…”Ring 4B. Ask for Jess. Tell her her mom sent you, and wait until she comes down.”
I called my mom. It was 2:20 a.m. She picked up on the sixth ring, groggy and scared. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
She’d never ordered an Uber in her life. She didn’t even know she had an account.
Downstairs, Tom was at the door, pressing the buzzer. I didn’t answer it. I watched from the window as he stood there, then looked at his phone again. And then he did something I’ll be grateful for forever. He stepped back, walked to his car, and called someone. A few minutes later, a patrol car pulled up behind his Camry.
Tom had called the police himself. He told the officer later that in twenty years of driving, he’d never had a ride from an address to the same address, at two in the morning, with a note like that. “Something felt wrong,” he said. “I’ve got a daughter too.”
I went downstairs once the officer was there. My mom stayed on speakerphone the whole time. The officer asked her one question that solved everything. “Who set up your phone for you?”
My ex-boyfriend, Kyle. Two years ago, at Thanksgiving, he’d spent an afternoon “helping” my mom with her new smartphone. He’d made her an email account and set her password. He’d also, apparently, made an Uber account in her name, linked to my email for receipts, and kept the login.
The pickup address on all the late-night rides was a street I didn’t know. The officer looked it up. Kyle had moved there in March.
He’d been riding to my building at 2 a.m. and standing outside. Tonight, I think he wanted to know if I’d come down for a stranger who said my mother sent him. If I would, I’d come down for anyone.
Kyle was arrested a week later for stalking, after police got the records from Uber. My mom got a new phone, set up by me, with a password she wrote on an index card and keeps in her Bible.
I sent Tom a thank-you message through the app. He wrote back the next morning. “Glad you’re safe. Keep your door locked. And call your mom more.” I do now. Every Sunday.
