The Stalker who Came into my House
Late at night, I pulled into the gravel drive of my 1930s cottage and descended the concrete steps to my basement bedroom. My fingers fumbled with the keys as I entered my home.
My teen kids were at their dad’s for the weekend. I had just returned from a speaking event in Salt Lake City, an hour’s drive north. After a long workday and the event, I was exhausted.
My basement room had been converted into an apartment in the 1970s. Mustard yellow Formica countertops and avocado green appliances greeted me as I locked the door and flipped on the light switch. I had turned the kitchen into my art studio, the laundry room just beyond, connected to upstairs.
Too tired to find pajamas, I tossed my clothes onto the carpet, hit the light-switch, and climbed into bed. Clicking on my bedside lamp, I reached beneath my mattress for my journal, the perfect hiding spot—accessible but out of sight from my teens. My hand met empty space.
Confused, I reached further, sweeping my hand up and down. No journal.
Perplexed, I left the bed. Kneeling in my underwear, I propped the mattress up. The leather journal lay near the foot of the bed.
Dread washed over me like fog seeping under a doorway. I didn’t reach for it—any more than I would touch a landmine. I knew where I had left it the night before. My kids had been gone two days. They wouldn’t have moved it.
Doubt clouded the truth I suspected. Had they stopped by? Had they moved it for some reason?
I stood shakily and turned the bedroom light back on. My ears strained for any sound in the "empty" house.
Then, I saw the belt.
My world began to tunnel. Cartoons always depict portals pulling characters through against their will. That’s what this felt like—my reality closing in.
Hanging on a nail in the wall was the leather belt I had given my former boyfriend’s son.
We had broken up months ago. He was openly partying with other women at bars, seemingly moved on. But here was the belt—one only he had. And my journal had been moved—the same journal he read without my permission when we were dating. Had he come into my house and read it again? I couldn’t process the implications.
I remembered how he had changed the locks when we were together, saying it would "make things easier" for me by having matching keys for every door. Had he kept a key to my house?
The house felt ominous. Was he here?
My ears pulsed. My breath was shallow as I tried to stay silent. Was he here in the house with me?
Memories crashed over me: his erratic, drunken rages. The day he held me captive until I broke free and ran towards the neighbors house for help. The way he told me no one else would ever love me. The day I kicked him out and he growled, "You will come crawling back to me," slamming the door. The text he sent weeks after the break up when I finally took pictures of us off my walls: "It makes me sad you took our pictures down."
The late-night phone calls from his best friend since our breakup: "I don’t know if he’s headed your way. He just left my house. He’s not in a good place. You may not be safe." Always trying to give me a 30-minute head start.
I stood in the dim light of my wood-paneled cottage, half-naked and alone. My arms crossed over my stomach as if cradling an ache. My hands shook as I dialed a friend who had been at the event and was likely just getting home.
The ringtone purred once. Twice. The silence in between stretched unbearably. She picked up on the third ring. "Hi!" she answered jovially.
"Can you stay on the phone with me?" My halted whisper changed her tone immediately.
"Yes. What’s going on?"
"I think he may be in the house." I kept my voice low. If he was here, I hoped he couldn’t hear me. I hoped she could call the police if he jumped out. I hoped I would survive. I thought of my three children.
She spoke calmly as I searched room by room, closet by closet, under beds. I double-checked the locks, placed chairs against doors, and hung bells on doorknobs. I peered through the kitchen window into the blackened backyard. Was he out there?
The next day, I called the police. Without cameras or signs of forced entry, there was nothing they could do.
From then on, I never entered the house alone at night without calling that same friend. She stayed on the line as I checked every nook and cranny.
I blocked him on social media in every way I could think of. Still, he routinely parked next to my car at work during closing time, forcing me to walk past him. Twice, he brought different girlfriends. I wondered if they knew why they were there. If they knew they were next in line. My boss and coworkers were becoming worried. We held a company meeting to plan what to do if he ever entered the premises. I was embarrassed. I felt like a problem everyone had to accommodate.
The police told me there was no law preventing him from parking where he wanted—unless he made a direct threat.
Eventually, I moved away.
One evening, my teenage daughter returned from work. "I saw him at the restaurant tonight," she said casually.
My alarm bells rang. She had no knowledge of what had been going on.
"What did he do?"
"Nothing. He just stood there."
Had he found us? Was it coincidence? Had he followed her home?
For three more years, he "happened" to be at places I was. He remarried and so did I. My public events were often advertised. When I was seven months pregnant, I arrived at an art show. A colleague warned me before I even unloaded my car. "He’s here."
We were in a city neither of us lived in. It made no sense—my Samoan husband was there too. He stood with his arms crossed, glaring until my ex left, tail tucked. My husband, originally planning to drop me off, stayed the entire event.
Then the pandemic shut the world down. He faded into irrelevance. I was busy with a new baby, building a business.
The last time I saw him was at a charity gala two years ago. He sat at a table with a new girlfriend—his second marriage now over. When the audience rose to applaud him for his charitable contributions, I stayed seated. I left without saying goodbye.
As I write this, I do so because of my writing group with JOA Publishing. Our leader challenges us to say the unsaid, to write the unwritten.
And as I write, I unravel years of suppression. Years of fear pushed aside for survival. Caring for my family, running my studio, focusing on my marriage to a good man—all took priority.
But this has been waiting to be said.
A part of me was unheard, dismissed. A woman who asked for help and wasn’t believed. A woman told to stay silent for the "greater good." A woman without money or influence, easily discarded.
He used to say, "Katie is a storyteller—always telling stories." He said it to discredit me, to imply I wove tall tales.
But I am a storyteller.
And this story matters.
grateful for you.
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