3: growing family
1986–1989
Even though I no longer talked about the ghost, it didn’t mean she wasn’t around. After two years of marriage, I was now enjoying being a stay-at-home mom and the ghost was more active than ever. After we brought our newborn daughter Keshia home from the hospital, the green glowing ball now appeared during the day and in different rooms of the house. This was something new. Before, I had only seen the light at night and always in that one corner of our bedroom. I felt the ghost changed her routine so she could be around the baby.
Having lived with this entity for awhile now, I never had any thoughts of her hurting our daughter. As strange as it may sound, I’d come to think of the ghost as part of the family … a grandma of sorts. I knew she wasn’t my grandma, but I was certain she’d been someone’s at one time, and seeing the green glowing ball somehow brought me comfort.
But after a few months, I no longer saw the green ball during the day. She seemed to have settled back into her old way of doing things and only appeared at night.
Keshia’s nursery was in our old bedroom; we had remodeled another room to serve as our bedroom. These two rooms were connected. When I got up during the night to check on Keshia, it came as no surprise to see the green glow hovering in the same corner where we had first seen it. After all, that had always been her spot. What did come as a surprise was watching the green ball come around the corner on the nights I brought Keshia into our room. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who wanted to keep a watchful eye on the baby.
Two short years after having our daughter, we were blessed once again. This time our little bundle of joy was a boy. We put our son Troy in the nursery and moved Keshia into another bedroom. Once we did this, the green ball moved from room to room. When I’d get up in the night to check on the children, sometimes I’d see the green glow in Keshia’s room, while at other times I’d see it in Troy’s.
With our family expanding, it was becoming obvious we needed a bigger house. We decided to not only add on to our home, but to double it in size. We were going to add on a big living room, another bedroom, another bathroom, and an office. As exciting as the addition was, it was also loud. Day in, day out, there was the constant sound of construction. After a few weeks, it began taking its toll. The children were tired and cranky and I had a constant headache. To escape the noise, the kids and I spent our days at the park or at my sister Tammy’s house.
After one of our all-day excursions, we came home to find the carpenters had left for the day and our home was blessedly quiet. Knowing the children were hungry, I put Troy in his high chair and Keshia at the table. With my back turned to them, I started making snacks. There was a loud bang. I whirled around and expected to see the high chair turned over or some other type of catastrophe mothers learn to expect.
To my relief, both of the children were sitting right where I’d put them. Troy had a startled expression and the beginnings of a pout forming on his little face. Keshia, however, was looking down the hall laughing while covering her ears.
After consoling Troy, I walked down the hall to see what could have made the noise. First, I noticed Keshia’s bedroom door was closed. I generally left the doors open because it was summertime and we only had one air
conditioning unit to cool the house. Just as I was about to open her door, Troy’s door slammed shut.
I went into each one of the rooms to see if the windows were closed. They were. Knowing the construction crew hadn’t worked on that side of the house, I couldn’t come up with any reason as to why these two doors would suddenly slam shut. It had never happened before. I left their doors open, took one last look, and walked back toward the kitchen. Before I completed the short walk, Keshia’s door slammed shut again. I wondered if our ghost had learned a new trick and if she was getting back at me for leaving her there to deal with all of the noise.
With our home frequently being in some state of remodel, I’d come to learn it wasn’t unusual for the activity to pick up when we were working on the house. It was common to have missing hammers and paintbrushes turn up where we knew we hadn’t put them. Apparently, hiding things wasn’t enough now. She must have liked her new door-closing trick because she did it a lot. Thankfully, she’d learned to be quieter about it, but because of our squeaky hinges, it was still quite effective.
When we’d sit down at the table for dinner, the doors would slowly creak closed. The slow, drawn-out screech made an eerie sound. A sound even Wes had trouble ignoring. He’d look at me from across the table and say something about needing to oil the hinges.
I’d shrug and tell him that might help with the squeaking, but it wouldn’t help with the doors opening and closing on their own. I didn’t have to mention the ghost for him to know what I was thinking. He’d shake his head, smile, and tell me he’d fix the doors.
The game we’d gotten in the habit of playing was very frustrating to me. I knew we had a ghost and I was tired of him not acknowledging it. True, I was home more than he was, which allowed me more opportunities to see things—but he lived here too. He had to know that the things going on in our home were not normal.