The Stalker

The wind rushed through an echoing home with only a television screen and an open window seen from the street. He can't do it again, Patricia thought. Someone had stalked her for eighteen years. Far too long; she must take a stand. Her queer and unexpected marriage hadn't stopped the harassment.

She was terrified.

The courier stopped to admire her yard, carefully tended with dirt and stone, her husband in the back with a wheelbarrow. The postman brought ten postcards and a box of poems. He can't do it again, she thought.

She was terrified.

Her stalker knew her birthplace, too, and shaped cookies of Ohio in a tin box with the postcards. His apology wasn't true to her. Hazel eyes and blue eyes had locked together once in a sitting room. She knew him.

She was terrified.

Patricia knew the game hadn't ended, but the stalker forgot the fun of it when the lawyers made their run.

He was terrified.

A victim shouldn't have to pay once in fact and once in court, so the stalker whispered he was guilty—for sending postcards and a box of poems asking for forgiveness. His love was so very wrong, his heart was raw and his song was long.

He was terrified.

Her phone was silent for many months but each mail brought further fears, until the fox and hound changed places. She knew then what the stalker meant when he said to trust him and his dangerous faith. They'd known each other in this strange relationship long enough to know each other well. I can do it now, he wrote, I can stop.

He can't do it, she thought, he can't quit the game, it won't work, he's too weak.

But the apology was finally there—

Please God no fear. She gazed at her husband, placing shrubs in the back yard, and knew it was over. How did she know? Her husband the defendant, and she the patient deer bowed low for the next call.

Co-dependence is a dreadful thing. She finished the bottle and smiled. He wiped his face with a dirty hand. Their eyes locked, the stalker and the victim.