The Cobalt Armchair

In the autumn of 2008, when I was four years old, my family moved into a dusty old house on Cedar Lane. The house had a peculiar living room, dominated by a bulky cobalt-blue armchair that my mother loathed but never moved, claiming it was too heavy. I had no memory of anyone sitting in it, but I felt a strange pull toward it.

One afternoon, while my mother was folding laundry in the next room, I sat on the floor playing with toy cars. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the armchair shift slightly, as if someone had settled into it. A warm, smoky scent filled the air, like pipe tobacco and old wood. I looked up and saw a man with kind, tired eyes and a bushy grey mustache, dressed in a flannel shirt and suspenders. He smiled at me and gestured for me to come closer. I felt no fear, only a deep sense of familiarity.

When my mother walked in, she headed straight for the armchair, intending to sit and fold more laundry. I jumped up and shouted, ‘No, Mom, that’s Grandpa’s chair! You can’t sit there!’ My mother froze, her face paling. She asked, ‘What did you say? What grandpa?’ I pointed to the chair and said, ‘Him, he’s right there. He talks to me all the time.’ My mother’s hands trembled, and she hurried out of the room, returning moments later with a framed photograph. She held it out to me, her voice shaking, ‘Do you know this man?’ I looked at the photo, then back at the chair, and said, ‘Yes, that’s Grandpa.’

My mother later told me that my grandfather, Harold, had died in 1995, before I was born. She had never told me about him, and no photos of him were displayed in our home. That evening, she took the photograph and placed it on the mantel, casting uneasy glances at the armchair. I continued to ‘visit’ with Grandpa, and he told me stories about his youth, about fishing trips and building model ships. I would relay these tales to my mother, who grew increasingly disturbed as I mentioned details she had never shared, like his nickname ‘Huck’ and the scar on his left hand from a sawmill accident.

One Sunday, at the small white church on the corner, my mother and I sat in a pew near the back. As the congregation began to sing, I looked up at the high ceiling, where a soft light seemed to gather. I tugged my mother’s sleeve and whispered loudly, ‘Mom, look! Grandpa is floating up there, waving at us.’ My mother’s face flushed bright red, and she hissed, ‘Stop that right now!’ But I kept pointing and giggling. The elderly couple in front of us turned around with frowns, and my mother dragged me out of the church, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.

Over the following weeks, I grew obsessed with the armchair. I would sit on the floor beside it, listening to Grandpa’s stories. But as the winter approached, his visits became less frequent. He started to look sad, his form flickering like a dying light bulb. One night, I heard him whisper, ‘It’s time for me to go, sweetheart. The house is sold, and I need to move on.’ The next morning, I woke to the smell of smoke. The armchair was smoldering, a small flame licking its cushion. My mother called the fire department, and they managed to extinguish it, but the armchair was ruined. The firemen said it might have been faulty wiring, but my mother found it odd that the blaze started in a spot where no wires ran.

After the armchair was hauled away, the house felt cold and quiet. I cried for days, missing my invisible friend. But my mother, though shaken, began to move on. She eventually replaced the armchair with a yellow floral sofa, and the odd occurrences stopped. To this day, I have no clear memories of the man in the cobalt armchair, but my mother still catches me staring at empty corners, as if I’m expecting someone. And every once in a while, I catch a whiff of pipe tobacco in the air, and I smile, knowing that Grandpa is still watching over me. But I’ve never told my mother that I still dream of him sitting in that cobalt armchair, wearing his old fishing hat, and waving goodbye.