Lonely housesitter

I am housesitting for the usual family, for the fifth summer in a row.

In the last couple years I have come to dread nights here. Alone with all these empty rooms and just the family's dog, outside darkness and the moaning wind. I am so rarely lonely, but I am terribly lonely here. Lonely and fearful.

I wish I could just take a sleeping pill at nightfall and skip all of it, but the part-time work I'm doing from home is never finished in time for that.