American Ghosts

One Year Ealier

It was a cool but pleasant afternoon in March of 1981 when Esperanza and Gary Belofsky moved into the new place. Their friend Bruce was already there, unloading boxes into the first of three bedrooms. Epi’s parents, Cuban immigrants who’d brought her and her siblings to America when she was six, were unconvinced that a single man they knew from school was the right choice of housemate for newlyweds. Gary’s family was just happy he was staying out of trouble.

Caveats aside, the Belofksys were excited to start their new life. They’d been married for almost a year, but the house on Beryl Road was the first real step towards their future together. If an extra source of income was necessary to make that possible, so be it.

Epi, twenty-five and arch with sleek dark hair she wore long, loved the space and the chance to strike out on her own. Gary, a twenty-nine-year-old furniture salesman known for his musical talent and silver tongue, would do whatever it took to keep her happy. His first marriage had ended when he was only twenty-four — granted, that wedding was a mistake made shortly after he was arrested for drugs in Boston — and he was committed to making this one stick.

Their first weeks in Alexandria were close to perfect. The housemates spent their time unpacking and decorating, sharing dinners, and playing music in their new living room. They seemed to have been struck by a communal bout of clumsiness, dishes slipping off countertops and glasses breaking in the sink, but there was nothing unusual about broken dishes after a night of too much wine. Epi wasn’t sleeping well either, her dreams dark and confusing, but that too seemed normal. New homes always brought unfamiliar shadows and creaks.

She and Gary joked with Bruce, wondering if they perhaps had a household ghost. Bruce, a self-professed skeptic, found this irritating. Which is perhaps why, when a neighbor approached him in the yard towards the end of March, he kept the ensuing conversation to himself.

“You know about the history of this place, right?”

Bruce did not.

“A woman killed herself here about eight years back. She hung herself in the basement right before Halloween.”

The neighbor relayed this information with voyeuristic glee, and Bruce saw no need to play into neighborhood gossip. Besides, he didn’t want to encourage the Belofskys. If more dishes broke in the new house than usual, that was just bad luck.

Except it wasn’t just the dishware. As weeks turned into months, the trio began to notice more odd things about the house. Unexplained smells from the kitchen sink, like smoke infused with rotting flesh. Sounds at night, from the walls. From the basement. They chalked it up to moldy pipes and rats, or raccoons trying to get at the trash. Trapped by the fact that he’d already chosen to lie, Bruce continued to keep his silence about their new home’s past.