I let it go to voicemail. He called again. I declined it. He called a third time and I turned the sound off completely. By 4:00, he’d called me 37 times. I knew because I checked the call log while sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop open. Each voicemail was longer and angrier than the last one. The first few were confused, asking why the key wasn’t working and telling me to call him back.
Then they shifted to demanding I stop playing games and let him into his house. By message 20, he was yelling that I couldn’t lock him out of his own home and he’d call the police if I didn’t open the door immediately. I saved every single message. I opened a new folder on my computer and labeled it documentation.
I backed up the voicemails to three different locations. Then I texted him one sentence telling him he could collect his work clothes from the porch, but he wasn’t coming inside. He called again. I didn’t answer. Lily came downstairs around 5:00 and asked if everything was okay. I told her the locks were changed and her stepfather knew it.