Incidents Around the House

Russ and Ursula get very drunk and dance, together and with Bela. Russ pretends to be Other Mommy and jokes that he would offer her a drink. Bela overhears Grandma and Evelyn talking: Evelyn counsels Grandma to let Russ and Ursula handle this problem since it’s their marriage and family. The family eventually goes to bed, but Mommy warns Bela not to go anywhere alone, even to the bathroom.

Bela wakes up in the bedroom and needs to use the bathroom, but her parents are too intoxicated to wake up. She decides to be brave and imagines Kelvin coaching her to get up and find the bathroom. She stumbles through the dark hall and eventually finds the bathroom, where she thinks she sees Evelyn standing in the shower. When she pulls the curtain back, no one is there. She sits on the toilet, which seems strangely high, and starts to urinate but realizes that she is sitting in someone’s lap—someone whose cold legs remind her of dead fish. It is Other Mommy. She falls off Other Mommy’s lap and sees that the entity is holding her head in her hands.

Evelyn opens the door, asking if Bela is all right, and sees Other Mommy and begins to scream. Grandma comes in and picks Bela up as Other Mommy fills the space in the bathroom and begins to follow them. Evelyn screams at them to leave her house, and the family stumbles out to the car. Grandma tries to get Evelyn to come with them, but she refuses. Ursula drives crazily as they leave, saying that they tried to escape but now they must return because they are the ones who are haunted, not the house.

Back at home, Ursula and Russ are having a company put in alarms and motion sensors and have ordered guard dogs. They tell Bela to stay close and not go anywhere without them. Bela thinks about how angry Other Mommy gets when she says no and worries that she will be even angrier “when she realizes the entire house is saying no” (238).

The trainers have brought two guard dogs and explain the rules of keeping them to Bela’s family, noting that the dogs will only accept visitors after they have been trained to recognize their scent. Ursula asks if they can patrol the whole house, and the trainers are surprised, explaining that this is unnecessary since they will keep anyone from getting in via the yard or bottom floor. There is no reason for them to go upstairs. Ursula is skeptical, but the trainers reassure her that they will be completely safe.

Ursula calls Grandma and tells her about the alarms and the dogs, explaining that she can come over if she feels worried or like she needs help at any time. The household is tense and off-kilter, with the dogs alerting when a neighbor walks past the door. Bela frets that all of this is her fault. She knows she could make it go away if she said yes to Other Mommy, but then she worries about where she would go if she said yes to her. She feels like her family is trapped in this state forever.

Bela wakes up and sees Daddo sitting on the couch. She tells him that she needs to go to the bathroom, and he reluctantly goes with her down the hall, saying that the house has been creaking. She makes him wait for her in the doorway, and then they hurry back to the living room, where Mommy is sleeping on a mattress. She sits up and says she heard them laughing in the kitchen.

The parents say they will take turns sleeping but are startled when one of the dogs appears in the doorway and stares at them before returning to the front door. Daddo says both he and Mommy will stay awake but urges Bela to try to sleep.

Bela listens to her parents argue. Daddo has found various people online who say they are experts in hauntings, but none of them look trustworthy. Mommy complains that she feels trapped in the house and that she didn’t know motherhood would include being trapped because of hauntings. Bela falls asleep as they bicker.

She awakens in her dark bedroom. When Bela calls for her parents, Kelvin answers. He tells her they are having a party downstairs and that they called him because she needed a friend. While he talks with her, his eyes change color, and sometimes he appears to have hairy hands, indicating that this is actually Other Mommy impersonating Kelvin. He tells Bela that her parents aren’t doing well and that if he and Bela switched places, even for a day, he could get them to fall in love with one another again. Bela thanks him for the offer and says that she wants to go see the party first.

She hurries downstairs and finds the dogs at the bottom of the staircase, growling. The house is dark, and she wakes her parents, who do not remember falling asleep or turning out the lights. They all rush outside, and she tells them about Kelvin. Daddo calls the real Kelvin, who confirms that he has been nowhere near their house.

As they stand in the yard, Daddo calls one of the supernatural experts and asks him to come help them.

The expert, Brian, is a tall, bald man in all black. He is stern and business-like with the family, demanding to look through the house alone and saying that he won’t call Other Mommy a ghost or demon, just a very big pest. He also refuses to look at any video footage, saying that he will know the real thing if he sees it himself. He tells them he is going to trick it.

Grandma comes over and they greet her outside. Indoors, Brian has set up a station at the dining room and keeps tape-recording parts of the house. Grandma asks them if they trust Brian, and Daddo says no, but he is all the help they have right now. They introduce the dogs to her scent and invite her in the house with them.

Daddo and Brian are asleep, and Grandma has gone home. Bela sits up with her mother, who tells her that she is proud of how brave Bela is being. She reminisces about meeting Daddo in college. While she talks, she surfs the web on her laptop, and Bela can see her searching terms like “exorcism” and “demon.” She tells Bela that she loves her husband but that they are very different people. She has darkness in her whereas Daddo is relentlessly cheerful and always looks on the bright side.

Suddenly, Mommy notices that the dogs are in the dining room. They enter and see Brian awake, staring at Other Mommy, who is floating kneeling above the carpet. He tells them to be quiet and reaches to touch Other Mommy. Her mouth opens and her jaw drops all the way to the floor. Daddo comes in and they yell at Brian to get away. Other Mommy begins to roar, and the wind she creates blows everyone back. Brian keeps trying to touch her and refuses to leave the room, finally getting flung against the wall.

Other Mommy vanishes. Brian sits up and, suddenly very cheerful, begins gathering his things. He tells them that all he has ever wanted was to see one, and now that he has, he is leaving. They follow him outside and Daddo tries to punch him, but misses. Brian knocks him down and leaves.

A neighbor approaches and asks if they need the police. They say no, and as he leaves, they resolve to solve the problem themselves.