This is a work of fiction (and I think I got long-winded)
*****
Jon Reisinger finally had a job!!!. Getting a doctorate in philosophy, religion, and history was interesting, but - there just isn’t much call for professors with these backgrounds (and there are very few other positions. If a college has a program in philosophy and religion, it probably is a private college with a theological bent, and the person holding that position will teach until they retire or die. ‘
Southwestern University in Georgetown Texas did have an opening. Dr. Max Reuter retired after 43 years at the university. Jon Reisinger had the right degree and was available. His dissertation on John Wesley and the English Reformation had been well received and he had several publications. He had taught philosophy or history at four schools part-time before he interviewed and was hired at Southwestern University. He even preached some Sundays to make ends meet.
Jon, his wife Vickie, and their two children, Annie (age 5) and Oliver (age 3) were moving out of an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee to a house in Georgetown Texas. Jon’s parents (Wilson and Marie Reisinger) had helped with the down payment, and Southwestern also helped them get into a house.
The housing situation was very strange. The house at 302 E. 15th Street was $50,000 under the market for similar houses. Their realtor, Bonnie Truesdale, was surprised when she looked over the property. It had been bought and sold eight times in the past four years. The longest was a 15-month stay, and the shortest was a 3-month stay.
Bonnie had remarked, “I don’t know what is wrong with the property Jon. It turns over frequently like twice a year. People hardly get in before they sell it and get out.”.
But, after seeing the house, with four bedrooms, two-and-one-half bathrooms, an upstairs family room, and a downstairs family room, Jon and Vickie thought it was a great house. Before making an offer, Bonnie had an inspector evaluate the property and the report came back that the roof, plumbing, electrically, foundation, and all systems were fine. It seemed to be a mystery. The Reisinger’s made a ridiculous bid of $100,000 under the asking price - (after praying about it), and the bid was accepted. The previous owners wanted to get some money out of the property and even a bid so low gave them some money.
So, Jon and Vickie moved in on July 25th and spent the next three weeks getting settled. The backyard was fenced and Annie and Oliver were able to get outside. It would be better when the summer heat backed off in September and October.
The first month at the property was chaotic. Jon was busy with his planning for fall courses and with faculty orientation. Vickie was working on unpacking their boxes, getting curtains, and other minor things for the house. Since they had been in apartments since they were married planning the decor for the house was a chance for Vickie to show off her skills. They didn’t have enough furniture for such a large house and some things would have to wait until Jon got his first couple of paychecks.
Annie and Oliver seemed to like the empty boxes for unpacking as playthings. Annie made a train with the boxes in the upstairs family room. Annie was a great big sister. She was going to kindergarten in a month, but she told Oliver what to do, and he generally did it. Oliver wasn’t fully potty trained yet, and it seemed like she loved to ask her younger brother if he needed to go potty and take him to the bathroom as needed. Oliver was happy to have space to play and other than when he got really tired and cranky played pretty nicely with his sister. Annie would play dress-up with Oliver and would put her old clothes on her little brother.
A couple of weeks in, Annie told Vickie about her new friend who helped her with the train of boxes. She had put a bright orange moving box at the end of the train and called it a caboose. On a lunch break, Annie asked her mother “What is a caboose?” Vickie told her it was an old term when train employees had a car at the end of the train to sleep in. When she looked at the train of boxes later than afternoon, the orange box was at the end, and Annie proudly pointed it out. “Look Mommy, that’s our caboose”. Vickie wondered where she had heard that word. Was it something on Sesame Street or Daniel Tiger or another of the PBS kids programs? And, of course, Annie was learning a lot of new words and loved to read (and pretend to read).
Interested, Vickie asked Annie where she learned the word caboose. Annie said, “My new friend told me it was the end of a train”. They were making friends in the neighborhood, at Sunday School, and the Mother’s Morning Out program at First United Methodist Church (FUMC). And, Emma-Lee from church had invited Vickie and the kids for a play date. So, somebody had told Annie about cabooses - her new friend and all of Annie’s friends were new!!!
*****
One night before the kid’s bedtime, Vickie asked Annie and Oliver to clean up their playroom. But, with a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old, “cleaning” up wasn’t a well-known directive. After the kids were asleep, she checked in the playroom and the kids hadn’t done much to clean up. The boxes were shoved to one side, but not neat. The other toys were pushed around but not organized.
