A Ghost Who Betrayed Her

1413 words

A Ghost Who Betrayed Her

In the six years Wilma spent tracking David Addley, it never occurred to her that he didn’t exist. He was the love of her life. He was tall, dark, and handsome with bright blue eyes and chiseled lips. They married on Christmas Eve. He always kept clean and had not a piece of hair out of place. He always wore aftershave because he knew she loved the kind he wore.

Wilma loved him so much, and he told her he always wanted a woman like her. He loved that she kept the house clean and his clothes cleaned and ironed. She could have kept both of them going because her parents left her lots of money. She told him he didn’t have to work, but he said he would go crazy just sitting around the house.

“Whatever makes you happy,” she told him.

She thought she had it made; they had lots of money and a man she loved so much who loved her as much in return, so she thought.

He promised her a great life. He told her he would love for her to meet his mother, but it was impossible. She stared at him, wondering why. His father died of cancer years ago. He wanted them to go to Disneyland, but it was impossible.

She frowned, wondering why it would be impossible; she could afford it. Then what shocked her the most was when he told her he wanted a baby. After three months, she went for her first check-up. The doctor told her she wasn’t pregnant. She looked at him with a frown. “I should be,” she told him.

“Get your husband to come and get a check-up. Maybe there is something a little wrong that can be fixed.”

When David got home from work, he found her crying.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m not pregnant,” she sobbed.

“Don’t worry, baby, we’ll have one soon,” David promised her.

How could she believe that when she knew they hadn’t played safe each time they made love, and she still wasn’t conceiving?

It troubled her, and she didn’t feel like talking about it, even though he tried. He told her he hated to see her upset.

One night while she was sleeping, she heard David get up from the bed. She listened, trying to hear what he was doing. He went up to the attic. She remembered there was a locked box up there with memories of her mom and dad. She didn’t know how he got into it or why, but before he got back to bed, the telephone rang. She tried to hear what he was saying, but he was just mumbling. When he came back to bed, she asked him who was on the phone. She didn’t ask why he went up to the attic.

It was just the wrong number. For some reason, she didn’t believe him.

He turned her way, kissed her, and asked, “What are you worrying about? “Nothing, just tired,” she told him, but to her, something didn’t feel right.

“Okay, sweetheart, there’s nothing to worry about. We will have a baby, you wait and see.”

He didn’t know what was on her mind, and not wanting to talk about it, she turned over as he kept his arms around me and went to sleep.

The next morning, after he went to work, she went to the attic and opened the old box to see why he had gone in it. She was so happy when she saw he hadn’t done anything for her to worry about. She loved him and didn’t want anything to come between them.

When Christmas came around again, he wanted us to spend it special. So he wanted to give her something she would never forget.

Then she had a surprise for him. She could hardly wait for her surprise from him, and she could barely wait to give him his gift.

So Christmas morning came around, and when they got up, she had two nice bowls full of candy and the table trimmed. He held her close and told her how much he loved her. No one could have given me a better Christmas.

Then Wilma took him outside. They went into the back garage, and when she opened the doors. David’s eyes popped wide open, and his bottom jaw fell. He looked over the white cavalier everywhere. She could see how happy he was. He held her close again. Then he said, “Wilma, you are the greatest. Wilma looked up at him and said, “Now I have to tell you something. Let’s go to the house.”

When we got inside, he said, “I went to the doctor to see how he could fix me so we could have a baby. That was two months ago. I want you to go after the holidays to get a check-up.”

Wilma couldn’t help but wrap her arms around him, and they kissed the longest they had ever kissed.

After the holidays, Wilma went for her check-up, and the doctor told her she was two months along. She was so excited to tell David she rushed home, but when she got home, she couldn’t find him anywhere. He didn’t take anything. She called his job to see if he was at work. They didn’t understand what she was talking about.

She could not believe he would get up and leave her. She thought he loved her. She searched and searched and finally, after six years, she quit. Everyone asked her who David Addley was. For they never knew him. When she went to his job to see if he worked with them, they told her there was never a man named David Addley who ever worked with them, maybe years ago, a Dave Add had, but not a David Addley.

Why did he turn his back on her? “All this time I believed him.” She felt so confused, she went to bed that night and nearly cried her eyes out. “Why, Why, Why? I loved him so much,” she wept. All she does nowadays is stare and cry. It has made her sick, and she doesn't only have her darling little boy who reminds her of him, but a heartache that hits her deep inside. “Oh God in Heaven, where is the love of my life? I know David Addley, even though no one else has ever known him, and maybe he doesn’t exist, but my son is living proof. Please bring him back to me.”

“Honey, I’m going to go into the attic to get something I think you will like, because your father did.”

When I got up there, the box she was looking for was pushed up against the wall. She cleaned the cobwebs from around it and pulled it away from the wall. The box caught up on something, and she leaned over to have a closer look, but the box was hooked to a door latch. She opened the door and peered inside, cleaning the cobwebs away as she went. She saw a wooden box and pulled it out, placing it on her lap.

She noticed the pictures inside were very old. One caught her attention. It was a man standing alongside a train set. Tears filled her eyes. She was staring at a picture dated from 1903, and it said his name was David Addley, 25 years old. She could not hold back the tears. She pondered and pondered and asked herself with confusion, “Did I really marry a ghost? It couldn’t be.” They talked about their past lives, and he told her that one day he had to go somewhere. He wouldn’t tell her where. She asked him why he had to go. He just said because it's very important. There is something he had to check out. Why he wouldn’t tell her was a mystery.

Later on, after he had been gone for a year, while she was shopping, she noticed a man who looked just like him, and was dressed old-fashioned, like he might have come out of an old picture. Is he the man in the picture? It seemed only she could see him. Everyone else just walked right by or through him. He was with a woman he was hugging in the old pictures she found. What does this mean? “So I did marry a ghost.”