I don’t know what woke me up the next night, but something did. Mitch was working late on the ship, again.
“Of course you are gone!” I angrily whispered.
Carefully, I went to the closet and removed our Glock from the safe and went to the front door. However, someone was already there.
“You came to the wrong house, mother-******,” cursed my dark-blue camouflaged husband as he held someone by the collar. “I am calling the cops as soon as I’m done with you, but you know what? I hope that you do come back so that I can finish you off,” he said in a low voice.
My sailor husband then delivered a few more expletives that were quite creative. I heard Dwight make some lame apologies about checking on me and my son. That was when I went outside, holding my gun aloft. Mitch smiled as soon as he saw me.
“You are so lucky that it was me that found you and not my wife.”
Mitch dropped him then.
“Don’t come back here,” I said in a strong, firm voice to the disheveled, trembling man. “The only victim you will find here is yourself.”
The police were called. We filed a report. We filed a restraining order. We lost the friendships of a few of our neighbors. We didn’t particularly care. A transfer came in for Mitch just a few months later; we put our house on the market as soon as we found out.
I stared at the box of notebooks that James had collected.
“What do you want to do with these?” asked Mitch.
Part of me wanted to keep them; James’ paranoia might have saved my life. Instead, I pulled the cord that lead to the crawlspace upstairs. I lugged the notebooks up there myself, too. Once I put them back into their original position, I stared at them for a while. I heard a creak in the floor behind me. I looked back and then saw something that I had dropped – a pen. Inspired, I opened the notebook for 2449 Corsair Drive.
“March 16th, 2012 – Dwight came to my house in the middle of the night to spy through my windows.”
I then closed the notebook and set it on the box, where it would be easy to find. Before leaving the attic, I turned to the empty space and gave it a salute.
“Thank you, James,” I said.
And we left.
