David told me what the man said when the police finally caught him. They had questioned him about why he ran from my house. He had been shivering and sweating, completely rattled by the encounter.

He told the officer exactly what happened when he heard my voice coming from the porch speaker. The officer wrote it down in the report, and David read it out loud to me. “That old lady never sleeps,” the man had said. “She is always just waiting for me to show up.”

I looked at the doorbell on the wall. It looked so small and innocent. I realized then that I wasn’t just watching the neighborhood. I was being watched back. I sat there in the silence of my living room, and for the first time in months, I didn’t want to look at the screen. I just wanted to close my eyes and forget that anyone was out there at all. I looked at David, and he just held my hand tighter. “It’s okay,” he whispered. I don’t think it is.