This excerpt is from my memoir Not My Story To Tell.

One other party turned out to be very memorable. Justine had invited some friends for a hot tub party and sleepover. She was about eighteen. I was home but they didn’t need any supervision. Greg was working overnight and I just stayed in my bedroom watching TV so they could watch movies in the family room and use the hot tub on the deck. I fell asleep and woke up to the sound of the doorbell ringing and knocking on the front door. I waited for the girls to answer it, but it continued. I was annoyed because I was awakened and I could hear the girls were still awake and not bothering to answer. I finally dragged myself up and went to the door. A very stoned goth boy was weaving in front of me. I thought that if I just gently nudged him he might fall over. I felt a little sorry for him. He looked pathetic.

I said, “The girls are in the back. I’ll see if they want you to join them.”

He perked up slightly and asked to use the washroom.

I said, “Sure,” and pointed him toward the bathroom. I went into the family room to tell the girls off for not answering the door and making me get up. I told them a guy was at the door.

Justine said, “Was it a guy with black hair?”

I answered, “Yes.” They all screeched.

Justine said, “Did you get rid of him?” I told them that he was in the bathroom. Justine ran to the washroom and listened at the door.

She said, “I think he’s in the shower!”

“What?” I asked

“Oh,” she replied, “he’s just washing his hands.”

She said, “Get rid of him,” and she went to join her friends leaving me responsible for getting a guy out of the house. When he finally came out of the bathroom, I scooted him toward the door saying,

“Sorry, bud. The girls don’t want you here.” I gently pushed him out the door and locked it. I went back to tell the girls. That’s when they told me he had been terrorizing them all night. The girls had been in the hot tub and Justine started getting scared. She said she could see someone in the backyard in the dark. Justine had been known to see things at other times and she did get scared easily. She always thought Sam would find her. He had threatened her and warned her not to tell anyone what he did or he would come after her. She thought she saw him at school one day at recess and I got a call that she was hysterical. The girls laughed and thought she was just seeing things. She insisted she could see someone watching them. Sure enough, they saw him too! They all screamed, and ran into the house and locked the patio door. He came up onto the deck and knocked on the door. He was peeking in.They were really scared. He went away for a while and returned to the front door where I let him in. I looked out the window and realized the sun was coming up. It was six o’clock.

Greg arrived home from work an hour later and I told him what had happened. Of course he wasn’t too happy with my decision to let a strange boy into the house when he wasn’t home. It was difficult to explain that I honestly thought it was around eleven o‘clock and that he seemed very harmless.

That afternoon as Greg was cutting the lawn,he called for me to go outside. He had found something he wanted me to see. It was a gun lying beside the house. We knew we needed to call the police. Again I had to explain that I had opened the door and invited a strange boy into the house at 5:30 a.m. after he had been spying on my daughter and her friends and terrifying them. Again, I got a scolding.This time from the police. They said that the girls had the right to call the police.

The kicker is that this boy’s father was chief of police. These guys had to go to their boss’s house and explain what his son had been doing all night. I’m quite sure no charges were laid and the gun turned outto be a very realistic-looking pellet gun. Wasn’t that a party!