The Woman in White

As a little girl, I had a 200 piece toy set of plastic food and restaurant dishes. I loved playing waitress. I would often set up areas in my room. A 3-top of teddy bears. A 2-top of Barbies and Ken(s) and large parties of stuffed animals. I would plop them all around my bed and a large padded sitting bench in the room. However the far right corner of the nook where the bench was; was already occupied most days.

I never caught her name. She never would tell me. She cried 100% of the time I saw her, curled up - holding her legs to her chest on the bench with a small black book in between her. She never got up. She would only look at me once. I began to ignore her. I would serve my patrons plastic pizza and refill drinks, always minding to not get too close to her. I had seen her before in my room as a little girl, but when I tried to talk to her to make her feel better she sobbed louder.

She wore a white nightgown. Her legs, arms, and neck were covered in bruises. She had tiny bloodstains all over her white nightgown. Her hair was dark brown and I could tell that when the bruises heal she would look gorgeous. A pretty 30-ish woman crumpled up in a white nightgown sobbing in my childhood bedroom…every….afternoon.

She responded to me once. An hour after that I never saw her again. We had just got back from church and I ran to my room to change out my gaudy flower Sunday dress. I changed, ignoring her as usual. Once I got comfortable I began to set up my restaurant in my bedroom. As always, I never set up stuffed animals, dolls, etc where she was but just played around her. To this day, I’m fascinated by my little self to just adapt to this oddity. It took me days to just get used to her.

Playing as usual; for whatever on this day, I chose to offer her tea in my tiny porcelain teacup from a daisy tea set my grandmother gave me. She looked up. Still crying she told me, “Thank You”. I set it down beside her. She never picked it up of course. But began to look at me as I proceeded to move around my room and continue to play. Well, kind of play. I side-eyed her for what felt like an eternity while I passed out plastic food on tiny plates and wrote down orders on post-it-notes. She stared into me — never dropping her gaze as I moved across the room. I took my shot. I asked why she was crying. “He hit me again”, she said.

She began to get louder and repeat “He hit me again” over and over. Each time getting louder and louder. I started to get scared. For the first time, I realized what she was. I reached out to touch her. She moved away like a spooked animal each time but always staying seated on the bench. I kept trying. I finally pretended to play again and quickly faked her out and put my arm through her head. I felt tingles shoot through my arm... I felt dizzy like I was going to pass out or puke…or both. I removed my arm to reveal her face looking at me wide-eyed. She then began to look around the room as if she had never noticed the environment around her before. She stood up. Walking a few steps to my grab for my four-post bed and grabbed a banister. All the time scanning the room and then herself. The room and then herself again.

Still clutching the post of the bed she sank to the floor, crying again. But the cries were different this time. They hurt. They hurt me to hear. She eventually reached for me with both arms as if asking for an embrace. About two feet away I got down on the floor and slowly crawled towards her. When I got to the edge of her I sat down with my arms on my legs (folded “Indian-Style”). She hovered her hand over mine until finally setting it on top of mine. It was as if we were both realizing at this moment what energy we were made of. We both looked at each other's faces. Mine probably full of fright and confusion. She began to seem worried as I reacted to her touch - not wanting to upset me anymore.

“Am I dead?”, she whispered slowly. “You’re not here”, I said back while staring at the grains on the hardwood floor, afraid to see her face respond to that. I remember having no clue if she was dead or she was an imagined friend. I never had an imaginary friend up to this point, but who knows — maybe you don’t choose your imaginary friends. I looked up. She no longer looked sad, but relaxed. It was around noon when we came home from church. We sat on the floor next to each other until almost 4pm. I forgot to eat lunch even. My mom opened the door to the bedroom a tad to ask what I was doing. “PLAYING!”, I yelled. “Okay, dinner is in an hour”, my mom said as she walked out of the room leaving the bedroom door agape. I snapped up to go close the door, not realizing my legs were asleep after so long sitting with The Woman in White. I fell to the floor a few feet away from the door but slapped the door as I was going down. I turned over and The Woman in White had scampered over to me quickly and asked if I was okay.

