Väggvandrare

1.The steering wheel is cold under my hands even with the heat running. February in Massachusetts does that—gets into everything, makes everything hard and brittle and gray. I check the rearview mirror for the third time in as many minutes. Kevin’s looking at his phone in the passenger seat, Laura’s staring out the window with her earbuds in, and Michael’s bouncing a little in his booster seat, excited in that way only nine-year-olds get about errands.

“Mom, can we get meatballs after?” Michael asks.

“Maybe, buddy. Let’s see how much time we have.”

I’m doing the math in my head again. The new house has been ours for three weeks now, but most of the rooms are still empty or filled with the mismatched furniture from our rental in Delaware. The sofa that doesn’t fit the living room. The dining table with only three matching chairs. Kevin’s bed frame that’s too small for him now that he’s eighteen and six feet tall. Everything a reminder of before, of the life we had when there were four of us instead of three and a half.

Three and a half. That’s how I think of us now. Me and three children who are all missing pieces, who all got broken when Robert left.

The IKEA sign looms ahead, blue and yellow against the gray sky. Route 24 is busy for a Saturday afternoon, but not packed. That’s good. We’ll have time to browse, time for the kids to actually pick things they like instead of me just making executive decisions based on price and practicality.

“We’re not staying until close, right?” Laura says from the back, pulling out one earbud. “Because I have homework.”

“We’ll be out by seven,” I tell her, which gives us about four hours. Should be enough. Should be.

Kevin’s been quiet, which isn’t unusual lately, but I glance at him anyway. He’s got that look on his face, the one where he’s thinking too hard about something.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just checking the bank balance.”

Of course he is. Because that’s what eighteen-year-olds do, apparently, when their mothers take them furniture shopping. They verify that their single mother actually has the money she says she has.

“We’re fine,” I say, keeping my voice light. “I budgeted for this.”

He nods but doesn’t look convinced. I want to tell him to stop worrying, to just be a teenager for once, but I need him too much. That’s the truth I don’t say out loud. I need Kevin to be the adult he’s become because I can’t do this alone, can’t manage everything by myself even though that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

I pull into the parking lot, find a spot that’s not too far from the entrance. The building looks exactly like every IKEA I’ve ever seen—massive and modern and somehow both welcoming and overwhelming. A temple to affordable furniture, to the idea that anyone can have a nice home if they just follow the arrows and buy the right pieces.

We all get out. Michael runs ahead immediately, and I call him back.

“Stay with us, buddy. It’s a big store.”

“I know, Mom. I’m nine.”

Nine. Old enough to want independence, too young to actually have it. The age where childhood starts slipping away without anyone asking permission.

Kevin grabs a cart even though we probably won’t need it until the warehouse section. Laura has both earbuds out now, making an effort, and I’m grateful for it even though I know it won’t last. We walk through the automatic doors together, and the warm air hits us, smelling like that particular IKEA smell—new furniture and Swedish cinnamon and something else I can never quite identify.

The store stretches out ahead of us, bright and organized, the arrows on the floor pointing the way through the maze of showrooms. Except it’s not a maze, not really. It’s a path. A winding path, but still just one path. Follow it long enough and you’ll see everything, end up at checkout, go home with your flat-pack furniture and your Allen wrenches and your sense of accomplishment.

I grab one of the shopping bags and a pencil, ready to take notes and measurements. Ready to make decisions. Ready to create a home for my children out of particleboard and good intentions.

“Okay,” I say, looking at my three kids. “Living room first?”

Kevin nods. Laura shrugs. Michael says, “Yeah!” with enough enthusiasm for all of them.And we walk forward, following the arrows, not knowing yet that some paths don’t lead where you think they lead. That some mazes don’t have exits. That some stores don’t let you leave. But that comes later. Right now, we’re just a family shopping for furniture on a Saturday in February, trying to make a house into a home, trying to prove that we’re okay, we’re fine, we’re enough.

We’re enough.

I have to believe that.

