Ghosts and the Hotel New Hampshire

We got a room at the Wayfarer Inn--the old John Goffe's Mill in Bedford. The outside was a sickly cream yellow, as if the new owners had been embarassed by the old wood exterior and were desperate to cover it with something--anything. Inside was more like I remembered, the 1939 hardwood floors warm and uneven in the lobby, old sawmill tools and blades hanging on the walls of the hallway leading to the restaurant and bar. The smell of aging cedar and a touch of pipe tobacco hung in the air.

We crashed that night as soon as we hit the bedsheets. Swallowed up in the beam rafter ceiling and the white noise thrum of the heater, we dreamed.

I dreamed of an old Victorian house on a hill -- the place I'd stayed at college, fifteen years before. We'd just bought the place and planned to refurbish it over the next year. I remember standing on the front porch remembering my friends, and wondering where they were now. Were they married? Did they have children? What did they do for a living? Could some of them be in prison? Or dead? Fifteen years is a long time.

Time slipped and melted, and then it was Halloween. The house was lit by the orange warm glow of jack-o-lanterns and candles and the smell of allspice and dying leaves was everywhere.

The bell rang and I opened the front door to find nothing but mist and moonlight. A cold wind wrapped around my legs, played at my hair, brushed my hand. I walked onto the porch and extended my arms in an embrace--I could feel something there, something waiting for me. The mist swirled into the forms of men and woman, people I had known, I hugged one of my childhood friends and he hugged me back. It had been too long.

They'd brought beer, wine, food, music, and stories--so many stories. We lit a bonfire on the lawn and we caroused and danced and drank and sang until the dawn sky lightened to a powerdery blue.

Just before the sun popped over the horizon, I heard someone call my name--a woman's voice, her accent thick and round. I looked back towards the house and there was Evanys, sitting on the front steps, a glass of wine in her hand. The morning sun would end the revel, send the dead back to where they'd come from, so I ran for the porch. I wanted to kiss her on the cheek, give her a bear hug, let her know that she was loved and missed.

Half-way to the steps, she raised her glass of wine and said, "It's good!" and smiled her big white smile. "Come visit me tomorrow. I'll be waiting." She downed the glass as the sun broke. She flickered out like a light bulb.

I awoke to find my wife wide awake and agitated.

"What's wrong?"

"I just had the most disturbing dream. I was at this party at this old house. I didn't really know anybody and I was looking for you," she said.

"We dreamed the same dream."

"No way."

"We did."

I told her the details. We held hands until we drifted back to sleep.

***

The next day we visited Evanys. Her grave was still unmarked, nothing but a rectangle of newly grown grass behind a set of Greek family headstones. I knelt down, put my hand on the grass, and paid my respects. The conversation in my head went something like this:

"Hey, Evanys."

"Hello, David."

"I made good on my promise."

"Yes, you did. I had a good time at the party last night."

"Are you okay?"

A long pause. And then, "I'm dead. Not so okay. But I'm at peace. Tell your Mother I miss her--as much as she misses me, I think. Tell your sister to stay strong. Your wife to trust in herself."

"I'm sad I'll never hear your stories."

"Don't worry. Every time you come back, I'll tell you a story."

As we left, I noticed a tiny anthill at the foot of the grave. Miniature brown ants, common in NH, like three grains of sand strung together with glue, filed in and out of the hole in the ground. Food in, soil out. I could almost hear Evanys laughing one of her big belly laughs. I'm still not sure why she found it funny, but part of me knew she did.

***

That afternoon, I spent some time in the bar while my wife and my mother went shopping. I ordered an Irish Coffee and watched out the window as the rain swollen creek water rushed past the Old Mill.

"We're everywhere, you know."

Across the table from me sat a gentlemen in a pinstripe suit. A thin man with round, wire-rim glasses, an Errol Flynn moustache, and a slightly crooked nose. He looked as if he'd stepped out of the thirties. If not for the nose, he could've been a movie star from that era.

"Who's everywhere?" I said.

"Ghosts. We're everywhere. I don't think we'd be having this conversation if you didn't agree."

I sipped my Irish Coffee and nodded.

"We hide in memories, in photographs, old movies--and before you ask, no, I never performed in Hollywood. We make homes in books and antique lamps. Tea sets passed down from generation to generation. Long lost brothers in bookends. Grandfathers in grandfather clocks."

He motioned for the bartender and she hustled over, a shot glass and bottle of Bombay Sapphire in hand. She left them on the table and went back to polishing the brass. The pinstripe man tossed down two shots in rapid succession, then pushed the glass aside.

"Why do you think that is?" he asked. "Why do the dead stay?"

"They say ghosts exist because of violent deaths. Or that they have something they feel like they still need to do."

"No, I don't think so. It's not unfinished business--that's bullshit. I've got nothing left to do. It's not because of religion--I was a devout Catholic for 43 years. Maybe it's because the way out is hidden or something. Or maybe the afterlife really is here and now. I think it's because there's nowhere else to go." He shrugged. "At least the drinks are free."

He downed another shot.

"Maybe it's because we keep you here. Because we want you to stay," I said.

"Huh."

He poured another drink but let it sit. Twice I saw him reach for the shotglass, but he never drank. He just sat there, pondering something I could never understand. I finished my coffee and left him staring out the window at the water and the rain.