Innate Fears

I always believed that most kinds of fears were learned. Mostly passed down from parents.

My son's pediatrician confirmed this. Children are born afraid of only two things, she told me: falling and loud noises.

So when my son Ayaan was little, I made it a quiet mission to not teach him any more fears than he came with by default. Never flinching at spiders. Never hushing my voice in the dark. Never letting him see me hesitate at a strange sound. If fear was taught, I wasn't going to be the one teaching it.

It worked. Until he was five, it worked.

Then we moved into a new house, and my son stopped going to his bedroom alone.

It started small. He would hit every light switch on the way to his bedroom. The stairs, the hallway, the entrance. One hand feeling along the wall for the switch and turning it on before he would step through the door. Leaving the night lamp on throughout the night.

I asked him about it the way parents do, circling the real question.

"Is anyone at your school scared of the dark?"

"Did one of your friends tell you a scary story?"

"Did something scary happen in one of your shows?"

No. Nothing like that.

But this was a boy who had wandered our old house at night since he could walk. Who had gone to the basement alone past midnight, at four years old, to get a stuffed animal. Didn't wake us. Didn't need to. A boy who couldn't sleep unless the room was completely dark.

That was our son.

After a few weeks, he wouldn't play in his room even in the afternoon without every light burning.

Then on a Saturday evening, we finished dinner early. The evening had that loose, relaxed weekend feeling that takes you by pleasant surprise.

My wife suggested board games, and Ayaan's face lit up. It had been a rare occurrence in the weeks prior.

I remembered that the box with all the board games was still packed. Sitting in his room with a few others we kept meaning to unpack.

He was already asking which game we'd play. He always picked Snakes and Ladders.

I told him to run up and grab it while his mother and I did the dishes.

The excitement dropped from his face and left him looking worried.

He said he just wanted to watch TV instead.

My wife and I exchanged a look over his head.

I decided I had to tackle the problem once and for all.

I put down the dishes, dried my hands, and sat down across from him at the dining table.

I kept my voice just as I’d been keeping it for a month. Easy. Warm. Careful.

"Want me to come up with you?"

He nodded. Fast and hard, the way children nod when relief and embarrassment arrive at the same time.

"You used to go upstairs by yourself. In the old house. Remember?"

He remembered. I could see that he did.

"What changed, buddy?"

He looked at the table. He was searching for something. Not an excuse. More like a translation. Something he'd felt that didn't have five-year-old words yet.

I almost asked him to keep looking. I wish I had.

"I don't like going in my room by myself."

He paused.

"And I don't like it when it's dark."

I thought about every spider I hadn't flinched at. Every dark room I'd walked into first. Every careful, deliberate thing I had done so he would never sit across from me and say exactly this.

Five years, and here we were.

I told him it was still just his room. Same walls. Same carpet. Same toys where he'd left them. The dark didn't add anything. It just meant the lights were off.

He wasn't convinced.

I stood up to end the conversation.

He didn't move.

"Daddy." Smaller now. "Can we go back to our old house? I don't like it here. I feel bad."

I crouched down in front of him. I offered the guest room instead.

"I don't like any rooms when it gets dark."

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then I made a decision. I told myself it was the right one.

"We're going to go up together. And we're going to sit in your room with the lights off."

His mouth opened.

"For five minutes. We'll just sit there together. You'll see. Nothing happens. Nothing is different in the dark."

I filed the terror on his face under irrational and kept going.

I told him I'd hold his hands the whole time. That Mommy would stand right outside with her hand on the light switch. That all he had to do was say the word and the lights would come on.

Tears came down his face.

I took his hand anyway.

We went up without turning on any lights along the way.

"Daddy, please."

"Nearly there."

The hallway was dark. He pulled against me with every step, not dramatically, not a tantrum, just a slow, steady resistance.

We stopped in front the dark rectangle of his room’s doorway.

I crouched down to his height. His face was wet. His eyes were fixed on the darkness behind me.

I told him it was going to be alright.

I was certain of that.

I want to be clear about that part. I was completely certain.

We stepped in to the darkness.

The door stayed open behind us. My wife's shadow fell across the threshold. I could hear her breathing from there.

We sat on the floor in the middle of the room. Cross-legged. His hands in mine. I could feel his pulse in his fingers.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Then I could see him. Just enough. His face pale and still, watching me.

His hands were trembling.

I smiled. The kind of smile you manufacture.

"See? Just your room. Nothing here."

He said nothing. His eyes moved around me. Slowly. Checking, not looking.

I followed his lead without meaning to. The outline of his bed. The Lightning McQueen poster. The dresser. The stacked moving boxes.

Everything exactly as it should be.

He tugged at my hands.

"It's alright. I've got you."

He tugged again. Harder this time. I tightened my grip.

Then he stopped.

I loosened my hands and he pulled them back. I told him he didn't have to hold hands if he didn't want to.

"I wasn't pulling away."

"You just pulled your hands from mine, buddy."

He shook his head again. Slowly. His mouth barely moving, like he was afraid of the volume of his own voice.

That was when I noticed he was no longer sitting where he'd been. He'd moved back. Six inches, maybe more.

I was trying to read his face. I was focused on that, on keeping my expression neutral and calm, on being the thing he needed me to be.

My eyes drifted. Just slightly. Past his shoulder.

The darkness behind him was different from the rest of the room. Denser somehow.

A coldness that had nothing to do with the draft settled in my chest.

I hadn't finished the thought when my son slid backwards across the floor.

Not shuffled. Not shifted. Slid. Fast and hard, like something with intention.

His arms came up like they did when he was two years old and wanted to be picked up.

That old helpless gesture. His mouth opened.

I lunged.

I don't remember deciding to. My body went before my mind gave the instruction.

He went back again. One hard pull. Then I couldn’t see him at all.

"Neha, the lights!" I yelled.

She was already in the room and feeling around for the switch.

"What's happening?" she said.

I was on the floor where he'd been. Feeling around. The carpet, his sock, a toy car, nothing, nothing.

The lights came on.

My wife stood by the door, hand still on the switch, face not yet caught up with what her eyes were showing her.

The room was exactly as it had been.

His bed. The poster. The dresser. The boxes.

And just the two of us.

I was still reaching forward but my hands were empty.

Ayaan knew. He had known for weeks.

He'd been moving through that house the way you move when something is tracking you: lights on, door open, never alone. Every light switch. Every step careful.

I’d looked at his fear and seen a puzzle I needed to solve.

He had looked into the dark and seen a truth I was too logical to admit.

I was so certain fear was the thing I had to protect him from.

I never considered that fear was the only thing keeping him safe.