I visited him several evenings a week, running down the news of the world while enjoying a glass of wine in the summer or a hot toddy in winter. I teased him over the years, as my hair turned gray and the skin on my neck found new folds, he remained nearly unchanged. A bit of salt in his close-cropped curls, but hadn’t it always been there? His face softened with familiarity, and every time I walked in to see him standing behind the bar, I felt instant comfort and release. Once a year, on Valentine’s Day, after the bar closed, he cooked up the supper he’d made for Carmichael and me and we’d talk about that night. Over the years, the more my encounter slipped into memory, the more my irrationality became apparent. We could laugh, Bert and I, about my scream-filled run through the halls, my erratic moves through the lobby.
“You could have been one of those actresses on the screen,” Bert said, though for all I knew he’d never been to a motion picture. I didn’t care for them myself. I always preferred the stage, seeing flesh and blood characters brought to life right in front of me. Films disconcerted me, knowing the men and women on the screen were actually existing in another place in time. But I knew what he meant. My exaggerated expressions—all in an attempt to convey the overwhelming realness of my terror.
“I should not have left my room,” I said. Ten years had passed since that night. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, the last of the romantic couples chased away. I looked forward to this night all year—my celebration with the one person I counted as family. This was the only time I talked about the night, the only time I gave the memories free rein in conversation. Oh, I told the story to strangers, but there is a gulf of difference between telling a story and sharing a story. With Bert, my words found a soft landing. We could laugh and not feel offense; he could wonder and not question. On this night in 1925, I finally hit upon the perfect alternate history. “If I’d simply stood in my doorway and screamed for help, the robbery would never have happened.”
“Might have taken some time for anybody to hear you.”
“You would have heard me.” Of this, I was sure.
“Might never have met that detective …”
“Or had my heart broken …”
“Or found your money.” This was always his favorite part of the story because my allowance kept me here. “God brings people in and out of a life. Or in and out of a place. Guess He wanted you and me to stay.”
“Like Sallie?”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Just when I thought you was coming to some senses, there you go.”
I touched his arm and reassured him that I wasn’t going anywhere, neither in matter nor in mind. I finished my meal, and he walked me to the door, dropping a kiss to my cheek as too was our annual custom. A woman must be allowed to feel like a lady all the days of her life.
I walked through the darkened hotel—a path I could have taken with both eyes blind. We say such things, but in my later years it has proven nearly true. I was still young then—not quite forty—and full of a good meal washed down with an equally good drink, and all the comfort of conversation on a cold night. The lobby was deserted, the only sound being “Good night, Mrs. Krause,” spoken by the man charged to run the desk overnight. I wished him the same and began my ascent, unable to explain the niggling of dread within me.
I heard her before I saw her. She was humming a tune that would take years for me to track down: “The Old Rugged Cross.” The notes were soft and uneven, and they stopped the moment I turned the corner to my hallway.
The way she stood at my door made me feel like she’d been standing there for hours. I knew—every part of me knew—this was Sallie White. My Sallie White. My personal phantom. However, tonight there was no translucence. No levitation. No blurring of her face. She waited, every ounce of her form as solid as my own. Yes, I wasn’t just seeing Sallie White, I was remembering her—all those times my mind played its trick, holding on to the idea of the dead come