The living room section stretches out in front of us like a catalog come to life. Model rooms on both sides, each one staged perfectly—throw pillows at exact angles, lamps positioned just so, fake books on shelves that will never be read. Mom keeps stopping at price tags, and I can see her face doing that thing where she’s calculating, comparing, trying to figure out what we can afford versus what we actually need.

“What about this one?” Laura says, pointing to a gray sectional that probably costs more than our monthly grocery budget.

“It’s nice,” Mom says, which is her way of saying no without actually saying no.

Laura rolls her eyes. “Right. Too expensive. Everything’s too expensive.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

I step in before this escalates into one of their fights. “The couch we saw in the last section was similar but cheaper. We should write that one down.”

Mom gives me a grateful look. Laura gives me an annoyed one. Michael’s already run ahead to the next display, climbing onto a loveseat and bouncing.

“Michael, get down,” I call out.

He does, but slowly, making it clear he’s only listening because he chooses to, not because he has to. Nine years old and already testing boundaries.

This is going to take forever.

Mom’s writing down item numbers and prices in her notebook, that little spiral one she keeps in her purse and pulls out constantly. I’ve seen her lists—groceries needed, bills due, things the kids mentioned wanting. Everything in her life is a list now, like if she writes it all down she can keep it under control.

We move through dining rooms next. Laura wants a table that seats six, which doesn’t make sense because there are only four of us, and Mom points this out gently.

“So we can have people over,” Laura says.

“What people?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Future people. Potential people.”

Mom touches the table Laura likes, running her hand along the edge. “It’s beautiful, honey. But I think something smaller makes more sense right now.”

Laura’s face does this thing, this complicated expression I can’t fully read. Part disappointment, part something else. She turns away, puts her earbud back in.

Michael wants every brightly colored piece of furniture he sees. He wants the yellow chair, the blue storage unit, the red lamp. He wants his room to look like a rainbow threw up in it, and honestly, that’s pretty much what nine-year-old rooms should look like. But Mom keeps steering him toward more neutral options, things that won’t look ridiculous in three years when he’s twelve and embarrassed by everything he likes now.

Time moves weird in IKEA. You think you’ve been in one section for twenty minutes and suddenly an hour’s gone by. We’re in the bedroom displays now, looking at Laura’s room stuff, and I check my phone. Six PM. We’ve been here over two hours and we’ve barely decided on anything.

“We need to move faster,” I say. “Store closes at nine.”

Mom nods, but she’s got that overwhelmed look, the one where too many decisions are piling up and she’s starting to shut down. “I know. I just want to make sure we get the right things.”

“It’s just furniture, Mom,” Laura says. “It’s not that deep.”

“It’s our home,” Mom says, and her voice has an edge I don’t hear often. “It matters.” Laura goes quiet after that.

We find a bedroom setup Laura actually likes—not the expensive one she wanted, but close enough. White furniture with clean lines, a bed frame that looks more mature than the one shehas now. Mom’s checking prices again, doing her mental math, and I can tell she’s trying to make it work even though it’s probably more than she planned to spend.

“We can get it,” I tell her quietly. “The budget allows for it.”

She looks at me, and for a second I see how tired she is. How much she’s carrying. How much I’ve been trying to help carry and maybe making heavier by pretending I need to help.

“You checked the account,” she says. Not a question. “Just making sure we’re good.”

“Kevin.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “I need you to be eighteen, not forty. Can you do that?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“I know. But let me be the mom, okay?”

I nod, but we both know I can’t actually do what she’s asking. Someone has to help. Someone has to make sure things don’t fall apart. And that someone has been me since Dad left, so I don’t know how to stop now.

Michael comes running back from wherever he wandered off to. “Mom, the bathroom’s over there. I gotta go.”

She looks at him, then at her watch. “Okay, go. But come right back. Stay where I can see you.” “Mom, I’m not five. I can go to the bathroom by myself.”

“Fine. But right back, Michael. Don’t wander.”

He takes off, and I watch him disappear around a corner into the bathroom section. Mom’s turned back to the furniture display, talking to Laura about mattress options, and I’m half listening, half watching the direction Michael went.

