A Ghost Story

Our first night at the Odd Fellows House, I woke up around 2am, my head shooting up from my pillow, "Oh no," I said. Andrew, who was still awake and listening to podcasts in bed, asked what was wrong. "I'm really sick," I said in a calm voice while standing up straight on our blow-up mattress and flinging myself into the bathroom. 

All of a sudden I was violently vomiting, over and over. My parents had taken us out to Braddock's Tavern for a celebratory dinner that night, but my thoughts didn't go to food poisoning, instead I thought: Oh no, the ghosts! People had warned us about moving next to a cemetery. But I had been so confident that everything would be okay. Here I was with clear evidence it would not. I remember thinking about whether I could withstand this sort of thing every night. 

As I threw up and cried in the bathroom of a strange house, wondering if I had made a huge mistake in moving here, I felt Andrew rubbing my back and holding my hair away from my face. "Everything is going to be okay, you're safe now. You're here with us," he whispered. 

Could I wake up every night, ridding myself of all food in my stomach, shaking on this cold linoleum floor? Would the house be worth that? I looked out the bathroom window into the foggy night. A feeling of being at home wrapped around me like a blanket. 

Yes, I could do it, I concluded.  It was worth it.

I went back to bed and slept peacefully the rest of that night. The next morning, as we sipped our coffee on our front porch, I thanked Andrew for keeping me company and comforting me while I was sick. He looked puzzled. 

"Babe," he said, putting his coffee down, "you locked the bathroom door. I couldn't get in."