Nightwatching

In the past, as her mother-in-law’s illness progressed, the mother began spending more time caring for her. However, her father-in-law remained cold to her and never helped with his wife’s caregiving, and the mother’s husband rarely helped because his work kept him away. Although having the children nearby comforted her mother-in-law, her father-in-law continued to be cruel to them, claiming that his wife was babying the boy. To mitigate this situation, the mother began leaving her children with a sitter. The mother has vitiligo, a skin condition in which the pigment is lost from various patches of skin. Her daughter also has the condition.

The mother hired a chimney sweeper, who asked her if she had seen any ghosts in the home. She relayed the story to her mother-in-law, who was also unnerved by the house, especially the wall drawings in the attic, which were created by the enslaved people who lived there in the 1700s. She also doesn’t like a graveyard on the property, claiming the home has “Too many reminders of unpleasant things” (63). The mother also once contemplated putting in a security system, but when the technician came to the house, he told her that the house was too scary for anyone to burglarize.