The Man In The Hat Stood At The Foot Of My Bed And Waited To Be Introduced

I was nine. He came maybe six times over two years.

He stood at the foot of the bed. He wore a hat with a brim — I did not know the word fedora until I was thirty and somebody on the internet said it and my stomach dropped out of me — and a long coat, and he had no face that I ever saw, and he did not move.

He never did anything. That is what nobody believes. He never came closer, never spoke, never reached out. He stood there, and he waited.

Waited is the right word. He had the posture of a man who has been shown into a room and is waiting to be introduced to somebody.

I told my mother. She was standing at the sink and she went absolutely white, and she said, "What kind of hat?"

I have spent thirty years thinking about that question.

She never explained. She did the thing mothers of that generation do: she said it was a dream, she left the landing light on, and she changed the subject with the force of a woman closing a door on a fire.