The Woman Across the Street

I never thought I would become the kind of person who slapped an elderly woman in public.

But three weeks before it happened, I started noticing her everywhere.

The first time was outside my husband’s office.

I had arrived early to pick up Ethan for lunch. While waiting in my car, I saw him step out of the building with two coworkers.

That was when I noticed the woman across the street.

She looked to be in her late sixties. Her gray hair was tied loosely behind her head, and she wore a long brown coat despite the warm afternoon.

She was staring directly at Ethan.

Not casually.

Not as if she was trying to remember where she had seen him before.

She watched him with an expression I couldn’t understand.

There was sadness in it.

And fear.

The moment Ethan glanced across the street, the woman lowered her head and walked away.

During lunch, I told him what I had seen.

“There was an older woman watching you outside your office,” I said.

Ethan looked up from his menu. “Watching me?”

“Yes. She was standing across the street, staring at you.”

He smiled as if I had told him something harmless. “Maybe she was waiting for someone.”

“She left as soon as you looked at her.”

Ethan reached across the table and touched my hand.

“Claire, you notice everything,” he said. “Sometimes you notice things that aren’t there.”

I pulled my hand away.

“I know what I saw.”

“I’m not saying you imagined her,” Ethan replied. “I’m saying she probably wasn’t watching me.”

I let it go.

At least, I tried to.

Three days later, I saw the same woman at the grocery store.

Ethan was choosing vegetables while I stood near the end of the aisle. The woman appeared beside a shelf of canned soup.

She wasn’t shopping.

There was nothing in her hands.

She simply stood there, watching my husband place tomatoes into a plastic bag.

This time, I walked toward her.

Before I could reach the shelf, she turned her cart around and disappeared into the next aisle.

I found Ethan near the checkout counter.

“It was her again,” I whispered.

Ethan frowned. “Who?”

“The woman from your office.”

He looked toward the aisles behind me. “Are you sure it was the same person?”

“Yes, Ethan. I’m sure.”

He sighed.

That small reaction made something tighten inside me.

“You still think I’m being paranoid,” I said.

“I think we live in a small town,” Ethan answered. “Seeing the same person twice doesn’t mean she’s following me.”

But it didn’t stop at twice.

That Sunday, she sat three rows behind us at church.

When Ethan turned during the final hymn, the woman immediately looked down at her prayer book.

Two days later, she stood outside the coffee shop near our house.

Again, she watched him.

Again, she disappeared before I could speak to her.

That night, I asked Ethan the question directly.

“Do you know that woman?”

We were sitting in our kitchen. Ethan had been answering emails on his phone, but he stopped scrolling.

“No.”

“Could she know your family?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

Ethan placed his phone on the table.

“My mother died when I was five,” he said. “My father cut ties with everyone on her side of the family after that. I wouldn’t recognize any of them.”

He had told me the story before.

His mother died young.

His father raised him alone.

There were no photographs of her in his childhood home. No relatives who visited. No stories beyond the few details his father had been willing to share.

“I think we should call the police,” I said.

“For what?” Ethan asked. “Looking at me?”

“For following you.”

Ethan shook his head. “We don’t know that she is.”

But I knew.

And the next afternoon, when we walked out of the pharmacy, she was standing beside Ethan’s car.

This time, she didn’t run.

She looked straight at him.

And there were tears streaming down her face.