Who’s Home?

My husband Pat and I had been married about six years, and since our family was growing we needed a larger place to live. We found an older house which we could rent that was just right – it was still small, two bedrooms and a yard for the kids to play in, but just right for us. The larger bedroom was at the back of the house, and we put the boys in there, since the room would double as their playroom. Pat and I took the smaller bedroom at the front, which also had a door that opened into the front entry hall directly across from the front door. I blocked that off with furniture since I didn’t want anyone coming into the bedroom by accident.

Pat was working as a reporter for the local newspaper at the time. He worked a 3 pm to midnight shift. We lived about five blocks from the newspaper building, so unless he decided to go out with the guys after work, he could walk home within just a few minutes, and he was usually home shortly after midnight.

I tried to stay awake until he got home, and would usually lie in bed and read until I heard him come in. Since the front door was just on the other side of the blocked off door in the bedroom, I could clearly hear when he got home.

Occasionally, I would hear Pat come home a little bit early. This was always welcome, except…

Except that sometimes he wasn’t there.

It would sound exactly like his footsteps walking on the wooden porch, coming in the front door, closing it, and opening the door to the front room. I would call out, but there would be no answer, and no further noises of him walking through the house. I wasn’t asleep, just reading and involved in my book; I don’t recall it ever happening when I waited up in the front room, only when I was in the bedroom.

And strangely, I don’t recall being particularly alarmed by it, after the first time. It just happened, and it only happened a few times. I did mention it to Pat who still remembers it too, but he never experienced it, even after he left the newspaper and took a regular eight to five job with the university. It only happened very late at night, when the children were asleep and I was waiting, alone, in the bedroom. Besides this, the house always had a comfortable feel about it, so perhaps that was why it didn’t scare me. I don’t think I ever even thought the word “ghost” in connection with it at the time. (Perhaps this was self-preservation so that I wouldn’t be frightened all alone late at night!) But I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

We only lived in that house five years before we outgrew it, too, and moved again, leaving the late-night homecoming behind.

-She Wolf (c)2008