Yesterday I watched Rose Red, a 2002 three-part mini-series about a haunted house. I can’t recommend it because the acting was so utterly terrible and didn’t do Stephen King’s screenplay any justice, but it did get me thinking about the vibes and weird events in some of the apartments I’ve had over the years, so I’ll share a few of my experiences over the next few entries.

For instance, when I lived in my second apartment on Long Island, I still had a landline on my desk and occasionally the receiver would fall off of the cradle and crash to the floor.

At first I thought it was because of the cord, which was long enough for me to walk across the bedroom from the desk and therefore somewhat heavy as phone cords go. But then it occurred to me that the receiver would only fall while I was alone in the bedroom. It never happened when I was in another room or not home, and it never happened when my then-boyfriend was over—and he could have some heavy footsteps at times.

After the fourth or fifth time the receiver fell off the cradle I got annoyed and replaced the long cord with a shorter cord from the box of miscellaneous cords and wires I had amassed over the years. I also started covering my (rather small) desk with a bath towel after shutting off my laptop for the day because sometimes the receiver would fall off the cradle at night and scare the crap out of me as I was drifting off to sleep, and I figured that the weight of the towel would hold it in place.

But that didn’t stop the receiver from falling off the cradle during the day. It happened again, and again, and again.

Finally I picked up the receiver to tell whoever it was go to the light, but as soon as I touched it I got the strange feeling it was my mother, who had died in 2000 after a long illness. Right before she died my father had called my phone at work to tell me she was about to receive last rites. The priest came in while we were on the phone so we hung up. My father then called a few minutes later, while I was in the ladies room composing myself, but he didn’t leave a message. He called again right after that and left a message that she had died, along with a number at the hospital to call him. Looking back on it now, I wonder if the second call, the one where he left no message, was for me to talk to my mother one last time, and even if he held the receiver to her ear so she could hear the voice of one of her daughters one last time (and ugh, heard my voicemail message instead), but I suppose I’ll never know because he died in 2005.

So there I sat, holding the receiver to my ear.

“Mom?”

Just a dial tone.

Of course.

I hung up, curled the cord so that the cord was entirely on the surface of the desk, and sat on the edge of my bed staring at the phone.

And so help me, the cord uncurled and slipped off the edge of the desk.

“Go to the light!” I barked. Oh, it came out so harshly in my fright, and I regretted it the second I said it.

“I’m sorry. Mom, if that’s you, I know you’re here, and I love you and miss you. Thank you for watching over me, but it’s okay to go to the light,” I said, this time more gently. “And if you’re not my mom, you should know that you’ve died and we can’t talk on the phone. I can’t help you. You need to go to the light.”

I lived in that apartment for almost three more years after that, and the receiver never fell off the cradle again.