Five minutes pass. Then ten.

“He’s taking a while,” I say.

Mom glances toward the bathroom area. “He’s fine. Probably got distracted looking at something.”

But fifteen minutes pass, and Michael hasn’t come back. The store is starting to feel less crowded, people heading toward checkout. The announcements start—thirty minutes until closing, please complete your purchases.

“I’m going to go find him,” I say.

Mom nods, distracted by Laura pointing out something in a catalog. I head toward the bathrooms, calling Michael’s name. The men’s room is empty. I check the family restroom. Nothing.

I walk through the sections nearby—kitchen, bathroom fixtures, organizational stuff. No Michael. I start walking faster, calling louder. Other shoppers look at me, but no one’s seen a kid matching his description.

The closing announcements get more frequent. Twenty minutes. Fifteen minutes.

I find Mom and Laura where I left them. “He’s not in the bathroom. I can’t find him.”

Mom’s face changes immediately. “What do you mean you can’t find him?”

“I checked everywhere near there. He’s not—”

She’s already moving, walking fast toward the bathroom section, calling Michael’s name. Laura follows, and I follow her, and we’re all calling now, spreading out, checking displays and sections and spaces where a nine-year-old might have gotten distracted or lost or hurt.

Store closes in ten minutes. Please proceed to checkout.

Mom’s at customer service, talking to an employee, her voice tight with barely controlled panic. “My son. Nine years old, auburn hair, wearing a red t-shirt. He went to the bathroom half an hour ago and he hasn’t come back.”

The employee looks concerned but not panicked, like this happens sometimes, like kids get lost in IKEA all the time and always turn up fine.

“We’ll make an announcement,” she says.

Store is now closed. All customers please proceed to exit.

But we’re not at the exit. We’re at customer service, waiting for an announcement to bring Michael back to us, waiting for this to be nothing, to be fine, to be a story we’ll tell later about that time Michael got lost in IKEA.

Except he doesn’t come to customer service. The announcement plays twice, three times, and Michael doesn’t appear.

And the lights seem dimmer now, somehow. The store feels different. Emptier. Wrong. Mom’s hands are shaking.

The announcement voice is asking Michael Collins to come to customer service, where his family is looking for him. It sounds so normal, so calm, like this isn’t the worst thing. Like my little brother isn’t missing somewhere in this massive store that just closed.

I’m walking through the children’s section because that’s where Mom sent me, calling Michael’s name, but I’m not really trying that hard yet. Not because I don’t care—I do, I’m worried—but because part of me still thinks this is just Michael being Michael. Getting distracted by toys or games or something shiny. He’ll turn up. He always does.

The children’s furniture looks different in the dimmer light. The small beds and colorful storage units and toy displays that looked cheerful before now look kind of sad. Empty. Like stage sets for children who will never exist.

I pass a bedroom display set up for a kid Michael’s age. Race car bed, blue walls, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. The kind of room Michael probably wishes he had. I look at it and something about it bothers me, something I can’t name.

“Michael?” I call, louder this time. Nothing.

My phone buzzes. Kevin texting the group chat: Any sign of him? I reply: No

Mom: Keep looking. Moving to marketplace section.

The final closing announcement plays. The store is now closed. All customers must exit immediately.

But we can’t exit. Not without Michael.

I’m moving faster now, actually trying, actually worried. I check behind displays, under tables, inside the little play tents they have set up in the kids section. I ask an employee restocking shelves if they’ve seen a little boy. She hasn’t.

The lights are definitely dimmer now. Or maybe it’s just that there aren’t any other customers, so the store feels darker, emptier, more like a warehouse than a shopping center. The cheerful yellow and blue IKEA aesthetic looks different when you’re alone.

Less friendly. More like a maze.

I find Kevin in the bathroom section. We look at each other, both of us coming up empty. “Where the hell is he?” I say.

“I don’t know.”

“This is bad, right? This is actually bad?”

Kevin’s face says yes before his mouth does. “We need to find Mom.”

