The Little Boy On The Roof

It was about May 1986 and my oldest daughter was about a year and 1/2  old. Just before she was born in 1984, I was given a crib from my mother in laws sister, who was my husbands aunt.

My husband and I had rented and moved to a second floor apartment at the very top of Essex St. in Lawrence Mass. It was close to his work and not too far from his family.  It was our very first apartment.

Such a beautiful apartment in an old converted two family house. Our landlord was a sweet little old lady who lived on the first floor and just like my mother in law, she was very religious. She absolutely loved our little daughter, and she would come up to our apartment a couple of times during the week just to see and spend time with her.

At that time, my husband was working second shift in the warehouse at a popular beverage company which used to be located in Lawrence Mass.  

At this time, we only had one car which he would take to work with him. After he would leave our apartment to go to work, I would clean up dinner, clean up the house, fold laundry and put it away, dust, vacuum.  I would do normal stuff that a stay at home mom does. Except I did mine after my husband would leave for work so he could come home to a clean and organized home.

The crib that my daughter slept in was previously the  crib for my husband's aunts little boy and only child.

This little boy had been missing for two years, and he was two years old at the time that he went he went missing. The little boy had become missing when my husbands aunt and uncle were driving home one night and they got into a terrible accident on Rt. 110 in Methuen, Mass. along the Merrimack river. Sadly, their beautiful little boy  was thrown through the windshield and his body was never recovered.

Crews worked day and night trying to find this little boys body. They put up nets in the river, re-routed traffic and they searched the river for days on end. But they never found him.

I remember my husbands grandmother, who would be my husbands aunt's mother, stating that she believed that someone found him and kept him. As in kidnapped him from the accident. She was convinced. 

I often believed she thought that because she loved that little boy so very much, she just couldn't come to terms with the idea that he could have died, and so she wanted to believe that he was abducted instead. Either way, we were given the little boy's crib and my daughter was sleeping in it.

It bothered me a little bit, I had never met the little boy but, in all likelihood he had died and I felt a little guilty having my daughter sleep in his crib.  At the same time, it was nice that my husband's aunt would take something that meant so much to her and give it to us. 

So, we did use it. A few months after we moved into the apartment, at a certain time of night and every single night, my little daughter would sit by a particular window between our living room and front room, and she would talk, but at the window.  She would say things like; “Hi little boy”, “Be careful”, and other times you could hear her talking very quietly, almost whispering as she sat looking at the window.

The only thing that was outside of that window was other houses. The houses were all very close together. 

So, from her perspective, she could see the roof's of most of these houses because we were on the second floor. It got to the point that It was predictable every night, and  I began to  feel uncomfortable with her doing this.  It was disturbing. I know that many kids sometimes have imaginary friends, I had one when I was little, but to me, she was just too young, too little for this.

I began asking her who she was talking to and she would point and say “Him, the little boy”.

We were on the second floor, it was night time so, I would go over to the window and look out and I did not see a little boy. So I would tell her that there wasn't anybody there and she would say; “Look, he's right there, the roof”.

After a few weeks of this, I mentioned it to my mother in law and she immediately asked me which window that my daughter was doing this in, which was odd to me.  Why would it matter? It's just kind of creepy that she's doing it all, I thought.

But, I told her which window and come to find out the roof and the house where my daughter was pointing to and saying there was a little boy, was the roof of the house that my husbands aunt, uncle and their little boy lived in, at the time of the terrible accident.

This would be the very first indication that my daughter had an uncommon, alarming ability that would follow her and would follow us, through life as you will read throughout each story. This uncommon, alarming ability would later become an ability that three of my children and I, and at different levels have.

More short stories available in my book; No One Would Believe It