Uninvited

In summer 2021, our family took a trip to the Adriatic coast of Italy. Rimini, which city our rental home was located in, was just a short distance away from the seaside and historic landmarks. And due to last minute booking, we didn't quite plan ahead for the things to do within the area, therefore we decided to just pick an apartment and explore on our own without relying too much on online recommendations. After all, Rimini is a hotspot for tourists and one could assume there would be plenty of activities to fill one whole week.

Our apartment was one of about ten others in the same building. We were given a private parking space, and there was also a common room with TV and karaoke machine. A dining area was provided as well for those who paid to include breakfast during their stay. We preferred doing small groceries to fill the kitchen of our apartment instead of eating the same things for breakfast. Our kid was only 5 years old and she couldn’t possibly enjoy such a buffet. I usually ate a small portion too.

It’s a common courtesy here in Italy to greet new neighbors even if they’re just staying for a short while. Most people would treat this neighborly behavior rather invasive towards their privacy, but we didn’t really mind it. We were quickly introduced to a lady next door who traveled all the way to Rimini from the island of Sicily, and she kindly offered me a foldable drying rack which she had in her apartment and not in ours, claiming that she was going to return to her hometown and wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

Her name was Maria. I saw her again once or twice along the hallway but we simply said hi and went ahead with our day without speaking further, until one afternoon when my kid spilled her whole cup of chocolate milk on her dress and I had to rushingly wash and dry it outside. Maria saw that I was in such a hurry and began inquiring about what just happened. I summarized the whole thing and added that we were supposed to be heading out, but our plan was delayed because of this small incident.

“Oh don’t you worry,” said the friendly Maria. “I’ll look after the laundry while you’re outside. I’m not going anywhere today.”

I thought it was nice of her to watch our stuff. I was beginning to get cranky thinking of the possibility of that dress being blown away by a gust of wind coming from the sea. That kind of worry would spoil our day.

“I couldn’t line it at the balcony,” I told her, adding that it was washed by hand due to its delicate fabric and the water dripping from it would flood our floor inside.

Maria once again reassured me that nothing would happen to our little girl’s precious dress. I spoke of this to my husband before leaving the apartment but he wasn’t paying attention as he was on the phone with an important client. In fact, he completely forgot that Maria was still staying next door and hadn’t gone back to Sicily yet.

We started our day much earlier the next morning because the weather was great for the beach and we wanted to claim the best location where we could relax on the seaside bench while observing our kid playing within a safe distance. The sun after 11 was too strong for my husband as well and he didn’t feel like getting sunburn again as it happened before during our past trips. Never again, he said.

So, that morning we left the apartment without noticing anything different. We were so occupied that day until night time. We woke up the next day still feeling dazed but we didn’t wait too long to start making plans for the day again. For a moment, it didn’t feel like a vacation anymore to me. All the plans were made following my husband’s schedule because he was driving, leaving me as the person who’d clean up the mess after him. If he chose to cook lunch at home instead of eating outside, the dishes would stack up in the sink and be left forgotten until I handled them. This scenario happened to our laundry as well when he’d rush us to go somewhere early to avoid the traffic, leaving the dirty clothes piling up since I couldn’t make time for them.

Inside the car, I voiced out that it felt like a work trip for me and that I should have gone on a vacation by myself so I could have a proper peace of mind instead of having to constantly tend to their needs since nobody else was responsible enough to have this kind of concern. Back at home, my husband could relax after a long tiring day of work, but my chores were never ending to the point I had to stay up at night to finish ironing the laundry just so that tomorrow my husband could have clothes for work and our kid could dress up for school.

It was probably something needless to say, but my opinion had started a small argument between us which completely ruined our mood and anything we said to each other would lead to an even bigger misunderstanding. The atmosphere was so tense. We still went out for sightseeing and trying out food outside, but we were more careful with our attitude in front of our kid. Just like walking on eggshells.

We didn’t realize what was happening around us, apart from us being cold to each other. I forgot to thank Maria for looking after the dress outside and now she was seemingly gone for days. It was hard to ignore her presence since her voice could be heard from a distance whenever she talked to someone.

While having these thoughts to myself, my gaze shifted to the dresser which top was full of my facial care products. They were usually arranged based on my day to night routine, but now it looked like they had been moved around and no longer in order like before. I got up to examine them closer and noticed that my facial mask pack wasn’t there. I knew I had brought it with me because I remembered that I did place it up there on the dresser with the rest of my things.

“Did you use my mask?” I asked my husband. He immediately responded no, in a defensive tone. He continued saying that he wasn’t sure if I had it with us inside the luggage when we were traveling here.

Ah, I must have left it at home, I thought. I must have it all mixed up while packing and forgotten a few things.

Later on, I discovered that my hairbrush handle was broken and reattached carefully using a clear duct tape. It couldn’t have been our little girl.

“No five-year-old could have done this,” I commented while showing the hairbrush to my husband. “She doesn’t even know how to cut the tape properly using the scissors.”

“Are you seriously accusing me of something now?” My husband started getting annoyed.

“Well, I asked Ella and she said she didn’t break it,” I explained. “You said you didn’t either. So who’s lying?”

