The Visitor at the Foot of the Bed

When I was six, my parents entrusted my sisters and me to Mrs. Kowalski, a retired nurse who lived two houses down. Our own house was being fumigated, so we stayed in her Victorian home, which smelled of camphor and old photographs. My sisters, Emma and Sophie, were four and two, and we all shared a large guest bedroom with tall windows that looked out onto a weeping willow.

One afternoon, after lunch, Mrs. Kowalski tucked us in for what she called ‘a good, long rest.’ I was never much of a napper, so I lay awake, counting the cracks in the ceiling plaster. The room was dim, the curtains drawn against the summer sun. After what felt like forever, I drifted off.

I woke with a start. The room was darker, the air still. I blinked, and there, at the foot of the bed, stood a man. He looked exactly like my Uncle Carl—same angular jaw, same graying temples, same thin lips. He even wore the same flannel shirt he’d worn to our barbecue the previous Sunday. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and smiled. ‘Uncle Carl?’

He didn’t smile back. He just stood there, arms at his sides, fingers twitching. His eyes were the same color, but they lacked any warmth. I remember talking to him, asking why he wasn’t at work. I don’t recall what he said, but I remember the feeling that he was trying to tell me something important, each word slow and careful, as if he were translating from a language he didn’t speak well.

Then, without warning, he turned, yanked the door open, and slammed it shut behind him. The sound cracked through the silence like a gunshot. Nearly instantaneously, Mrs. Kowalski burst in, her face pale, her hands shaking. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her voice high.

‘Uncle Carl was here,’ I said, pointing at the door. ‘Can you tell him to come back?’

Mrs. Kowalski knelt by the bed, her grip on my arm tight. ‘Honey, your Uncle Carl couldn’t be here. I just spoke to your mother; he’s at the plant, working the night shift. He hasn’t left all day.’

I didn’t believe her. ‘But I saw him,’ I insisted. ‘He looked just like him. He talked to me.’

She shook her head, her eyes darting to the door. ‘No, dear. You had a dream.’ But I knew it wasn’t a dream. I could still feel the cold air that lingered where he stood, and the faint smell of motor oil and sawdust that always clung to Uncle Carl.

Aft that, Mrs. Kowalski never let us nap in that room again. She would sit with us in the living room, watching the clock, and when my parents picked us up, she looked relieved. I never saw the man again, but for years, I wondered who—or what—it was that wore my uncle’s face. And sometimes, at night, when the wind rattles the windows, I catch a whiff of motor oil and sawdust, and I know he’s still out there, waiting for the next time I fall asleep.