My husband and I are living at my mother-in-law’s place while we look for our own home. During the day, she seemed like a perfectly ordinary woman — calm, composed, attentive. But at night, something seemed to change. Every day, exactly at three in the morning, she would enter our room without knocking or warning, a small flashlight in hand.
She didn’t care that we were sleeping at that hour and that she was waking us up. When we asked her why she did this, my mother-in-law always gave the same answer:
“I just wanted to know what you were doing.”
“Mom, what could we possibly be doing at three in the morning? We were sleeping. Go to your room,” my husband said, tired.
But the next night, it all started again. And the night after that.
I was exhausted. I began to have sleep troubles — after her nighttime visits, it took us a long time to fall back asleep, and by six o’clock we had to get up for work. In despair, I suggested to my husband:
“If your mother comes, let’s not get up. Let’s pretend to be asleep. Maybe then we’ll understand what she really wants.”
That night, she entered our room again. We lay still, eyes closed, careful not to breathe too loudly.
My mother-in-law stayed for a few minutes beside the bed, shining her flashlight on our faces and calling our names. We didn’t respond. After about five more minutes, she left without a word.
The next evening, already terrified by her nighttime visits, I made a desperate decision — I placed an old wardrobe in front of the bedroom door to keep her from coming in.
That night, we slept deeply for the first time in a long while. But in the morning, a true nightmare awaited us: we found my mother-in-law in her own bed. She wasn’t breathing. Her body was cold.
The ambulance arrived quickly. The doctors said it was a sudden heart attack.
“Death occurred about five hours ago,” one of them said.
“That is to say… at three in the morning,” I whispered. A shiver ran through me.
Because it was every day, at that exact hour, that she came into our room. Why? To check on us? Or because she herself felt the closeness of danger and was trying to protect herself?
Or maybe, that last night when we didn’t let her in, something inside her stopped…
I never found an answer. For me, it will forever remain a mystery.
