These are the words people used to describe my father before the parking lot. Good neighbor. Nice guy. A man you'd wave to on your way to work.
"Did you let him in?" My fingernails are digging crescents into my kneecap.
"No." Her voice firms. "I told him I didn't have a message to send back and closed the door. Locked it. Watched through the window until he drove away."
I dig my nails into my kneecap. "What was he driving?"
"Dark truck. Blue or black, older model." She exhales. "I didn't get the plate."
I close my eyes. My molars ache from clenching. "Mom, we need to change your locks."
She clears her throat. "I'm calling a locksmith this morning."
"And I'm coming over." I'm already standing, pulling open my dresser drawer.
Her breath hitches. "Saylor?—"
"I'm coming over." I yank a sweatshirt off the shelf. "Don't argue with me."
She doesn't argue. She says okay in a voice so small it makes my ribs hurt.
I get dressed in the dark and don't bother with coffee.
I get to her house in eleven minutes because the speed limit is a suggestion when your mother is alone and a man from your father's world knows where she sleeps.
Her porch light is on.
She's at the kitchen table when I let myself in. Two mugs of coffee already poured, because even when she’s scared, even when she’s shaken, my mother takes care of people.
I sit across from her and wrap my fingers around the mug and we look at each other.
"He found a way." My voice is flat.
She nods.
"The letters weren't enough. The calls weren't enough." I stare at the coffee. "So he sent someone."
My mother's palms are flat on the table. Mirror images of mine on the counter every time the fear gets loud. "We don't know what this man wants, Saylor."
"He wants access." The word tastes like the inside of a locked car. "Dad can't reach me, so he sent someone who can."
I set the mug down harder than I mean to. "A messenger. Except the messenger is a stranger who showed up at your house at nine o'clock at night with my graduation photo and a smile."
She reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist. "We've handled worse."
Her voice steadies as she says it. "We changed our name. We rebuilt. We'll handle this too."
"Mom, a man you've never met knows where you live." My voice is climbing. "He knows my name, my face, what school I went to. He knows prison things. Cell-to-cell things."
Her grip on my wrist tightens. "I know, baby."
"Dad's been talking about us. For years. Handing pieces of our lives to someone, and now that someone is out and standing on your porch."
She pulls my arm toward her until my wrist is resting on the table between both her palms.
"We'll change the locks. We'll be careful. And if he comes back, we'll call the police."
The police.