We head back toward customer service, weaving through displays that seem more confusing now, like the layout shifted when I wasn’t paying attention. I could swear we already passed this dining room setup, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they all just look the same.

Mom’s talking to an employee when we find her—an older woman, tall, with gray hair and an accent. Swedish, probably. The woman’s asking questions in this clipped, efficient way, and Mom’s answering, voice getting higher and tighter with each response.

“He’s nine. He went to the bathroom. He’s wearing red. I’ve looked everywhere. We’ve all looked everywhere.”

The woman—her name tag says Sigrid—looks at a clock on the wall. Looks at Mom. Looks at Kevin and me.

“The store is closed,” she says. “This is not good.”

“I know the store is closed!” Mom’s voice breaks a little. “My son is in here somewhere.

We can’t leave without him.”

Sigrid says something in what I think is Swedish, under her breath, then says, “We will search. But you must wait here. Let the staff handle this.”

“I’m not waiting,” Mom says. “I’m searching for my son.”

Two security guards appear—an older Asian guy and a younger Black guy. The older one introduces himself as Roy, his partner as Marcus. Roy looks at the clock, looks at Sigrid, looks at us, and his face does something complicated.

“You’ve been here since closing,” Roy says. Not a question.

“My son is missing,” Mom says. “That’s all that matters.”

Roy exchanges a look with Sigrid that I don’t understand. Then he says, “Alright. We’ll search together. But you need to stay with us. Don’t wander off. Stay on the main paths.”

There’s something about the way he says it that makes my skin prickle.

Marcus says, “Kids hide in stores all the time. He probably fell asleep in some display bed. We’ll find him.”

But Roy doesn’t look like he believes that. Roy looks worried in a way security guards shouldn’t look worried about a lost kid.

The lights flicker. Just once. But definitely flicker.

Mom notices. “Is there a problem with the power?”

“It’s fine,” Sigrid says, but she’s looking at Roy when she says it.

We start searching as a group—Mom, me, Kevin, Roy, Marcus. Sigrid says she’s going to check the security cameras. We move through sections we already searched, calling Michael’s name, Roy leading with his flashlight even though the lights are still on.

Something scrapes in another section. Like furniture moving.

“What was that?” I ask.

“Building settling,” Marcus says. “Old buildings make noise.”

But Roy doesn’t say anything. Just keeps walking, keeps searching, keeps checking his watch like he’s counting down to something.

And I realize we’re trapped. Not locked in—the doors probably still open—but trapped by the fact that Michael’s in here somewhere and we can’t leave without him.

The store feels bigger now. Like it expanded when I wasn’t looking.

Mom’s breathing fast, on the edge of panic. Kevin’s got his jaw set in that way he does when he’s trying not to show he’s scared.

And I’m starting to think this isn’t just about a lost kid anymore.

Something’s wrong with this store. Something’s wrong with tonight.4.

Michael is somewhere in this building. That’s the only thing that matters. The only thing I can let matter because if I start thinking about what might happen to a nine-year-old alone in a massive closed store, if I start imagining all the ways this could go wrong, I’ll fall apart completely.

I can’t fall apart. Not now. Not when my children need me.

We’re moving through the bedroom section, Roy leading with his flashlight, Marcus behind us, and the girls somewhere in between. I keep calling Michael’s name, but my voice sounds strange in the empty store. Too loud and not loud enough at the same time.

The model rooms look different now. I’m sure they do. The lighting’s changed—dimmed to some kind of night mode, probably—but it’s more than that. The rooms feel more enclosed. Like they have actual walls instead of the open-backed displays we walked through earlier.

“Michael!” My voice cracks. “Michael, baby, where are you?” Kevin touches my shoulder. “Mom. We’ll find him.”

I want to believe that. I want to believe my capable eighteen-year-old son who’s been holding this family together for three years. But belief requires a kind of certainty I don’t have right now.

Roy stops walking, holds up a hand. We all stop. “Did you hear that?” he asks.

