A Stranger Entered Our Bedroom Every Night Until I Learned Why
At thirteen minutes past one in the morning, the bedroom door opened.
A strip of hallway light moved across the floor. A man stepped inside carrying a narrow black case in one hand. He moved through the room with the quiet confidence of someone who knew the route. He closed the door behind him without letting it click. He did not come to my side of the bed. He went directly to Elena.
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
He bent toward her and said in a low voice that it would only take a minute.
Elena’s eyes squeezed shut.
Then came sounds I could not at that moment interpret correctly: a quiet snap, like latex, a metallic click as the case opened, a clean sterile smell that had no business existing in a dark bedroom. I lay there frozen for another three seconds with my whole body coiled and my brain still running several seconds behind what I was seeing.
I turned on the lamp.
The room came into focus all at once.
The man jerked back with one gloved hand raised. He was wearing navy scrubs under a dark jacket. The case was open on the nightstand beside him. Inside it were sealed syringes in a tray, alcohol wipes in a neat row, a coil of clear tubing, packets of medical tape, vials labeled in the small careful print of pharmaceutical labeling.
Elena had pulled the collar of her nightshirt aside. Below her left collarbone, beneath a square of transparent medical dressing, a thin line disappeared under her skin.
