Our calm play was interrupted the other day when my two-year-old daughter began gesturing wildly at a corner in the garage and frantically yelling, “Man!” She was obviously disturbed and frightened.

“Man?” I asked, looking to where she was pointing.

“Man!” she yelled again.

“There’s no man there,” I cajoled. However, the hairs on my arms prickled as she insisted that the presence of a man in our garage was very real.

This was not the first time Bridget has acknowledged an invisible person. Months earlier, we were sitting on the kitchen floor playing a game when Bridget peered over my shoulder and began waving. “Hi,” she said, as if greeting a familiar friend. She then got up and ran into the dining room. “Hi,” she said again, looking at nothing in particular.

Similarly, there was a time Bridget and I were in the backyard playing when, all of a sudden, she burst from my arms and took off along the side of the house. “Hi man!” she called.

No one was outside. The road and yards were deserted. All was quiet. “Where’s the man?” I asked.

“There,” she pointed. “Hi man!”

I have never been inclined to believe in ghosts or anything associated with the supernatural; I am of a scientific mind, and there is very little I take on faith. I want to see it to believe it. But there’s just one nagging little detail that has been slowly chipping away my resistance to accept there is more that surrounds us than what we can actually see.

Long before Bridget was born and when my son was quite small, getting him to sleep at night was difficult. When Jacob was an infant, he required an extremely rigid bedtime routine that consisted of rocking and singing and patting and tiptoeing (curse those squeaky hardwood floors) that took nearly an hour to complete. After Jacob transitioned into a big bed, he insisted either my husband or me lie down with him until he fell asleep.

There were times, when I was in bed with him, that his room felt off to me. It did not feel completely safe, serene, or kid-friendly like my daughter’s room, and I could not quite put my finger on why that was. I secretly chastised myself for being so silly; I never voiced my feelings to my husband, and I certainly did not say anything to my children.

When Jacob was three years old, however, he said something that chilled me to the bone. I was lying in his bed, rubbing his back and gently stroking his hair, when he looked at me and whispered, “Sometimes there’s a person in my room.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Sometimes there’s a person in my room,” he repeated as he pointed to a darkened corner.

I was reminded of a time when I was no older than Jacob was. My mom and dad had gone out for the evening, and the girl across the street had come to baby-sit. No sooner had I been tucked into bed when, appearing in the corner of my room, was what I imagined to be a person. I distinctly remember screaming and high tailing it out of there, so scared was I!

Years later, my father would recount times of feeling a presence in the downstairs bedroom. Whether legitimate or told just to scare us girls, I do not know. One thing is for certain, my father succeeded in provoking a fear so profound that many nights I would lie completely buried under my covers with a pillow cushioned around my head, convinced I was hearing whispered voices and seeing apparitions in the dark. Thanks, dad.

After the obligatory I see dead people my husband suggested that Bridget, perhaps, is creating imaginary friends. Do 25-month-olds have imaginary friends? The times when she sees people are rare, but there is something so intense and precise about her gaze that leaves me wondering if she does, in fact, see someone.

I do not know much about this land on which our house is built, other than the fact that there used to be a railroad that ran through here, about a half-acre up the hill. In fact, we have often hiked the trail the railroad followed (the tracks are no longer there).

Could our “man” be a railroad laborer or a lost passenger?

Likewise, the vineyard a mile from our home sits on ground containing a pre-Civil War cemetery and stagecoach stop. This area is rife with historical significance, so who knows what is lurking out there?

While I am not a firm believer in ghosts, I do not disbelieve.