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Ghost Story



Bernadette Miller



Wendy sat beside the pink-ribboned teddy bear on the sofa, and opened a 1986 spiral-bound notebook used for a diary. Was it wise dredging up painful memories after taking all that valium and prozac to help her forget? She shook her head. Phil has been dead for many years, she repeated. Her favorite grandniece loved the furnished doll house on the living room stand bought soon after Phil’s death. She must have noted the name of the mail order company in her diary.

Yet, as she began thumbing the pages, unwanted memories surfaced: long, lonely nights rocking before the stone fireplace, reliving their twenty comfortable years.

They’d shared movies, dancing, dinner parties, and traveled throughout Europe and the Middle East. Their artificial flower company, which she’d subsequently sold, had eased financial burdens. Now, despite her resolve, she again watched his cancerous body wracked by months of pain, and his inevitable death.

To steady her nerves, Wendy sipped coffee from the side table and glanced from the ballerina doll gracing the fireplace mantel to the diary entry for March 15th.

Startled, she looked again. The writing was clear, unmistakable. On that date, according to her diary, she’d vacationed in Puerto Allegro, which she’d completely forgotten. How was that possible? Of course, the drugs probably made the events hazy at the time and then lost to memory. Fascinated, she continued reading.

Although previous entries didn’t mention the location, she’d written about a tropical climate. She wore mostly shorts and halters, and swam in a lagoon near the small, cozy hotel with private beach. The weather averaged 80 degrees daily and a cool 60 at night. Evidently she’d enjoyed herself. The diary described a friend she’d met there on the beach, a widow, Ethel Perez, who owned a house nearby--whom she didn’t know now. But that often happens on vacations, meeting nice people who live far from New York and are never seen again.

Apparently, this Ethel had stayed on in Puerto Allegro after her native husband died. She and Ethel had spent most of their time at the beach, Ethel supplying an old blanket, and the hotel supplying umbrellas and picnic baskets. Unfortunately the hotel’s name was never mentioned. “I walked back along the beach to the hotel, by myself, wanting to be alone for awhile, and feel much calmer. I hope I can stop thinking so much about Phil.”

She’d gone sightseeing with her new friend: native huts along rutted roads, an old Spanish fort, and other hotels whose names also were omitted. At the Village Square, Wendy bought a scarf--it must be somewhere in the house if she searched. They’d nightclubbed at the hotel until four a.m. in a “neon-flashing, palm-laden room where I danced with several men.” Then, the notation, “I felt terribly guilty, having such a wonderful time in the midst of mourning Phil. It doesn’t seem right...”

Curiously, the next page was blank, then the entries resumed. Ethel, a gangly, fiftyish blonde with a New Jersey accent, suggested an excursion to another island, Luminosa. They left the following morning, right after breakfast. The weather turned surprisingly chilly, a downpour was expected, but Ethel insisted they go because what else could they do in the rain?

Wendy wore a raincoat over blouse and slacks that had grown tight, her graying auburn hair tucked under the scarf. She hoped to lose the added weight since Phil’s death that made her feel old at forty-five. The pair had boarded the ferry that crossed the lake some five miles from their hotel. It didn’t rain, after all, and she was grateful for the coat during the unusually cool day. She’d described her chat with Ethel while leaning over the railing and gazing at the misty horizon and the island’s palms waving in the mist, like a lovely dream of paradise. At Luminosa, they hired a quaint horse-drawn carriage that clip-clopped along Magdalena, the main boulevard.

“Oh, look at that!” Wendy had said, pointing to the rows of small pink and blue houses on opposite sides of Magdalena Boulevard. At the beginning intersection, large signs proclaimed the pink ones as “SUYA,” the blue ones as “SUYO.”

“Felipe, what do those signs mean?” Wendy called to the driver.

Smiling, he pivoted to explain. “It is our custom, Senora Taylor, that after a funeral the damas, ladies, live in a pink house for three weeks and the gentlemen live in a blue one. They please the dead by saying good things about them. Then there is a big fiesta, muchos comestibles y vino, when the familias get together again. You see, here we do not mourn for our dead. No, mi damas graciosas, it is the dead who mourn for the living...” He flicked the reins at the horses that lumbered along, their blinders shielding them from street distractions.

The dead mourn for the living... Wendy paused, resting the diary in her lap and sipped coffee. Had Phil mourned for her, remembering her tears at his hospital bed?

“My darling, please don’t be unhappy.” His once-attractive face had been pale and gaunt. “We agreed you’d accept my illness and start a new life.”

“I can’t--”

“Yes, you can. Together we could do anything--remember our discussion? I’ll always be with you in spirit, you know that.”

She drained the cold coffee. She didn’t want to grieve again over Phil. Yet, she must find out about intriguing Puerto Allego...

The diary described her return to the hotel that seemed lovely with ivied balconies and flower-filled lobby. So far, she’d stayed there for two months. The next page was blank, and somehow it irritated her more than it should have. Why had she left something out?

The following entry omitted any mention of Puerto Allego or Ethel. On May 12th she took an excursion to a deserted island. “At Perdido I saw large tortoises crawling among rocks, like at the Galapagos where Darwin had gathered material for his revolutionary theories on evolution. Manuel accompanied me.”