The next morning as Vickie looked in the playroom, all the boxes were neatly stacked against the wall, The dolls were in a larger cardboard box in a corner, and things were very neat. When did they do that? Was Annie up during the night and stacked the boxes? Probably not, decided Vickie.
At breakfast, Vickie asked Annie and Oliver if they had cleaned up their playroom.
Annie brightly said, “Yes, Mommy. Oliver and I had put things away.”
Vickie asked, “Did you stack the boxes and put the dolls in the box in the corner?”
Annie looked at her mother quizzically. “I guess so”, she stammered. Vickie left it at that. Chores were a learning process, and they would get better.
Jon headed to campus for a faculty meeting. Vickie got her iPad and she and the kids went to the family room, Vickie would do some reading and email on her iPad while she drank her first cup of coffee and watched them. Then, this afternoon was the “Meet the Teacher” for kindergarten. Vickie had a master’s degree in library science and would have liked to work, but with Jon just starting out, sending Oliver to a preschool was going to be more expensive than what she might make working. Plus Vickie and Oliver thought that raising children was important.
Vickie opened the playroom door, and she was confused. When an hour before when she had checked, the boxes were stacked and the dolls were in the large box in the corner. Now they were pretty much in the same places they were at bedtime. Did Annie or Oliver play in the playroom before breakfast? Probably not.
Oh well, thought Vickie. Maybe I’m imagining things!!
*****
Boom - almost like a starter’s pistol at a track event, life got complicated. Jon went off to school; Annie went off to kindergarten; Vickie and Oliver were at home - but were busy as well.
Vickie jumped into Mother’s Morning Out. Still fairly new to town, it was both a way for her to get to know other young mothers. Oliver was missing his sister and it was a great time for him to get down on the floor and play with the legos, trucks, and other kids. Every four weeks, Vickie and three other mothers watched the kids while the other mothers had coffee, pastries, and relaxed. Of course, that meant that in the weeks when she wasn’t watching the kids she was meeting new friends. And it was walking distance from their house to the church.
Lori and Micah Timmons invited the Reisingers and others from FUMC to a potluck at San Gabriel Park after church on the last Sunday in August.
The Baxters were having a Labor Day party at their house and had invited the Reisinger family. Roselyn Baxter was on the staff at Southwestern and Tom was an insurance salesman.
Storytime at the Georgetown library started. Vickie made a mistake in telling Ann Putnum that she had a master’s in library science. Ann immediately tried to recruit Vickie for the library staff. Vickie said ‘no’ because of having Oliver at home. But, once the news that a new resident had a master’s in library science started floating around the library (and also at the Southwestern University library), it seemed that fate was calling her to some part-time work. Emma-Lee (from church) offered to watch Oliver for one day a week and Vickie became a storytime assistant librarian.
That first week was a book about a ghost that two children loved. Vickie smiled as the ghost and kids were doing almost the same things as Annie and Oliver. She had a good laugh when she thought of having a ghost at her house.
It really was a great match as Emma-Lee has two preschool sons, Devon and Asher, and Devon and Oliver already were friends. And it got Oliver to rely less on his sister.
*****
When Vickie picked up Oliver from Emma-Lee’s house, Emma-Lee said “Next time the boys want to go to your house. Something that Oliver said about his friend would be there. Do you know what he meant?”
Vickie didn’t know what Oliver meant about his friend. Did he think that Annie would be home from school?
As she got Oliver in the car, she asked him, “What did you mean about your friend at our house?”
Oliver said, “You know Mom, the friend who lives in our playroom.”
That confused her more. “What do you mean, the one who lives in the playroom? Nobody lives in the playroom,” she commented.
Brain replied, “You know, Mom. The one who helps put away the toys and helps us make the trains and the boost and the legos”.
“Boost?” she asked. “Do you mean the caboose?”
“Yeah Mom, that one”. Oliver was so direct in his answer.
Vickie did reflect on his answer. The one who helps put away the toys. She decided she would wait to question him more when they got home. Then she decided on a little bribery “How about a cone from Dairy Queen?”
