The Lazy W is haunted is a few ways, mostly friendly.
But a few years ago we experienced something not so friendly
and defying explanations.

I cannot remember the exact month this happened, but in my memory the weather was cool but warming slowly. The sky was cloudy but dry. This all started late at night, maybe around ten.

For some reason neither of can remember now, Handsome and I were in a pretty big fight. The angriest words were long over and we had moved into that simmering heat and silence. It was a standoff, we both remember that, but we really have no idea why we were fighting. Looking back, there was just a vague, oppressive tension that hung over the house, and we had both succumbed to it.

He set up his angry, silent camp in the green room downstairs, where we normally watch movies together, cuddle, and sometimes even spend he night. I felt so hurt and angry that I did something fairly radical and went out to the hot tub by myself. That may not seem like such a big deal to you, but around here we rarely, if ever, do this. The hot tub is an annex to our bedroom, the place where we start our mornings together with coffee, and just generally a special place. But so is the green room! And I kinda remember he was watching a show we usually watch together. Not cool. That was his big silent statement. So mine was to walk through the house in a just towel and soak in our hot tub alone. Simmering in every way.

So I was outside in the scalding, frothy water, maybe thirty yards from the house, on the edge of the south lawn. I remember lots of moonlight and clouds. The heat was helping me relax, but whatever anger I’d patted down began to resurface when I looked up. I thought I saw my husband standing at the dining room door and staring at me through the window. You know that feeling when, even at a great distance, you sense eye contact? I felt that. And it made me even angrier. I wasn’t surprised that knowing I was in the hot tub alone made him angry and prompted him to come see for himself; that’s pretty much what I was going for. What made me so mad was that he continued to just stand there and stare at me for about five minutes, just looking. Not coming to talk to me, no apologies (for what I still have no idea), nothing. Not even a hand gesture or movement. Just standing behind the glass pane and staring.

Then I noticed the silhouette wasn’t exactly my husband’s. The standing, staring figure was significantly taller than the glass, while my husband might stand right below it, just barely. And the figure watching me had shoulders much wider than the glass, too. The glass is almost three feet wide. Finally, what hair of his I could see was shocking silver-white. Moppy. This was not my husband, but he continued to stare.

I was instantly alert and wanted to scream but had that paralytic, wide eyed rigidity. I sat there with steam rising in front of my face, returning the eerie stare coming at me from the house. Somehow I scrambled out of the hot tub, wrapped up in my towel, and decided to run to the house.

Looking back I cannot remember exactly when I stopped seeing the figure in the dining room window, or why I felt safer running toward it than away, but all I wanted to do was get closer to my husband, this man I was who was helping me maintain the adolescent silent treatment.

Once inside the house, everything seemed normal. The television was still on but Handsome said nothing to me. I assumed he was awake and therefore choosing to say nothing to me, so I renewed my pout and walked upstairs. Going to bed alone is about as unheard of as hot tub soaking alone, so I was really laying it on thick now.

Once dry and warm and snuggled in bed alone, I started thinking more about the weird vision and wondered what to make of it. I consciously dismissed it and drifted off to sleep. Sometime during the night, I felt my husband crawl into bed with me, warm and strong, and wrap himself around me. Or so I thought.

The next morning I woke up alone in our cold bed to the sound of him walking into our bedroom, not trying at all to be quiet. He showered and dressed for work then left without saying goodbye. I was stunned. It colored my entire day.

to be continued