"After the Fact" ("The New England Ghost Files", p.22)

Location: Freeport, ME

Catherine Tilden, a widow and retired bookkeeper, lives alone in her early 19th century Freeport, Maine, home. The lovely house - a Federal-style residence-was purchased by Catherine's husband, Biff, in 1946.

After her husband's death in 1974, Catherine spent the next few years quietly. She devoted most of her time to gardening, painting , and writing. Her three children lived out of state, and she had no other nearby relatives with whom she was close.

"Living by myself in that large house was a bit lonely," she says. "After several years, I suddenly got a crazy idea. I decided to invite my only sister, Alicia (also a widow), to move here to live with me, because I figured that she was also quite lonely. I say the idea was crazy because Alicia and I had hardly spoken for almost thirty years. We were on very bad terms. But I was lonely, and so was she, so I figured 'what the heck.' Not surprisingly, though, Alicia refused my offer. I guess the animosity between us had just become irreversible at that point. When I called her with the idea, she wasn't receptive at all. There was so much hostility in her voice, it made me feel even lonelier."

However, about a year and a half later, Catherine indicates, something suddenly changed. She received a surprising phone call from her hostile sister.

"Alicia just called up one day and shocked me by saying that she now wanted to come spend some time with me," Catherine remembers. "I was stunned, especially considering she had flatly refused my earlier off. Still, I told her I would love to see her. She only lived forty miles away, and she came to Freeport by taxi that very same day, on March 10 (1978). When I opened the door and laid eyes on her, the feeling was overwhelming. It had been so many years since we had seen each other. We hugged, and I asked her how long she would be staying. She said that she would stay for a week."

After Alicia arrived, the two women immediately began to get reacquainted. The sisters had experienced a terrible falling out in 1949, and, while Catherine does not like to discuss the conflict in detail, she hints that it had something to do with her father¹s will.

"Getting to know one another again was quite wonderful," Catherine says. "In our stubbornness and animosity, we had missed out on so much concerning each other¹s lives. We spent the next week taking walks together on the property, or just sitting and chatting in front of the fireplace in the den, sometimes into early hours of the morning. Alicia just seemed so eager to make things right again. Her sudden (remorse) seemed, well, so out of character for her."

During that week, Catherine observes, forgiveness began to replace the former hostility. She indicates that she was actually learning how to love her sister again after all those years. By the end of the week, Catherine truly hoped that Alicia would stay on in the house and live with her permanently.

However, as soon as the reconciliation between her and her sister had solidified, something strange happened. On the morning of March 17, exactly one week after Alicia had arrived, Catherine awoke early and went down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for her visiting sister. Suddenly, the phone rang. Catherine picked up the receiver, and the caller on the other end was her nephew Joseph, Alicia' s son. He was calling, he explained, to tell Catherine that her sister Alicia had died-exactly one week earlier-of pneumonia.

Immediately, Catherine became light-headed. She felt she was about to faint. This could not be possible, she thought to herself. He sister Alicia was there with her! She had been staying in the house for the past week!

"You say Alicia died a week ago?" the stunned woman said into the phone.

"Yes," her nephew replied. "On March 10, a week ago today. She was buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery several days ago. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner, but, well, I know that you and Mom didn¹t get along, and Mom had always said that she wouldn't want you at her funeral. We had to respect her wishes."

Catherine's head was still spinning. How could this be? Joseph said that Alicia had died on March 10. But that was the same day she had arrived at Catherine's home. If her sister died seven days earlier, with whom had she been sharing her house for the past week? Who was the person upstairs in the guest room? "Would you mind holding the phone?" Catherine nervously said to her nephew, dripping the receiver and dashing upstairs to the guest room.

When she entered the room, she found that there was no Alicia, no luggage, no trace that her sister had ever been there.

At that moment, notes Catherine, she was overcome with a sudden sense of indescribable peace and warmth-an "instinctive understanding," she calls it. She calmly returned to the phone.

"I'm very sorry about your mother," she said to Joseph. "I do wish that you had called me sooner, but I understand why you didn't If there is anything I can ever do for you, please feel free to call..."

Catherine hung up the phone and began to sob. It was now all very clear to her, she says. Alicia had died a week earlier but-unable to rest until she had been reconciliated with her sister-her spirit had come to make peace.

"This was not a flight of fancy," Catherine says firmly. "This experience was the most real and profound of my life. I consider myself extremely fortunate. I got a chance to love my sister again. She gave me that chance by caring enough to return after her death to make things right. It all seemed so real during the week she was here... she seemed so real. We walked together, talked together, ate together. But, I can't deny the truth of the matter: her visit took place after the fact. I suppose that most people would say I had been hallucinating for an entire week. Let them think what they will. After that week, I knew things about Alicia and her family that couldn't possibly have known unless she had told me...unless she had been here."