I was driving home from work one evening when I stopped at a gas station I’d never used before. It was raining hard enough that I decided to wait a few minutes before getting back on the highway. The place was nearly empty, except for an older woman sitting at one of the tables near the window. She looked up when I walked inside and smiled like she recognized me.

She said my name.

Not my first name.

My full name.

I stood there for a second because I couldn’t remember ever seeing her before. She apologized and said she must have confused me with someone else. I let it go, bought a bottle of water, and went back to my car. As I pulled onto the highway, I noticed the woman was still watching me through the window.

The next morning, I thought about it again and decided it was probably nothing. I mentioned it to a coworker during lunch, and he laughed when I told him the woman’s name was Eleanor. He said the whole thing sounded like one of those urban legends based on true stories people tell about strangers who know too much.

I forgot about Eleanor until three days later.

She was standing outside my apartment building.

I recognized her immediately. She was wearing the same gray coat she’d had at the gas station, even though it wasn’t raining that day. I didn’t approach her. I watched from across the street until she turned around and walked away.

I called the police, but there wasn’t much they could do. She hadn’t threatened me, and I couldn’t prove she had followed me. The officer suggested I speak with the building manager and keep my doors locked.

That night, someone slipped a photograph under my apartment door.

It showed me standing outside my childhood home.

I knew the picture because of the jacket I was wearing. I had been about ten years old, and the photograph had been taken on my birthday. My parents were standing beside me, but someone had torn them out of the picture.

On the back, there was a date.

I recognized it immediately.

It was the day my father disappeared.

I hadn’t told anyone at the apartment building about that.

I called my mother, but she didn’t answer. I left a message and spent the rest of the night sitting in the living room with every light on. Around three in the morning, I heard someone walking slowly along the hallway outside my apartment.

The footsteps stopped at my door.

Then someone knocked twice.

I didn’t answer.

A woman’s voice said my name.

It was Eleanor.

She told me she wasn’t trying to hurt me. She said there was something I needed to understand about my father, and that she had waited a long time before coming back. I asked her where she had gotten the photograph.

She didn’t answer.

Instead, she said, “Your father wasn’t the person you thought he was.”

I opened the door.

Nobody was there.

The hallway was empty.

I checked the stairs and the elevator, but both were silent. The photograph was still on the floor, though, and there was something written on the back that hadn’t been there before.

Ask your mother about the woman in the basement.

I called my mother again.

This time she answered.

I asked her about Eleanor.

There was a long silence.

Then she asked me where I had heard that name.

I told her everything.

She started crying.

She finally told me Eleanor had been my father’s sister.

I had never known he had a sister.

My mother said they had stopped speaking years before I was born. Eleanor had accused my father of stealing money from their parents and had blamed him for what happened to the family. After my father disappeared, she had tried to contact my mother several times, but my mother had refused to speak with her.

I asked about the basement.

My mother didn’t answer.

I asked again.

She finally said there had been a woman living in the basement apartment of our old house when my father disappeared. She had rented the place for only a few months. Nobody knew where she went afterward.

Her name was Eleanor.

I didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, I searched through my mother’s old photographs. I found one taken outside our childhood house. My father was standing near the front door, and behind him was a woman I had never seen before.

Eleanor.

She looked exactly the same.

The photograph was thirty years old.

I called my mother again and asked her why Eleanor hadn’t aged.

She didn’t respond.

Instead, she said something that I still can’t explain.

“She isn’t your father’s sister.”

I asked what she meant.

My mother said Eleanor had died before my father disappeared.

She had been buried three days before the photograph was taken.

I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Later that afternoon, I went back to the gas station. I wanted to ask the cashier if he remembered her. He did. When I described Eleanor, he immediately knew who I meant.

Then he showed me something behind the counter.

It was a small memorial card.

Eleanor’s photograph was printed on the front.

The date underneath it was from thirty years ago.

I asked why her picture was still there.

The cashier looked confused.

He said the card had been left by an elderly man several years earlier.

“He said she used to come here every Friday.”

I asked when the last time had been.

He checked the back of the card.

“Last Friday.”

I looked at the calendar on the wall.

It was Thursday.

I left without saying anything.

That night, I received another photograph.

This one showed my childhood bedroom.

The picture had been taken from inside the room.

On the back, there were only four words.

You remember now, don’t you?

I didn’t.

But when I turned off the lights, I heard someone walking slowly through my apartment.

And this time, the footsteps stopped beside my bedroom door.