopping mall and bought me a few new outfits, despite my repeated protests.
“Mom, that looks so elegant on you,” she would compliment me, her smile soft and her eyes clear, telling me that Nicholas would be so happy to see you in it.
Nicholas also acted like a devoted son. Every evening when he returned from work, no matter how tired he was, he would first come to my room to check on me.
“Mom, how are you feeling today, and do you need me to buy you more supplements?”
He bought me an electronic blood pressure monitor and explained everything carefully.
“Mom, you need to measure it twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, and have Hazel write it down in this notebook so I can check it.”
But that peace, I later realized, was only a thin surface layer.
It happened one night near the end of the month, roughly two weeks after I had moved in. The city had already fallen asleep, with only the dim glow of streetlights slipping through the window frame.
I had always been a light sleeper, often turning over in bed until the middle of the night.
When the wall clock struck three dry chimes, I was suddenly startled awake by a familiar sound occurring at a very unusual hour: rushing water.
It was the shower from the main bathroom, the one right beside my bedroom. The fierce sound of running water tore through the deep silence of the night.
“Who would be taking a shower at 3:00 in the morning?”
I listened carefully, but there were no other sounds, only that lonely, rhythmic rush of water.
Could Nicholas or Hazel be unwell and need to clean themselves off?
A thin thread of worry entered my heart. I wanted to open my door and check, but I feared disturbing them.
The water ran for about 15 minutes, then stopped suddenly, and the condo became silent again.
I could not fall back asleep that night.
The next morning at breakfast, I tried to behave as naturally as possible.
“Nicholas,” I said, looking at my son, “were you not feeling well last night, as around 3:00 in the morning, I heard someone taking a shower?”
Nicholas was reading the newspaper, his eyes never leaving the page.
“Oh, it is nothing, Mom,” he answered casually, “as this new project has been really stressful and I have been feeling antsy and restless, so I just got up to take a quick shower to cool off so I could get back to sleep.”
His explanation sounded believable, but at that moment, I saw Hazel, who was carrying a bowl of oatmeal from the kitchen, freeze for an instant, and the chopsticks in her hand almost slipped.
She quickly collected herself, placed the oatmeal on the table, and smiled as she explained for her husband.
“Yes, Mom. He has been working so hard lately and has been tossing and turning all night, so please do not worry.”
My daughter-in-law’s brief panic did not escape my eyes. As a teacher with decades of experience, I had always been sensitive to unusual expressions.
Something was wrong, but I did not push. I only finished my breakfast quietly.
I thought it had been a single incident, but I was wrong. Two nights later, exactly at 3 in the morning, the sound returned.
It was the same sound of a faucet being opened sharply, followed by the rushing, steady stream of water.
This time, an unexplainable chill passed through me.
Taking a shower in the middle of the night because of stress could be believable once, but happening again at the exact same hour was no longer coincidence.
The nights that followed became nights of waiting for that sound. As 3:00 in the morning approached, my heart would beat harder.
Sometimes the water would start, and sometimes there would be a frightening silence. That unpredictable strangeness became a kind of mental torture.
My sleep broke into pieces. I was always half awake, my ears alert for any noise, and I began watching my son and daughter-in-law more closely.
During the day, Nicholas still went to work as usual and appeared normal, but I sometimes noticed fatigue and irritability in his eyes, and he became more easily angered by small things.
I tried to carefully ask my daughter-in-law.
“Hazel, is something wrong, as you have not been looking well lately and has Nicholas done anything to you?”
She startled, then quickly waved her hands, avoiding my eyes.
“No, nothing, Mom. I am probably just not sleeping well. Nicholas is very good to me.”
Her words and her face completely contradicted each other, and I knew she was hiding something.
A vague fear began forming in my mind, a fear connected to Nicholas and those showers at three in the morning.
I could not bear it anymore, so I decided I had to speak honestly with my son again.
I chose a moment after Hazel had put the baby to sleep, when only the two of us were in the living room.
“Nicholas, sit down, as I need to talk to you,” I said, patting the sofa beside me gently.
He seemed surprised by how serious I looked, but he sat down.
“What is it, Mom?”