I could tell my husband was genuinely surprised, just as I was. If our Ella did lie about it, it still couldn’t have been her doing with the attempt to reattach the handle. She didn’t have steady hands to perform such a task.

We both sat at the table, staring silently at the hairbrush I placed there. There was nothing to say as none of us could come up with anything plausible. After a while, I left the apartment to take a stroll alone outside, hoping that the seaside breeze could help clear my head.

It didn’t take long before my husband texted me to inform me that he was going out with our daughter to grab a bite, and would get something for me too. He could fetch me if I told him my location, otherwise I’d just wait outside the apartment for them to return since I didn’t have the keys. He wouldn’t take too long. I replied that I was already walking back to the apartment, so we’d see each other soon.

As I was climbing up the staircase, I was shocked to find a familiar figure standing right in front of our door. At first I wasn’t sure if it was our apartment or the apartment next to ours as from where I was standing, I could only observe from the side. However, I could definitely confirm it was Maria who just closed a door slowly, and turned around to leave. I had to stop her right there, so I approached her where she was. It was our apartment. She just exited our apartment!

“What were you doing in there?” I asked immediately while trying to block her path in that hallway. There was nobody else around and she was pretty much trapped with no one to come to her aid if she was screaming for help.

However, Maria seemed surprisingly calm and she didn’t even try to avoid or escape from me. In fact, she took the time to tell me the whole story from the beginning. She just didn’t expect to bump into me this way as she didn’t know the conversation I had with my husband through texts. She thought I wouldn’t be home so soon.

“You have such a lovely family,” she began. “Your husband is a good man and your daughter is so well-behaved.”

She also observed our lifestyle through our garments and what we had stored in our cupboards inside the apartment, and she could tell that we were quite wealthy. And then she apologized for breaking the handle of my hairbrush.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing next. Maria explained how easy it was to break into our apartment without a key. All she had to do was lodging a gum into the strike plate hole so the latch couldn’t go all the way in. She just needed to slide a thin card made of tough plastic through the gap to pry the door open.

In the end, she never left!

All this time she was hiding in our apartment, inside the large empty wardrobe which was in my daughter’s room. I knew there was nothing in there other than a few folded blankets and the bar was too high for our girl to reach in case she needed to hang some clothes, so we neatly kept her clothes inside the drawer of her bedside cabinet. Maria had been using our things, consuming our food, trying on our clothes, and even borrowing my husband’s cologne which made no sense to be worn by a woman.

I was tremendously horrified beyond words, and I stood there speechless, unsure of what should be done next. It was too difficult for me to think by myself, so I needed my husband to be there with me. I would have called the police but I chose to discuss this matter with my husband first before making any rash decisions. Maria was still seated there on the bench just next to our door, making no attempts to leave at all. She was ready to accept whatever was coming next.

Thankfully, my husband showed up a few minutes later with our little girl next to him. He had a bag of takeaway food with him and he was pleased to see the way I ran towards him instead of scolding him again over a broken hairbrush, and he thought I must have finally gotten over it.

“It was Maria!” I exclaimed. “She has been in our apartment for days!”

My husband frowned a little, and looked rather worried as I pointed towards the bench where Maria was sitting. I saw his reaction and turned. To my greatest shock, Maria was gone!

How did she leave, I had no idea. Even while running towards my husband which was literally only a few steps away, my eyes were still locked on her. I kept turning back to make sure she was still there but somehow she managed to escape.

“Didn’t you see?” I asked my husband. “Didn’t you see Maria sitting there?”
My husband shook his head. “No, honey. There was no one there.”

“I swear she was there!” I repeated. “I just talked to her, the same woman who gave us her drying rack that day.”

This time, my husband firmly told me that there was nobody sitting there. If there was any, and if this person actually walked away as I claimed, he would have seen them.

There must have been a mistake, I thought. I demanded to contact the owner of the building as I was very sure some kind of records should be in their system. My husband suggested that it was a bad idea but I ignored him and went ahead to look up the owner’s phone number through the AirBnB app on my phone. The call wasn’t answered, so I texted on Whatsapp instead.

The kind of behavior I was showing had caused my husband to worry even more. “Perhaps we can pay him a visit,” he said, gently. He held my hand, along with our little girl, we walked towards the office where the reception was.

The owner wasn’t there, but his wife was at the desk to assist in any way she could. She pulled out a ledger book which contained some notes she kept regarding the guests and the name ‘Maria’ wasn’t in the most recent list. She went through a few weeks back and there was nobody under the name ‘Maria’ had been staying in that apartment next door. In fact, according to the database in the computer, that apartment had been vacant for quite some time due to plumbing problems.

I refused to believe any of this. I knew Maria existed, but I had no proof to show. The only thing I had was the drying rack but my husband wasn’t there when it was handed over to me. It could have been there all along and I was only imagining things. I must have broken the hairbrush myself and tried to fix it. It all felt so surreal all of a sudden and it hurt me even more when nobody believed me.

A year passed, yet that memory still haunts me. Maria’s face and the sound of her voice are still fresh in my mind as if I only met her yesterday. Some said that the pressure of being a housewife has taken its toll on me mentally, as I’m always cooped up at home to manage the chores and look after a kid. My loneliness has driven me insane. Well, that’s what they say.