I’ll never forget the day this all began. I was juggling way too many shopping bags in a parking lot, muttering curses under my breath, when a guy in his 50s suddenly appeared and asked, “Need help?” I hesitated, but nodded. He tossed the bags into my trunk like they weighed nothing, gave me a quick nod, and walked away. No introduction. No small talk.
Weird, but harmless… or so I thought.
Then I started seeing him everywhere — grocery store, coffee shop, gas station. He never approached me again. Just stared. At first I brushed it off as coincidence… until I spotted him across the street from my house, eyes fixed on my front door.
That was it. I marched toward him, heart pounding.
“What the hell do you want?”
He flinched, like he didn’t expect me to confront him. Up close, I noticed details I’d missed before: a faded blue windbreaker frayed at the cuffs, an old messenger bag slung across his chest, tired eyes framed by deep lines.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said quietly. “We need to talk.”
“You’ve been following me. That’s stalking,” I shot back.
“I didn’t know how else to approach you,” he said, voice cracking with nerves. “Could we talk somewhere else? Maybe a café?”
Against my better judgment — and after texting a friend to be ready to call the cops — I agreed to meet him at Cedar Street Café.
He was already there when I arrived, sitting in the far corner with two steaming mugs. “I’m Hannah,” I said. “Who are you?”
“Wes,” he answered. “I ordered you a latte… hope that’s okay.”
I didn’t drink it.
“Why are you following me?” I demanded.
He swallowed hard. “I knew your father.”
The words hit me like a punch. My dad died years ago in a car accident — suddenly, painfully. Wes explained that they’d been in the Army together. Best friends. “Your dad saved my life more than once,” he said. “We made a promise — look out for each other’s families if anything ever happened.”
My breath hitched. “Then why come now?”
“I wasn’t in a good place after the Army,” he admitted. “But a few months ago, I found something… something that belongs to you.”
He led me outside to his beat-up station wagon and lifted a cardboard box from the trunk. Inside were envelopes, journals, photographs — all with my dad’s handwriting. Letters addressed to me that he never got to send.
My eyes burned. “These are really from him?”
Wes nodded. “He wanted you to have them. I needed to make sure they reached you safely.”
Back at my house, he stayed while I opened the first letter — Dad’s handwriting telling me he was proud of me. That he missed me. That he couldn’t wait to come home.
I cried. Wes didn’t say anything — he just sat there, present and steady.
The man I thought was a stalker turned out to be the last connection to my father I never knew I still needed.
Sometimes strangers enter our lives for reasons we can’t see at first. And sometimes, when we’re brave enough to ask the scary questions, we find answers that heal us.