Stacy, my neighbor from across the hall, had this habit of letting her little boy run wild in the hallway.

“It’s safe, Caitlin,” she’d tell me. “And anyway, it’s our version of playing outside.”

And she would close the door on Nate. Usually, I would hear giggling on the other side, making it known that Stacy had company.

“I just need some alone time,” she said to me one day when we were downstairs in the laundry room. “I’m a grown woman who has needs. I’m sure you understand. You’re a single mother, too.”

I did understand. But I would never let my little boy wander around the hallways unattended. As much as we all vaguely knew each other, there was still that element of unsafety.

My son, Jackson, was a little older than Nate, but we felt bad watching him wander around by himself. He would always be walking around aimlessly, clutching a worn-out teddy bear.

“Mom,” Jackson said when he was playing with his train set. “Let’s just invite him to play.”

I was glad my son had suggested it because I was thinking the same thing. I just wanted to keep Jackson safe, and watching Nate run around made me feel uneasy.

So, we started inviting him over, sharing snacks and toys, with the boys watching movies or cartoons. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to make Nate smile.

“I don’t think his mom plays with him,” Jackson told me when he came to get a glass of juice. “He said he likes to play with someone.”

And do you know what the best part was? Stacy barely seemed to notice or care. Once she realized that her son was safe in my home, she just let herself have more fun. And soon, the hours of her fun began to get longer.

At the end of it, she would waltz over and knock on the door.

“I’m here for my son,” she would say. “We’re ready for bath time and bedtime.”

And as time went by, Nate had gotten so used to the routine that he would simply knock on the door when his mother let him out.

“Hello,” he’d say, clutching the teddy bear. “I’m here to play.”

But one day, I took Jackson over to my parents’ house because it was my mother’s birthday.

“I hope Nate’s going to be okay,” Jackson said in the car as we drove away.

“Oh, honey,” I said from the front seat.

“Me too, but that’s why his mom is around. She has to keep him safe, too.”

My son nodded in the rearview mirror.

When we came home that evening, we found the hallway walls covered in marker drawings. It was a mess of stick figures, squiggly lines, and what looked like an attempt at a sun.

“Nate sure had fun,” I said, looking for the apartment key in my bag.

“Isn’t he going to get into trouble?” Jackson asked, looking nervously at the drawing.

“Well, I guess so,” I replied, letting us into the house.

“But his mom should clean it up before anyone else sees it.”

Of course, I was wrong.

Weeks went by, and Stacy didn’t lift a finger to clean up the mess. I figured that the building management would eventually catch on and ask maintenance to cover it, or make her pay for the damage.

“Should we clean it?” Jackson asked, looking under the sink at our detergents.

“No, honey,” I said. “I love that you want to, but it’s for Nate and his mom to sort out.”

But now, imagine my shock when I got slapped with a $500 fine taped to my front door!

“What the actual hell is this?” I muttered to myself.

The letter from the management claimed that my son was responsible for the vandalism.

“Vandalism? But it’s just a child drawing from his imagination!” I exclaimed.

After all we did to help Stacy and her child, this was how she repaid us? I was furious.

I knocked on Stacy’s door, hoping to settle things fairly. Look, it was possible that maintenance or management thought it was Jackson. It would have just been a simple misunderstanding.

But Stacy’s response made my jaw drop.

“Well, Caitlin, you were supposed to look after him while he was in the hallway. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing? You’ve taken it upon yourself. So, it’s your fault that the walls are ruined now.”

The actual audacity of this woman astounded me.

“You just wanted me to take care of your kid because you were too busy for him,” I said tactlessly, walking away.

But I wasn’t about to let this slide. I had been nice, but enough was enough.

So, I came up with a sneaky plan.

I washed the hallway walls in the middle of the night, making sure that I was quiet.

And then the next day, when Jackson and I had were home from school, Stacy opened her door. She looked at the clean walls and smirked at me before letting Nate out of the house.

“What’s in your backpack?” Jackson asked him, moving aside so that Nate could enter.

“Toys and markers and paper and crayons,” he said, counting them off his fingers.

After some snacks and games, I casually suggested that Nate go outside and have some fun.

“Go be an artist, darling! Go draw on the walls like you did before!”

His eyes beamed. I felt bad that I was setting him up, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t about Nate. It was about teaching his mother a lesson.

“Mom, really?” Jackson asked, amused.

“Yes, I have to show Stacy how to be a mom. Now, you stay inside and do your homework. When we’re done, the three of us can make some pizza and watch a movie. Deal?”

“Deal!” he said, running off to the dining table to do his homework.

Sure enough, while I was talking to Jackson, Nate had gone to town on the hallway again, and I made sure to capture it all on video, with clear shots of the markers and the little artist in action.

When he was done, I put my phone away and called him in for pizza.

The next day, I casually dropped the video into a conversation with the building manager, feigning shock and disappointment at the ongoing mess.

“Can you believe it, Thomas?” I asked, showing him the footage on my phone. “I thought the first time was bad, but this… This is extreme.”

The manager’s face turned crimson as he watched.

“This is unacceptable,” he muttered. “I’ll handle it. And when I’m done, I’ll need to sort out cameras in every hallway.”

Later that afternoon, the management confronted Stacy with the evidence. She couldn’t deny it. The fine was transferred to her, and she received a stern warning about supervising her kid.

But I didn’t stop there. I wanted to be petty.

When I was in the laundry room, I spread the word among our neighbors, who were just as tired of Stacy’s antics.

In the hallway, I overheard a conversation between two neighbors.

“Did you hear about Stacy? She tried to blame her kid’s mess on someone else. Unbelievable.”

“I know, right! Some people just have absolutely no shame.”

Hearing their disdain was a small but satisfying victory. And Stacy’s reputation was tarnished. Everyone knew that she abandoned her son when she wanted alone time. But since then, I started noticing her keeping a closer eye on her son, who no longer roamed the halls unsupervised.

One day, as I was heading back with groceries, I ran into Stacy in the hallway. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and a frazzled expression. Her son clung to her leg, looking equally worn out.

She mumbled a half-hearted apology.

“I didn’t realize… I mean, I shouldn’t have…”

I cut her off, uninterested.

“Just keep an eye on Nate. He’s a wonderful little boy,” I said.

She nodded, smiling slightly.