Immediately, Oliver said “YES”. She made the turn off Williams Drive to the I-35 frontage road and then immediately into the Dairy Queen parking lot. It was a lot neater to eat inside the Dairy Queen with a three-year-old boy. She could almost hear a contented sigh from the upholstery from her 2006 Honda CR-V,
At the counter, she bought Oliver a small vanilla cone and a medium-sized cone for herself. She also got two tap glasses of water.
As they settled, she asked him about his day.
“Devon and I had a great time. He has a lot of trucks. I liked the red bulldozer the best. Asher didn’t play much with us. He watched videos on the TV - I think mostly Thomas the train.:
Vickie listened intently to her son. If she was going to get him to open up about the friend in the playroom, it would take some work.
Vickie said, “I always liked the dump trucks. Uncle Liam would let me play with him some times.”.
Then she asked, “Do you like your cone?”
He had been slurping it a little as it was starting to melt a little. “It’s awesome, Mom”. (It seemed like ‘awesome’ was his favorite word these days).
Then she tried a backdoor approach to the friend in the playroom.
Vickie said, “Is it neat that we have a friend in the playroom to play with you and Anne?”
Oliver gleamed, “He’s a lot of fun. He never gets mad at us. He laughs a lot”.
(Narrow in, narrow in - Vickie’s brain was kicking into gear)
She asked, “I forget is he tall or short?”
Oliver looked at her with a mix of sneer and unbelief. “Mommy you know he is super tall - way taller than Daddy.”
Vickie tried to recover. “Yes, I had forgotten. I forget does he wear a blue shirt or a white shirt”.
Oliver was licking his cone, and his answer was with a mouthful, “White shirt, I think.
Vickie laughed, “I like it when he hums and sings.”
Oliver quickly retorted “I’ve never heard him hum or sing”. But, then he added as a concession to this mother. “Maybe he only does that with adults.”
Oliver was quick to change topics. “Mommy, when we get home can I play in the backyard with my ball. I want to kick it like in soccer”.
“Sure thing son. I’ll get the ball out for you”.
*****
The next steps were forming in her brain. She’d get more information out of Annie. The friend (did he have an imaginary friend?) was very tall and wore (maybe) a white shirt.
Then she had a brainstorm. She had found the old baby monitor that they no longer used when unpacking. She would plug that into the playroom and she would see what was going on!!! Brilliant she thought and mentally patted herself on her back!!!
*****
Jon picked up Anne from Kindergarten and the kids played kickball (or soccer) in the backyard.
Jon got them both a beer and they sat on the back porch and watched the kids. Vickie was consumed with wanting to tell Jon about Oliver’s revelation. When she was sure the kids were out of reach she introduced the topic in a low voice.
She started, “Jon, I have an idea why the house was so cheap. It is haunted!!”
She waited for Jon’s reaction.
Jon said “Okay, do you have proof? Is there more than one ghost - or is it a ghost or something else?”
Vickie went on, “You know when the kids first started to play in the playroom.” Jon nodded. “And they had the boxes lined up like a train with that orange box at the end that they called a caboose. I wondered how they learned that name. It isn’t in common use. I asked the kids to clean up the room and I checked it wasn’t straightened up, but the next morning, the boxes were stacked neatly and the room was immaculate. I thought I was imagining things. Today when we went to Emma-Lee’s for a playdate, Devon asked if they could come to our house next time because Oliver’s friend would be there. Oliver hasn’t had any friends in that room, but he has been talking about his friend to Devon. We stopped for Dairy Queen - as a bribe - and I asked Oliver about his friend. I didn’t get much information other than he is tall (much taller than you), and he wears a white shirt (maybe- Oliver was a little vague on that topic).”
Jon looked at Vickie, “Okay, so Oliver has an imaginary friend that straightens the playroom. It’s not unusual for kids to have imaginary friends. Plus you’re taking this from a talk over an ice cream cone at Dairy Queen with a three-year-old.” he paused. “And from that, you have deduced that we have a ghost”.
Vickie jumped in “Okay, we got this house dirt cheap. The previous owners wanted out as fast as they could - even to sell it short. Maybe because the house is haunted.”
Jon shook his head. “Vickie, you’re building a case on the sand. You don’t have any proof.”