We listen. At first I don’t hear anything except the building’s ambient sounds—HVAC, distant machinery, the usual background noise of a large structure. Then I hear it. A voice. Faint. Distant.

“Mom?”

My heart jumps. “Michael!”

I start to run toward the sound, but Roy grabs my arm. “Wait. Don’t—” I shake him off. “That’s my son!”

“Mrs. Collins, please.” Roy’s voice is urgent. “Stay with the group.”

“He’s calling for me!”

I run. I hear Kevin shouting my name behind me, hear footsteps following, but I’m already around the corner, moving toward Michael’s voice. He’s in the next section, has to be, just ahead—

I round the corner and there’s nothing. Empty showroom. No Michael.

“Michael?” I call again.

No response.

Kevin catches up to me, breathing hard. “Mom, where is he?”

“He was here. I heard him.”

Laura appears, then Marcus, then Roy. They all look around the empty space.

“I heard him,” I insist. “He called for me.”

Roy’s expression is careful. Concerned. “Mrs. Collins, we need to stay together. The store is... after hours, it can be disorienting. Sounds echo strangely. What you heard might have come from a different section entirely.”

“I know my son’s voice.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t hear something. I’m saying we need to be systematic about this. Stick together. Search properly.”

I want to argue, but Kevin’s looking at me with this expression that says please listen, and I realize I’m scaring them. Scaring my children by acting scared myself.

I take a breath. “Okay. Okay. Together. But we keep searching.”

“Of course,” Roy says. “That’s what we’re doing.”

We continue through the store, but the search feels different now. More tense. Roy keeps checking his watch, keeps looking at the shadows, keeps doing this thing where he stays very close to the walls but never actually touches them.

The temperature has dropped. I notice it gradually—first just feeling a little cold, then seeing my breath when I exhale. In February you expect it to be cold outside, but inside a closed building should be warm. Should be.

“Is the heat off?” I ask.

“Probably on a timer,” Marcus says. “Saves energy after hours.”

But he doesn’t sound sure. And Roy doesn’t confirm it.

We enter a living room display and I stop.

“What?” Kevin asks.

I’m looking at the setup. Sofa, coffee table, bookshelf. It’s arranged exactly like our living room in Delaware. Not just similar. Exactly. The same L-shaped sectional we had, the same coffee table we sold before the move, the same bookshelf we left behind because it wouldn’t fit in the new house.

“This is...” I trail off because I don’t know how to finish that sentence.

Laura sees it too. “That’s our old couch.”

“It’s not the same couch,” Kevin says, but he sounds uncertain. “It just looks similar.”

“It’s the same,” I insist. Because it is. Down to the stain on the armrest from where Michael spilled grape juice two years ago. A stain I scrubbed at for an hour, a stain that never fully came out.

Roy is looking at the display with an expression I can’t read. “We should keep moving.” “But this is—”

“Mrs. Collins.” Roy’s voice is firm. “We should keep moving. This section is...” He pauses, choosing his words. “Not helpful.”

Laura’s staring at the photos on the bookshelf. Frames that should contain stock photos of generic happy families. But the photos look like ours. Blurred, indistinct, but familiar. A family of four in poses we stood in for our Christmas card five years ago.

“This isn’t right,” Laura says quietly. “None of this is right.”

“Let’s go,” Roy says again, more insistent.

We move past the living room, and I glance back. The photos are gone. Just empty frames now. Just normal stock photos.

I must have imagined it. The stress, the fear, the panic about Michael—it’s making me see things that aren’t there. It has to be.

But when I look at Laura, she’s looking back too. And I know she saw what I saw.

We’re in the dining room section now, and the walls around us seem closer together than they should be. Or maybe that’s also my imagination. Maybe everything’s my imagination.

Michael’s voice again, from somewhere ahead: “Mom, where are you?” This time Roy doesn’t try to stop me. This time he just says, “Be careful.” And I realize he heard it too.

We’re following Mom through the store, and nothing makes sense. I keep trying to apply logic to this situation—kid gets lost, we search systematically, we find him—but the logic isn’t working because the store itself isn’t being logical.

