I moved back in six months ago, after the divorce. It wasn’t ideal, but Mom’s been forgetting things more lately, and Dad’s got that slow shuffle now—like his body’s dissolving in pieces. So yeah, maybe it made sense at the time.
At first, it was little stuff. A few slices of bread gone here, a missing banana, a spoon in the sink when no one should’ve used it. I thought maybe Mom was snacking and forgetting. Then entire meals started vanishing—leftovers I cooked for them before heading to work, just gone.But neither of them remembered eating anything. Or they pretended not to.
I asked gently at first. Then not-so-gently.
Mom would just smile, kind of glassy-eyed. “Oh, I don’t think I touched it, dear.” Dad would wave me off. “You always had an appetite.”
It got weird fast. One day I found my name crossed off a takeout receipt. Another time, I came home and the front door was locked from the inside—but they both swore they’d been napping upstairs the whole time.
So last week, I did something I’m not proud of.
I installed a motion sensor in the hallway, right outside the pantry.
Three nights ago, it went off at 1:42 a.m.