She replied I’m going to get Annie alone later and I also put the old baby monitor in the room to see
*****
After dinner, Vickie got time with Annie. The pretense was to determine if Annie needed more or different clothes for kindergarten. As they went through Annie’s closet and drawers they found a few things that needed replacing.
Vickie asked, “Annie, is there a friend in the playroom?”
Annie nodded, “Yes Mommy”. He plays with us and helps clean up things.”
Vickie continued, “He’s quite tall isn’t he?”
Annie answered, “Yes. Taller than Daddy”.
Vickie asked, “Does he talk a lot?”
Annie thought for a second, “No, he doesn’t talk much. It seems as he just lives in that room and he loves to have us play with him.”
Vickie said, “Is he old or young?”
Annie said, “I don’t really know. He seems both old and young at the same time.”
Vickie asked, “Was he the old that knew the word caboose?”
Annie’s face lit up, “Yes, he was the one who knew that word. Then he picked out the orange box and put it at the end of our train. He’s really friendly.”
Vickie’s next question was, “Does he have a name?”
Annie stopped looking at the clothes and answered, “No, I don’t think he has a name. I told him my name and Oliver said his name, but he didn’t say his name. I guess his name is just ‘Friend’”
Vickie then asked, “Is he there every day?”
Annie said, “I think so”.
Vickie felt like she was asking too many questions, “Have you seen him in other places in the house?”
Annie said, “I think I saw him in the hallway once, but maybe not”.
Vickie went back to the clothes. She asked, “Do you like this color?” She held up a teal skirt for Annie to look at.
Annie got a big smile, “That’s one of my favorites”. (Vickie knew this, but want to get the conversation off the ghost.)
*****
Soon it was bedtime for the kids. After tucking them in and having prayers, Vickie and Jon talked again.
Vickie said, “Annie confirmed it for me. The ghost is tall and friendly and helps them clean up. He used the word caboose to the kids, but he doesn’t talk much.”
Jon nodded and asked, “And, what might our next steps be?”
Vickie said, “I’m going to treat this like the old Casper the Friendly Ghost stories and that if this is a ghost or an imaginary friend, make him feel at home with our family.”
She said, “Wish my luck and pray for me”.
*****
She went up the stairs and took a seat in one of the chairs in the playroom and started to read one of the children’s books in the room. Occasionally she would look up to see if there was any presence in the room. She read almost all the children’s books before looking up to see a vague presence on the other side of the room.
“Hi, Vickie said gently. “Annie and Oliver really like you, and I like you too. Thank you for being their new friend.”
There was no response from the vague presence, so Vickie continued. “We are new in Georgetown and the kids don’t have many friends yet, so you have been wonderful for them.”
No response. “I’m Vickie Reisinger, and my husband is Jon. He just took a new job at Southwestern University.”
There was a quiet answer from across the room. “I taught at Southwestern and was the dean.”
Vickie was amazed. She was talking to a ghost in her own house. She continued, “It is a very nice college. Jon teaches in the Forden-Jones building. He likes it. I hope to work in the Frank Smith library someday.”
The quiet answer continued. “I am Frank Smith. The new library was named after me.”
Vickie didn’t know how to answer that. The ghost of some Frank Smith was in their playroom.
Vickie didn’t know the in and outs of talking with a ghost, so she jumped in. “Did you die in this house?”
The voice said, “Yes, and I am to remain here until I find who killed me”.
Oh my, a mystery thought Vickie to herself.
Vickie asked, “When did you die, like in what year?”.
The voice answered, “In 1935. The college was having a tough time financially during the depression. I was barely making enough to live. My wife had left me and taken the kids back to Nashville. I was poisoned by one of three people. I need to find out who killed me.”
Vickie did the math in her head. That was 86 years ago. It would be almost impossible to find who did it.
Vickie - always one to help the downtrodden - replied, “Mr. Smith, I would love to help you find your killer.”
(Frank Smith, Jr. is the name of the library)
******************************************
WOW - nine pages of a Ghost story for Halloween. I’ll come back next week to look at how the ghost and the Reisinger family learned to coexist, and how Vickie tried to solve the mystery!!!
*****
LOVE WINS!!!
Karen