The bedroom section stretches too far. I know this section. We walked through it earlier. It took maybe five minutes to cross. Now we’ve been walking for ten minutes and we’re still in bedroom displays, still seeing furniture in the same style, still not reaching the boundary where it should transition to the next area.

I check my phone. No signal. That’s not right. I had signal earlier. The store has wifi for customers. But now my phone shows nothing, not even wifi networks to connect to.

“Anyone else have service?” I ask.

Laura checks hers. Shakes her head. Marcus looks at his phone, frowns.

“Must be dead zones in the building,” he says. “Weird that we hit one here though.”

Roy doesn’t check his phone. Just keeps walking, keeps scanning the space with his flashlight like he’s looking for something he expects to find but hopes he won’t.

We pass a bedroom display that looks familiar. Blue comforter, white dresser, silver lamp. “Have we been here before?” I ask.

“Don’t think so,” Laura says.

But two sections later, there’s another bedroom with the same setup. Exact same. Same position of pillows, same angle of the lamp, same everything.

“That’s the same room,” I say.

“Can’t be,” Marcus says. “We’re moving in a straight line.”

“Then why does it look identical?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

Roy stops walking. “Alright. Everyone stop for a second.”

We stop. Mom looks like she wants to argue—we should keep searching—but something in Roy’s tone makes her wait.

Roy addresses all of us. “I need you to understand something. This store, after hours, it can be... confusing. The layout seems wrong. Sounds echo strangely. You might see things that don’t make sense.”

“That’s not helpful,” Mom says.

“I know. But what is helpful is staying together, staying calm, and trusting that we know what we’re doing.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Laura asks.

Roy looks at her directly. “I’ve worked here fifteen years. I’ve been here after closing more times than I can count. And the one thing I can tell you for certain is that we need to stay together.”

“Why?” I ask. “What happens if we don’t?”

Roy exchanges another look with Marcus. Marcus looks confused, like he doesn’t understand what Roy’s implying. But Roy just says, “People get more lost. More disoriented. Harder to find.”

That’s not the full answer. I can tell from the way he says it, the way he’s not quite meeting my eyes. But before I can push, there’s a sound.

Furniture scraping. Loud. Close.

We all turn toward it. It came from a model room to our left—a teenage girl’s bedroom, lavender walls, white furniture.

We watch. Nothing moves.

“Wind through the HVAC,” Marcus says. “Sometimes it moves light items.”

But the furniture that moved sounded heavy. Like a dresser being dragged across a floor. “We should check it,” Mom says.

“No,” Roy says immediately. “We should not check it. We should keep moving.”

“But what if Michael—”

“That sound wasn’t made by a nine-year-old boy.”

The way Roy says it makes my skin crawl. Made by something else, he’s implying. Made by what?

Laura grabs my hand. She hasn’t done that since she was little. Her hand is cold.

“I want to leave,” she says quietly. “Can we just leave? Call the police, let them search?” “We can’t leave Michael,” Mom says.

“But what if something’s wrong? What if this is dangerous?”

“It’s just a store,” Marcus says, but he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.

We keep walking. The bedroom section finally ends, transitioning into living rooms. Progress. Proof that we’re actually moving forward, not just walking in circles.

But the living room displays feel wrong too. They’re too quiet. Too still. And some of them look... lived in. Not staged. Like real rooms where real people actually live. There’s a coffee cup on one table that wasn’t there before, I’m sure of it. There are shoes by one couch that look recently worn.

I point this out to Roy. He barely glances at them.

“Don’t pay attention to the displays,” he says. “Just keep moving forward.”

“But those things weren’t—”

“Kevin.” Roy stops walking, turns to face me. “I need you to trust me on this. Some things you see, they’re not helpful to notice. They’re not helpful to think about. The more you focus on what’s wrong, the more wrong things become. Do you understand?”

I don’t. Not really. But I nod anyway.

We’re passing a living room display that should be on the right side of the path, but when I turn around to check, it’s on the left side. We didn’t cross the path. The room just... moved. Or we moved. Or space moved.

