Can I Stay in Your Room?

"Mommy, can I stay in your room tonight? The walls won't stop staring at me." I sigh, and roll out of bed.

"There's nothing in your room. Go back to sleep."

"But they won't stop staring."

"Come on." I take Will by the hand and guide him back to his room.

"Walls can't see, Will. They don't have eyes."

"Mine do. They do, and they keep looking at me."

We cross the threshold of his doorway, and I set him up on the bed. Pictures of family, past and present, are hung, clustered, around the room.

"See, look."

Will points to one of the pictures across from his bed. A large portrait of his great-great-grandmother, long deceased. Due to the way the picture was taken, she seems to stare at whatever the picture faces; in this case, Will's bed.

"That's just an old picture. I can't change that it looks like she's staring."

"Can you take it down? Please?"

I sigh. "Sure." I reach to pull down the old portrait.

Her eyes slowly lock with mine.