Spirit Lost by Nancy Thayer

now that she isn’t here than I was when she was. I don’t want you to think I’m … going mad or something. Jesus.”
    “I don’t think that,” Willy said. “I promise you, John. I don’t think that. Let’s goto bed now. Come on.”
    “Bed?” John said, as if the thought were foreign. “Willy, I won’t be able to sleep.”
    “No, probably not,” Willy said. “But it’s so late now. We can just sit in bed and talk. Relax. I’ll get us some brandies.”
    Willy and John sat together in their bed, leaning against the pillows they had propped against the headboard, and the air of the room was gently steady and brightened by their bedside lamps. John felt safe inside the light’s protection, in the way a child feels safe.
    He described the scene again to Willy, carefully providing every detail he could remember. He had heard her voice. Several times. Had seen the material of her dress so clearly that he could tell it was scratchy, heavy, weighted. Had seen her face so clearly that he could tell her skin was creamy and that her cheeks were flushed rosy with fear or excitement or—or something.
    “She was very beautiful,” John confided, embarrassed by this detail.
    “Well, at least there’s that.” Willy smiled. “At least she’s not some creaking skeleton clanking chains around. Or some old ghoul. It could be worse.”
    “Tell me what you think, Willy. What you really think about this.”
    Willy sipped her brandy, pulled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. She was wearing a pair of John’s pajamas, striped red and white; she wore these when she was in her period or sick and wanted to be sloppy and comfortable. Now the sight of Willy in them was somehow comforting to John. She looked sensible. Comradely.
    “Here’s what I think,” she said slowly. “The truth. It’s one of two things, I think. Either it’s a trick of your mind—now wait a minute, let me finish! A trick of your mind. Because you’ve sort of gone cold turkey on people, you know. For years you saw hordes of people every day, and now you see only me, and for the past few days you’ve spent more time alone than with me or anyone else. Maybe it’s like a mirage, like someone crawling through a desert dying of thirst, seeing a pool of water in the distance. It could be something like that, John.”
    She could tell John was not happy with this explanation. “Or,” she went on, “it could be a ghost. I didn’t really believe in them, and you didn’t, either, but we could have been wrong. I mean, why would people talk about ghosts for centuries if there wasn’tsome kind of truth to it? And this is an old house. People say that old houses do have ghosts. It probably really is a ghost—and that’s sort of neat, don’t you think? I mean, as I said, it seems like a nice kind of ghost, a pretty woman instead of some creepy old thing that wakes us in the night with hideous laughter. Maybe it’s some woman who used to live here. Anyway, if it’s a ghost, I’m bound to see her sometime, too. Then you’ll know you’re not nuts.”
    John looked at his wife. Her hair was unbraided and fell, thick as honey, all around her face and shoulders and arms. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he asked.
    Willy smiled. She set her brandy on the bedside table and scooted over to wiggle herself inside his arms. “Umm,” she said.
    “… how much I need you,” John said, almost whispering.
    “I think I know what will help you fall asleep,” Willy said.
    And a while later, she proved right.

    Willy was sensible. She had assumed from the start that during their marriage she and John would have to endure crises. Perhaps work, or in-laws, although John had none, because her family was all dead, and she liked his family very much. She assumed they would have their share of arguments over children, when to have them, how to raise them, over all the decisions of a shared life. She had never expected their