It was one of those perfect afternoons. Not too hot, no screens, no shoes—just grass underfoot and sunlight warming their hair. I had just finished snapping a few photos of them on the blanket, my son grinning in his little towel, my daughter rocking proudly in her pink romper.
They looked like everything was okay.
But lately, my son’s been… saying things.
Little things. Things no four-year-old should really know.
I brushed most of it off—imagination, cartoons, whatever.
But today, something felt different.
We had been enjoying a peaceful afternoon at the park, and I had just captured a picture-perfect moment of my son, Timmy, and my daughter, Lily, playing with a colorful ball. The laughter, the joy, the freedom—it all seemed so simple. But as I lowered the camera to take in the scene, Timmy looked up at me with a strange, serious expression on his face.
“Mom, remember when we went to that other place?” he asked, his voice soft but clear.
I stopped mid-step, my heart fluttering in my chest. Other place?
“What do you mean, buddy? What other place?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but my voice felt thin, like I was already bracing for something I wasn’t ready for.
He pointed toward the horizon, where the sun was just beginning to dip. “The one where you were sad and where that lady was with you. We went there after the bad man came.”
My stomach turned, and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. A thousand thoughts rushed through my head. Bad man? That lady? I had no idea what he was talking about, but something about the way he said it made my blood run cold.
Timmy’s innocent, wide eyes stared up at me, waiting for a response. The soft hum of the park’s background noise—children playing, birds chirping—seemed distant now, as though everything had faded except for his words.
I smiled, trying to calm the tension in my chest. “Honey, you know you have a really good imagination. What are you talking about?”
But Timmy didn’t smile back. Instead, he looked down at his feet, his little brows furrowing in confusion as if he was trying to piece together the words. “I remember it. I remember the place. It wasn’t like here. There was a big gate, and the lady was holding your hand.”
I dropped to my knees beside him, my camera forgotten on the grass. His words felt heavy, like a secret I wasn’t supposed to know, but one that had already slipped out. My heart pounded in my chest. The “other place” sounded like a memory—one that didn’t belong to him, but to me.
“Timmy…” My voice faltered, and I reached for his little hand, trying to anchor myself. “What do you mean by ‘bad man’? What are you talking about?”
He shifted uncomfortably, kicking at the grass. “He came to the house. He said things. I don’t like him.” His voice was small now, like he was speaking about something too big for his little body to hold.
I felt a lump form in my throat. He came to the house? My mind raced back to years ago, to a time before Lily was born, a time I had worked hard to bury. The memory of a man—a man who had hurt me, who had broken into our lives in ways I was still trying to forget.
It was all starting to come together. The lady? My mom. The place? It had to be when I had fled to her house, escaping from the nightmare of my past. But how could Timmy remember that? He wasn’t even born then. He couldn’t possibly know.
I stood up, my legs feeling weak beneath me. The sun, which had seemed so warm moments ago, now felt cold on my skin. “Timmy, where did you hear about this ‘bad man’? Did someone tell you about him?”
He shook his head, his small hands clenched into fists at his sides. “No one told me. I just remember.”
I felt a chill spread through me, a sense of dread I couldn’t shake. Timmy wasn’t old enough to know about the things I had gone through, and yet, here he was, talking about them like they were part of his own memories. Had I been so careless with the things I thought I had buried?
“Let’s go inside,” I said, my voice strained as I held his hand. “We’ll talk later.”
Timmy didn’t protest, but I could see his eyes scanning my face. He knew something was wrong, and that made everything even harder. My mind was reeling, struggling to make sense of what had just happened. Could he really remember things from before he was born? Or was something else at play here?
Later that night, after the kids were tucked in bed, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of wine in my hand, staring at the wall. I kept going over Timmy’s words in my head, playing them over and over like a broken record. There was no way he could have known about that night, no way he could have known about the bad man.
But then, something clicked.
I hadn’t told anyone what had happened. I hadn’t even told Timmy’s father. I had kept it all to myself, buried deep inside, because it was too painful to revisit.
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