Manuel? Who on earth was he? Wendy paused again, trying to remember. Her mind was as blank as the last empty page. She’d been haunted by her mother’s suicidal death when she was ten, until helped by a psychiatrist. No wonder she’d taken drugs to get over Phil... Her gaze swept over the porcelain antique doll in a highchair, and returned to the diary.

She left Manuel near the beach and sat alone by a cliff to contemplate the palms behind her, the air fragrant with hibiscus; far below, gentle waves lapped against the pebbled sand. Suddenly she filled with dread. Unable to fathom the reason, she ran to discuss it with Manuel, but she calmed while helping him gather seashells to decorate the hotel nightclub.

The following pages finally revealed that Manuel worked as a bouncer at the club.

“He looked like a Latin movie star, tall and muscular, with a firm, square jaw, smooth complexion, and deep set dark eyes that stared at me so intensely I became nervous and began stammering, which finally caused him to smile with those beautiful white teeth. I felt wonderful.”

Why so much interest in Manuel, half her age? Did they have an affair at the same time she mourned her husband? Impossible! Shocked she read the following entry.

“The day was lovely, the hibiscus and begonias blooming by my balcony window, the lagoon filled with splashing swimmers and the excited shouts of children. Observing the distant volcano, I became wildly passionate, an abandon I’d never experienced before, not even with Phil. I thought of Manuel waiting for me by the forest path and ran to meet him. We spent a glorious day at his house and then drove to his parents’ farm for dinner.”

Wendy put down the diary and thoughtfully entered the kitchen for more coffee. She glanced past the miniature tea set in the china cabinet, beside a child’s gold charm bracelet. For a moment the bracelet appeared to glow. Startled, she blinked and stared again. The cabinet looked normal. It must be her imagination after reading about mysterious Puerto Allegro. But what else had happened there? It was too bad about the valium erasing her memories. She must find out.

The following days were spent with Manuel: swimming, sailing, or lounging at his house. Ethel kept her company during the evenings while Manuel worked. In August, Wendy suffered with morning nausea. She argued with Ethel, who insisted that Wendy keep Manuel’s child and Wendy saying she must get an abortion--

Shocked again, Wendy put down the diary. She’d gotten pregnant and with a stranger’s baby! She and Phil had agreed never to have children; it might disrupt their relationship. She couldn’t imagine getting pregnant by Manuel, almost a child himself. And if she had, what happened to him and to their baby?

An entry described Ethel’s pleading, “If you don’t keep the baby, you’ll always regret it! Believe me, I still wish I’d gotten pregnant, shared the joy of life with my husband. Now, it’s too late.”

“But how can I keep an illegitimate baby born so soon after Phil’s death? It’s disgraceful, immoral. It shows how little I cared--”

“Stop concentrating on you, and think about Manuel, the father, who probably wants this child.”

“Yes, he insisted we marry immediately, but I said I didn’t want to see him again. How can I marry a bouncer and live in a hut? And I certainly can’t bring home an illegitimate child! How could I face Phil’s relatives?”

Wendy had burst into tears and was finally soothed by Ethel saying gently, “Okay, abort if you must. I just hope that someday you don’t regret the loss.”

Several days later, Wendy chose an American expatriate, like Ethel, who practiced medicine on Luminosa, near the village square. He performed the operation so efficiently, she later felt as if she’d never conceived. Afterwards, the diary expressed no lingering doubts, no wondering what her little girl might have been like.

For the next three weeks, she and Ethel stayed on at Luminosa, in a pink house on Magdalena Boulevard, but not to comfort the dead child.

Ethel had said, “My husband died twelve years ago today. I remember him by living in the pink house once every year, and then I celebrate so I won’t dwell on it.”

When Wendy returned to Puerto Allegro, she found Manuel waiting for her in the lobby, and she told him what she’d done.

“Dios Mio!” His handsome face looked ashen, the brows glowering. He turned away and stared at the beach beyond the window.

“I had to do it, Manuel, please understand. Who would raise the child?” She touched his arm, but he jerked it away and suddenly strode from the lobby. “Manuel, wait!” She ran outside and around the hotel toward the forest. He’d disappeared. She paused, filled with regret at disappointing him so harshly.

There were two more blank pages, then abruptly the diary described her being back home in Long Island, and travelling to the cemetery to place roses on Phil’s grave. The baby wasn’t mentioned again, but by then Wendy was taking prozac.

Closing the diary, she felt as if a portion of her life had been excised and re-written. The entire trip must have been a hallucination, resulting from the drugs. Still, it was unthinkable that part of her life was missing.

She ran upstairs to rummage in the attic’s old trunk that had remained unopened for years. Abruptly she stopped. Among the yellowing linen from her mother’s closet was a faded triangular scarf showing white-capped waves and multicolored boats. A corner of the scarf read, “Buenos dias de Puerto Allegro!”

She sat very still. Good God, she had gone there. She had gotten herself pregnant--No, that was impossible! She would never have destroyed her child...

Shaking, she returned to the living room to put away the diary. It was simply a horrible nightmare from the drugs. Crossing the room, she opened the bay window bench to replace the diary and saw a lovely white box from Tiffany’s. Shivering suddenly, she unlaced the velvet ribbon. Inside, gleaming against the velvet cushion, was a silver baby rattle.





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