I sighed. That felt like the understatement of the century. Stalked. I nodded. ‘Yeah. But I think it might not just be bullies, or whatever. This feels premeditated, and I think it might have something to do with my –’

He sighed. ‘You at the high school?’ I nodded again; he grunted again. ‘Tell ya what: I think this is a case of nasty kids getting a little too brave. Hm? Trying to scare ya, or something.’

This was enough. He was wrong, everyone was wrong, and they all needed to listen to me now, needed to understand that this was something bigger. ‘No. Sir, I’m sorry –’

‘I’ll have a chat with the principal there. Maybe he can keep an eye out, have an assembly, something –’

‘Sir, I think this might be something to do with my dad.’

Everybody froze. The officer straightened his back, and said awkwardly, ‘Oh, er – yes, we all heard, and I, I am sorry for your loss –’

‘Thank you for coming by,’ Mom said, and laid a hand on his arm to escort him outside. ‘We appreciate it. I’ll just, ah, maybe look into some security systems. Are there any you’d recommend?’ Click.

I stood there, unmoving and sort of embarrassed, until she emerged again.

‘Sydney Francis, I – what are you doing?’

‘Why are you mad at me? I –’

‘Do you realize how that makes me look?’

‘Yeah, sorry to embarrass you in front of that one police officer.’

She repeated my name, loudly.

‘What do you mean? Why won’t you listen to me? It’s all here. All of it. I can show you. I didn’t tell you on Christmas because I didn’t want to upset you, but that present in the mailbox –’ I tapped furiously on my phone screen – ‘it was from them. Whoever did this. It was some book about how being gay is a sin, with Dad’s obituary taped inside of it, Mom.’

This, of all things, seemed to have gotten through to her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I threw my hands up, exasperated. ‘Because I thought you would do this!’

‘We’re going to figure out something to do about whoever this is. I promise. OK? But –’ and then her eyes glazed over – ‘but no more of this, Sydney. OK? No more about Daddy. I hate to see you like –’

And then I left, stomped up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door behind me.

Later I sat in bed thinking of a conversation I’d had with him a couple of years before. We were watching Twilight Zone and I was thinking about how crap it would be to know some insane truth but have nobody who will believe you, and I said, ‘Promise me if some crazy shit happens to me one day – like I get abducted by aliens or kidnapped by ghosts or something – and I tell you about it, then you gotta believe me.’