Someone was lying next to Emily.
My heart nearly stopped as I stared at the camera feed. For a few terrifying seconds, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
Then I realized who it was.
It was my mother-in-law.
Every night, after everyone had gone to sleep, she quietly slipped into Emily’s room and lay beside her until morning. Months earlier, we’d argued because I wanted Emily to sleep in her own room. She insisted young children should never sleep alone.
She thought she was protecting her granddaughter.
Instead, she was the reason Emily kept waking up scared and feeling like her bed had become too small.
The next morning, we had a long, serious conversation. From that day on, she understood that raising my daughter is my responsibility—and she never entered Emily’s room at night again.