I don’t mention it. Following Roy’s advice. Not noticing. Not thinking about it. But Laura noticed too. I can tell from her face.

And Mom noticed. She’s walking faster now, almost running, calling Michael’s name with increasing desperation.

“Michael! Michael, answer me! Please!”

We turn a corner and I could swear we’re back in the bedroom section. But that’s impossible. We left the bedroom section. We moved forward, through living rooms. We should be in kitchen displays next.

“Are we going in circles?” Laura asks.

“No,” Roy says, but his voice is tight. “The store is just... larger than it seems during the day.”

That doesn’t make sense. Buildings don’t get larger. But I don’t argue because arguing won’t help find Michael and won’t help keep Mom from falling apart completely.

We hear Michael’s voice again. Calling for Mom. Calling for me. From somewhere ahead or behind or beside us—I can’t tell which. Sound echoes weird in here, like Roy said. Bounces off walls in ways that make directionality meaningless.

Mom runs toward the sound. Roy calls after her to stop, to wait. I run too because I’m not letting her go alone. Laura follows me, Marcus follows her, and Roy brings up the rear, saying something under his breath that sounds like cursing or praying.

We round a corner and Mom’s just... gone.

We’re in a section we just left—I recognize the displays—but Mom isn’t here. She was five feet ahead of me, I saw her turn this corner, but she’s not here now.

I call her name. No response.

Laura’s gripping my hand so tight it hurts. “Kevin, where did she go?” “I don’t know.”

Roy catches up to us. Looks around. His face goes carefully blank. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. This is what happens sometimes.”

“What happens?” My voice is louder than I intend. “What do you mean this is what happens?” “People get separated. The store gets... confusing. We need to stay calm.”

“My mom just vanished!” Laura’s voice is shrill, panicked.

Marcus looks as confused as we feel. “Roy, what the hell is going on?” Roy closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, he looks at all three of us.

“This store,” he says slowly. “After closing. It’s not... it’s not the same store you shopped in. And we need to find your mother and your brother before—”

He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to. Before what, I don’t want to know.6.

I’m alone. I heard Michael’s voice, I ran toward it, I turned a corner, and now everyone is gone and I’m standing in a section of the store I don’t recognize, and I cannot breathe.

This is my fault. All of this is my fault. I brought my children here. I let Michael go to the bathroom alone. I ran away from the group. Every decision I’ve made today has been wrong, and now I’ve lost all three of my children, and I’m the worst mother who ever existed, and—

Stop. Stop it, Dana.

I force myself to breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. The way the therapist taught me after Robert left, before I decided I couldn’t afford therapy anymore.

Focus. Find the kids. That’s all that matters. I call out. “Kevin! Laura! Michael!”

My voice echoes strangely. Bounces back at me from walls that seem closer than they should be.

I’m in a living room section. But not one I remember seeing before. The furniture is arranged in ways that feel wrong. Sofas facing walls instead of each other. Tables at odd angles. Lamps positioned in corners where they cast strange shadows.

I start walking, trying to retrace my steps, trying to find the corner I turned to get here. But the corners don’t lead where I expect them to lead. I turn left and I’m in a bedroom. Turn around and I’m in a bathroom display. Turn again and I’m back in a living room, but a different living room, a darker living room.

The lights are dimmer now. Definitely dimmer. I’m not imagining that.

And it’s colder. My breath fogs in front of me.

“Hello?” I call out. “Roy? Marcus? Sigrid? Anyone?”

Nothing.

I pass a model room and stop. It’s set up as a family living room. And the photos on the walls are ours. Our actual family photos. The one from Michael’s seventh birthday. The one from Christmas three years ago, the last one with Robert in it. The one from Laura’s middle school graduation.

I step closer. The photos are blurry when I look directly at them, like they’re out of focus. But I saw them clearly from farther away. I’m sure I did.

I turn around. Try to leave this room. But there are three doorways and I don’t remember which one I entered through.

