Cornerstone

No one cared about the noises.

My own explanation was that a mouse was in the walls, someone next door talked in their sleep, or perhaps there were creatures outside frolicking under the Hunter’s Moon.

Whatever.

I was now sitting up from sleep, testing the air for information. It was an old dream, picnicking with my parents on Memorial Day. I remembered now the tingle of a tiny hand on my cheek, and the soft delighted giggles. “Who’s there?” I almost asked. “Who are you?”

Really, I don’t think anyone even thought about the noises.

Since I was now awake, I considered the other dreams. Was there a connection? Or was my apartment . . . haunted? Visited by friends or enemies from the other side? What kind of questions were those?

Oh, I was aware of the echoes left by spirits who hadn’t passed over. I knew of activities that rattled the plates and moved the furniture. But that little hand had gently brushed along my jaw. Springtime, warm Midwestern breezes. It felt — so real.

Lately, my sleep was always interrupted at about three in the morning. Movements in the hall, soft shifting in the drapes, shadows where there should be none.

But I digress.

I suppose the other dreams could be a part of a bigger picture. I wonder who might have lived in this building? On the eighteenth floor, mightn’t almost anyone from different countries with different jobs and various backgrounds have resided here?

Maybe, probably, someone with children had lived right here in this unit.

In many ways, it was a delightful apartment. The dramatic changes when storms swept in across the Arch, roiling inky clouds, brilliant lightning strikes, cascading water down the brick and stone bones of adjacent buildings.

And the thunder. My God, the incredible booming, window-rattling adrenaline.

But the other dreams . . . I hadn’t lived here all that long. Not really. There had been many other homes — just places to stay; it’s just that attachment to a place happens so quickly, especially when the witching hour waking reminds me of my own little one from so long ago.

The first time it happened, I asked the older front desk guy if there had been tenants with children before me. I knew it was an odd question, but I couldn’t get the feel of those warm, diminutive fingers brushing along my cheek out of my thoughts.

“Been here a long time. You’re in Apartment 1810, you say? Hmm, Ames had some kids. They were older though. Eaton had a little one. A baby. They left before she could walk. Maybe the Bryants? That was way back. I was just new. You remind me of him.”

“Did they have a little girl? How long were they here?”

“Mister, give me a minute. Okay, he worked in the bank across 11th. The wife stayed home and worked the phone. That was a while ago, come to think on it. Almost forty years ago. They had a three or four-year-old girl. Too cute to be real.”

“Was there an accident?” I studied his rugged face. Every seam held a memory, every wrinkle an experience.

“How did you . . . ?” He caught my eye, my anxiety. “It was a fire, in the night. At a time when everyone is in their deepest sleep. Firefighters managed to get the mother out cause she was sleeping in an easy chair. No one else made it.”

I asked the neighbors how they liked living on the Eighteenth Floor. Mostly, they were indifferent. “The view is nice,” they said. “Elevator outages scare me,” they said. “After the storms sometimes there are leaks,” they said” The new management doesn’t know up from down,” they said.

Nothing else. Not a mention of sounds or movement or touches in the night.

I considered another apartment, but I didn’t move. My sleeping arrangement stayed the same. The storms continue to amaze me every time because they vary so much. When the brilliant sunshine streams through the Gothic quatrefoil designs high up in my apartment walls supporting the glorious vaulted ceiling, I remember.

The fire.

And a beautiful moment I lost once.