The Room Above the Chandlery

My mother showed me a video of myself walking downstairs at three in the morning, but the woman wore slippers I had thrown away in January.

"You can't live alone," she said.

On her phone, a figure in my navy robe passed the chandlery counter. The camera caught the back of her head, the stooped shoulders, the slow uncertain steps. Outside the shop window, the harbor clock glowed three twelve.

I had no memory of it. That was what made the slippers so important.

They were gray with red soles. One had split open when I stepped on a nail. I had put both in the outside bin, and Mum had accused me of wasting good things.

My lease renewal was due Friday. For the first time, I was taking the shop over in my own name. Mum planned to retire to a bungalow with central heating; I planned to live above my work without someone checking whether I'd eaten enough.

She put the phone away. "I'll tell the landlord we're delaying."

"I'll speak to him myself."

Her mouth pinched. "If you're well enough."

I had fainted during a chest infection in February. Since then, every lost key and forgotten shopping item had become part of her case that I couldn't manage. The doctor had found no continuing cause for concern, but Mum preferred the uncertainty.

Our lodger, Paula, came down carrying a laundry basket. She cleaned holiday cottages and rented the attic room cheaply in exchange for helping Mum in the shop.

"I heard footsteps too," she said, looking at the basket.

I thanked her and hated myself for it.

That evening I checked my room. The lock had fresh scratches around the keyhole. Mum said she had oiled it because it stuck. The air smelled sharply of citrus cleaner, though I used unscented products because perfume gave me headaches.

I could have been sleepwalking. I made a medical appointment and wrote down what I knew rather than deciding fear was proof. But I also placed a small camera on my own bookshelf, facing only my bed and bedroom door. I told nobody because nobody else had a reason to enter while I slept.

At one, I woke to a key turning.

My body wanted to remain still. My mind offered excuses with terrifying speed: Mum checking the radiator, Paula returning a towel. I sat up and switched on the lamp.

The door clicked shut.

I called out. No answer.

In the morning Mum asked why I looked tired before I had said a word. Paula spilled sugar beside the kettle and swept it into her palm.

"I thought I heard somebody," I said.

Mum touched my forehead. "That's how these episodes start."

I did not tell her about the camera. I copied the file to a drive and asked my friend Iona, a nurse who knew how to be calm without becoming patronizing, to come after work.

At lunchtime the landlord called. Mum had told him I wanted her to remain joint tenant. I said no decision had been made on my behalf. He sounded surprised, then careful. He offered to discuss the lease with me directly Friday morning.

That gave me a deadline I could hold.

Iona arrived with soup and a laptop. We sat on my bed while wind rattled the window latch. Before playing the video, I told her I was frightened it would show me doing something I didn't remember.

"Then we'll deal with that," she said.

Before we pressed play, Mum knocked with fresh towels. Iona answered while I closed the laptop. Mum looked past her at the bookshelf, not at my bed. She asked whether we would be upstairs much longer. I said we would, and waited until her footsteps reached the shop.

The first hour showed a boring woman sleeping with one foot outside the quilt. At one oh two, the handle moved. A key entered. The door opened six inches.

Mum's face appeared in the gap.

We stopped the recording. Iona asked whether I wanted her to stay while I spoke to them. I said yes, and heard how much I needed someone to ask.

Downstairs Mum was counting cash. Paula sat on a stool, picking at a cut on her thumb. I placed the laptop beside the till.

"I'd like you both to watch this."

Mum reached for the lid before the clip began. Iona kept it open, and we watched the part I had stopped upstairs.

She looked at my bed, then at the camera's tiny light. Her hand reached forward. The image tilted sideways as she moved a book in front of the lens. A second figure stood behind her, carrying my navy robe.

That was the moment Paula started crying.

She had worn my robe and the old slippers. Mum filmed her from behind, setting the harbor clock in frame to make the time convincing. There had been only one staged walk; the later noises were attempts to frighten me into accepting the story.

Paula showed me messages on her own phone. Mum had promised to clear overdue rent if she helped. Paula had told herself it was a harmless way to keep a family together, then found that every admission threatened her room and income.

Mum stared at the cash drawer. "The bungalow deposit fell through. I used the money to keep this place going."

She had debts I hadn't known about. My independent lease would remove her control of the shop account and reveal withdrawals she had called business expenses.

"You could have told me."

"You'd have judged me."

I looked at the video of my own sleeping body, watched by someone preparing to call me incapable.

"Yes," I said. "But I would have known what I was judging."

I slept at Iona's that night. With advice, I documented the staged footage, secured my room with the landlord's agreement, and separated the business accounts before signing anything. The lease took another month. Mum's debts didn't evaporate because she had frightened me; neither did they become mine by default.

Paula gave a written account and moved in with her sister. I didn't ask her to keep cleaning for me as proof she was sorry.

Mum took a smaller rented flat inland. We met twice at a café. The second time she brought the gray slippers in a carrier bag, as though returning them might close the subject.

I left them beside her chair.

The shop opened under my name in October. On the first cold evening, I locked the door and went upstairs. My new slippers were bright orange, ridiculous and warm.

I walked down for a forgotten mug at three in the morning. Awake. Alone. Every light mine to switch on.