This isn’t real. None of this is real.

I’m having a breakdown. The stress of the past three years, the exhaustion, the fear, the constant effort of holding everything together—it’s finally breaking me. I’m in IKEA having a psychotic episode while my children are somewhere in this store safe with security guards, and I’m the one who’s lost, the one who needs to be found.

That makes more sense than what I’m seeing.

But it doesn’t feel like a breakdown. It feels real. It feels like the walls are actually closer than they were. Like the photos are actually mine. Like the air is actually colder.

I hear Michael’s voice. “Mommy, where are you?”

I run toward it. Through a doorway, down a hallway that shouldn’t be a hallway—IKEA doesn’t have hallways, it has open showrooms—but here I am in a narrow corridor with walls on both sides and doors lining it.

I open a door. It’s a child’s bedroom. Blue walls, small bed, toys arranged on shelves. And sitting on the bed, facing away from me, is a child. Auburn hair. Red shirt.

“Michael!” Relief floods through me so intense I almost fall over.

I rush toward him. “Michael, baby, I found you. I found you. It’s okay now. We’re together now.” I reach out to touch his shoulder, to turn him around, to hold him—

The child turns.

It’s not Michael.

It’s not a child.

It’s something else wearing Michael’s shape, wearing his clothes, but the face is wrong. Wrong in ways I can’t articulate, in ways that make my brain scream error, impossible, run.

I do run. Back through the door, down the hallway, my heart hammering, my breath coming in gasps. That wasn’t my son. That wasn’t my son. That wasn’t my son.

I burst out of the hallway into another open section and collapse against a wall, sliding down to sit on the floor, trying not to hyperventilate.

I’m losing my mind. I have to be. Because the alternative is that something in this store is pretending to be my son, and that’s not possible, that’s not real, that only happens in horror movies, not in Massachusetts, not in IKEA, not in the real world where I have to function and be strong and take care of my children.

I sob. Just once. Allow myself one moment of complete breakdown.

Then I push myself back to my feet. Because my children need me. The real Michael needs me. Kevin and Laura need me. I can fall apart later. After they’re safe. After we’re all home. After this nightmare is over.

I hear a voice. Not Michael’s this time. Laura’s.

“Mom? Where are you? We need you.”

That’s Laura. That’s my daughter’s voice. I know it. I know the exact inflection, the way she says “mom” when she’s scared and dropping her defensive walls.

I move toward it. Carefully this time. Not running. Not letting desperation override caution. “Laura?” I call back.

“Mom, we’re over here. Keep coming.”

I follow the voice. Through sections that blur together, past furniture that seems to shift position when I’m not looking directly at it. The store is wrong. Wrong in ways I don’t have words for. Wrong in ways that make me question reality itself.

But Laura’s voice is right. That’s my daughter. That’s real.

I turn a corner and see Kevin and Laura together in a bedroom section. They’re holding hands. They see me and relief floods their faces.

“Mom!” Kevin moves toward me.

I meet them halfway, and we collide in a hug, the three of us clinging to each other.

“Where’s Michael?” I ask.

“We don’t know. We lost you, we lost him, we lost the guards. Laura and I have been trying to find our way back.”

Laura’s crying against my shoulder. “I thought something happened to you.”

“I’m okay. I’m right here. We’re together now.”

We’re together. Not all together, not whole—Michael is still missing—but we’re not alone anymore. And that matters. That makes this bearable.

“We need to find your brother,” I say. “We need to find the guards. We need to find a way out.” “The store is wrong,” Laura says. “Something’s wrong with it.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Kevin is looking around, trying to orient himself. “I think the café area is this way. That section has more open space. We can regroup there, figure out our next move.”

I nod. Kevin leading. That’s familiar. That’s safe.

We start moving, the three of us holding hands like we used to when the kids were small and we’d cross parking lots together, making a chain so no one got lost.

Please let Michael be okay. Please let us find him. Please let this end.

I’m not praying to anyone specific. Haven’t prayed in years. But I’m praying now.

We’re enough. We have to be enough.