In Plain Sight

I had just moved into my new house a week ago. I was on my morning run when I felt as if someone was following me. I looked back, but there was no one. As I continued my run, I had an eerie feeling that someone was still following me. However, there was no one around, aside from two other joggers who were much further away. I finished my run and, as I reached my house, I noticed a set of muddy footprints that ended at my doorstep.

I walked in and found no footprints inside. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Not wanting to waste time, I got ready for work. At the mirror, I was startled to see a strange woman standing behind me. I turned around at once, but no one was there. I turned back to the mirror, wondering whether I was going crazy. The woman was gone. I wondered whether I was pushing myself too hard at work.

I called in sick and got in bed, but I couldn’t fall asleep. What if I wasn’t seeing things? What if the woman in the mirror was the one responsible for the muddy footprints at my door? Was she the one following me during my run? I was wondering whether she even resembled me, although both her skin was paler and her hair was lighter. I wondered whether it was a psychological issue and visited my parents to ask if anyone in the family had a similar issue. When they heard what I had to say, they asked me to sit down to talk. Their faces grew gloomy all of a sudden.

“What’s the matter, mom? Just what is it that happened?”

“Three years after we got married, your father and I tried to have a baby, but the doctor said that I had endometriosis. The treatment didn’t work, so we decided to adopt, but the child we wanted to adopt was taken away by her grandparents. But a few months later, someone had left a baby in our trunk when we were shopping at a grocery store.”

“In your trunk? How is that even possible? And wait, are you saying that I’m that child?”

“I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you sooner, hon. We were scared that you’d leave us.”

“I wouldn’t leave you, mom. I know you two love me more than anything, and I love you two as well. Besides, whoever my parents were, they left me in a stranger’s car; I would never go back to them. But I do need to know if this could be some genetic psychological problem.”

Mom and dad’s eyes were welling with tears. I hugged them tightly for a minute before they could gather their thoughts. They had never found out who the parents were. I started seeing a therapist from the next day on. I kept seeing the woman on the street and at supermarkets, but she always disappeared without a trace. I was once stuck in traffic and she walked up to my car and touched the window. The person in the car behind me then startled me by hitting the horn; and in that split second, the woman was gone again.

I drove home wondering if I really saw her or whether I was seeing things. My therapist said it would take time to come up with a diagnosis, but I was too impatient. Having to wait made me more and more anxious by the day. I avoided mirrors unless it was absolutely necessary and was always watchful of everyone and everything around me. I even kept a steel rod next to my bed for safety. One day, I was woken up by a sudden noise.

The woman was there, standing before me. I sat up and moved back against the bedpost; the woman walked backwards, towards the mirror, and vanished into the air. My body was trembling, but I grabbed the steel rod and got off the bed. I walked up to the mirror and I hit it with the rod. Not knowing how much energy I had put into that swing, I found myself breaking the wall. I instantly jumped back and dropped the rod as a skeleton fell out of it. I quickly got back to my feet and called the police.

A few days later, it was revealed that the skeleton belonged to a woman called Sherry Frazer. When I saw her photo, my heart raced. It was the same woman whom I had seen for weeks. She had been trying to show me where her skeleton was. But the surprises didn’t end there: we soon found out that she was my biological mother. She had been killed by my biological father, who had told her he was single when they first met. He was also a big businessman and had not wanted the truth to get out. If my biological mother had not put me in my adoptive parents’ car, I may have suffered the same fate as well.

Even though those weeks were a nightmare beyond words, I was at least glad I was able to bring to justice the man who stole my biological mother’s life.