Last year, I returned from a trip late one night, and, though I knew our four-year-old son, William, would be in bed, I wanted to glimpse his sweet, sleeping face. I walked toward his room, but as I rounded the corner to his hallway, I tripped over his big stuffed lion, which was lying face-down on the floor, arms and legs akimbo, as if it had been blown there by a strong wind.

The next morning I asked William why he’d thrown his lion out of his room.

“Because I’m scared of him,” he said.

Well, the lion is practically bigger than him, I thought. And it is a lion, after all. So I lugged the beast downstairs and plunked it on a shelf in the playroom.

But the next night William threw his stuffed rhinoceros into the hallway, and over the next several weeks, he hurled from his room a virtual fleet of toys—his John Deere tractor, a plaid rabbit, a book about ants, and a Sponge Bob cup, to name a few. Our hallway was taking on the appearance of a yard sale.

"I was starting to wonder if there was anything our son wasn’t afraid of. "
 
But while I was annoyed by the clutter, I relished the thought of William having the wherewithal to identify the things in his room that most troubled him and cast them out. I loved imagining his 35-pound wire of a body chucking the tangible projections of his anxieties from the dark into the light. Still, I was starting to wonder if there was anything our son wasn’t afraid of. 

One night, I stumbled upon a mass exorcism—ten of William’s largest animals jumbled outside his door. The purge included a giraffe, a dragon, the rhinoceros (again), a T-shirt-clad bear, and what seemed to me a completely innocuous, long-limbed frog. I walked into William’s room and found him lying there, eyes wide, the corner of his blanket stuck in his mouth.

“Mama!” he said. “You’re home!”

“Why are there so many animals in the hallway?” I asked.

“Because I’m afraid of them,” he said.

“Why are you afraid of them?”

“I just am. I’m afraid of so many things in my room.”

“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said. “Mama and Papa are here to protect you.”

For a moment I regretted introducing the idea of protection, as it might beg the obvious question, “Protect from what?” But he just nodded.

“I’m going to put these animals back,” I said. “And I want you to leave them in here.”

I arranged the animals on his shelves, kissed his forehead, and said good night.

At 2:30 A.M., I awoke to a small hand tapping my shoulder. I groaned and pushed my eye mask to the top of my head to find two big blue eyes staring at me.

“Can I sleep with you?” William asked.

“Yes,” I said, and he climbed into bed with me and my husband, Michael, and the three of us slept like spoons in a drawer until morning.

The next night, as I was tucking William in, I told him that I didn’t think he needed to put his animals in the hallway again because they weren’t going to hurt him.

Small tears brimmed in his eyes.

“Mama,” he said. “I don’t want you and Papa to go away anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I want you to stay here every night and not go away.”

"William wasn’t afraid of the lion or the rhinoceros or that friendly, long-limbed frog. He was afraid of being left alone."

In the past several months, Michael and I had taken a few trips—a night here or there—not much, but enough to register. And that’s when I understood what was going on. William wasn’t afraid of the lion or the rhinoceros or that friendly, long-limbed frog. He was afraid of being left alone. He’d been throwing his animals into the hallway as a kind of lifeline—a connection—he was hoping we’d catch. He didn’t want his animals gone; he just wanted us to find them.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t promise that we’d never go away again because I’d be lying. But at the same time, I wanted to reassure him. I sat on the edge of his bed.

“Sometimes I have to go away,” I said. “But do you know what?”

“What?” he asked, holding back tears.

“I always come back.”

The minute I said it, I knew it was its own kind of lie. My plane could down. I could die in a car accident. I know, my end probably won’t come so soon or so dramatically. But we’re all mortal. How could I promise my child that I’d always come back when life is so uncertain?

Sitting in his dimly lit room, I realized that the small voice inside me saying all this was my own version of the lion. My irrational fear of leaving my children without a mother was what I most wanted to fling into the hallway. But I also knew that this particular beast wasn’t going anywhere. As a mother I would always harbor it somewhere deep inside me. But maybe by acknowledging it, by inviting it in to stay for a while, I could at least learn to live with it.

I lay with William for a little while longer—the lion, the frog, and even the Sponge Bob cup among us. But we weren’t afraid. We had each other, for the moment anyway, and morning would be coming soon.