“What happened!?”, she said; actually seeming worried. “I’m fine. That was my mom. Do you know where you are?”, I asked. She scanned the room again and shook her head no. “This is my room”, I expressed — “Do you know how you got here?”. She began to tell me about the last things she remembered. To this day I think of how her story shaped my view of men at such a young age. I subconsciously suspect from that moment on out, I expected men to only hurt me as I grew up.

“He’s a good guy, first off… We got married when I was 18 and it’s been a great marriage we’ve had. He works hard and provides for me so well. He never yelled at me before we got married and was always so sweet. When he drinks though…it’s different. Alcohol is a demon that possesses us, honey. I want you to know that.”, she told me. Now looking back I was way too young to fully understand this, but I’m glad I remember our conversation to this day. But at six, I just couldn’t fathom how a man drinking alcohol would turn him into someone else.

As she continued to tell me her story I realized she was fading into and out of what had happened when she was alive and what she thought had happened like yesterday. She continued, “He came home from work eight hours late one day and I was so worried he was with another woman when he was out. He stumbled into our studio apartment on the fourth floor and I heard him banging across the wall in the stairwell of the apartment building the whole way up and scrambled to finish writing in my diary and act natural. I knew he would be angry at me if I asked about where he was. I went to open the door for him. He was mad that I was up. He hit me before, but each time after he was such a sweetheart to me for so long afterward — promising to never hurt me again. That last night was different.

He lunged at me the minute I closed the door behind him once he was in the apartment. He grabbed my hair and dragged me around the living room area of our apartment like I was a rag doll, My legs kicked in the air knocking down a lamp and books off the side tables. He dragged me into the bathroom kicking and screaming and scratching at his hands. Once he got me into the bathroom my hair ripped in-between his fingers and I fell to the floor hitting my head and feeling a sharp sting at the back of my head. He started to run the water and fill up the bathtub. I knew he was going to drown me. I tried to get up but each time he kicked me in the stomach until I fell flat to the floor. Each time I gathered my breath back up and tried to move — another kick. Each time while the bathtub was filling up in the meantime.

The bathtub overflowed over the side and started splashing me in the face. He grabbed my hair again and lifted me up but my stomach felt like it weighed thousands of pounds now. He held me over the full bathtub and tried to push my head in. I mustered the strength one more time to stop him from pushing my head in. He grabbed a new handful of hair and lifted my head up far away from the water about a foot above the tub and that’s the last I remember…”

There was a long pause after that. I didn’t say anything. I had no clue what to say. She paused too. I think she realized she had ranted to a six-year-old and it might have been too much for me to process. “He killed you?”, I asked slowly. I then heard my mom yelling from the kitchen downstairs, “DINNER!”. I thought I could take my time getting downstairs. “He killed you?”, I asked again. There was another long pause. My dad came up and knocked on my door. “Unlock the door! It’s dinner time - you coming?”. I looked at the door as soon as I heard his footsteps. When I turned around, she was gone. That was the last time I saw The Woman in White. The black diary she had been clutching before was the only thing that remained.

I kept the little black book on me for 26 years. Reading it over and over and over again; trying to get some insight on who this woman was. Maybe she had family. Maybe her husband was walking free for her murder. It taunted me forever - trying to find out more about her death and find her husband. It took me decades, but I finally had discovered the bastard. By pure happenstance I was on a work trip in Denver, CO when a wanted man was being talked about on their local news. I got nauseous from seeing him. The black diary suddenly fell out of my suitcase in the hotel room even though I swear I had packed in deep below my clothes.

I knew it was him. The little black book and I headed to the nearest police station. I told the officer at the desk I think I had evidence in my possession of a previous murder. He pointed to the poster on the wall. Her parents had announced a $20,000 reward to anyone who could provide important information about her disappearance. Later...on top of his recent murder conviction he would then be trialed for the murder of The Woman in White after his confession. The trust her parents set up with the $20,000 should anyone come forward came to me the following year. I decided to use it for a custom headstone on her grave - showing her in her white nightgown, smiling and finally looking up - still holding her little black book.