VisionSight: a Novel

by Connie Lacy

  I would plead not guilty and then he would get to work trying to have the DUI charge thrown out. Although he’d told me the arraignment was just a formality, I was on edge, which wasn’t doing my ribs any good.

  He led the way to a fourth floor courtroom where we took a seat and waited as a bailiff called each case. The judge, her staff and the guards looked like they were bored stiff while those of us in the gallery were, by and large, a bunch of nervous Nellies.

  As we waited for my case to be called, I was alarmed to see Brian enter the courtroom on my right. It was unnerving how official he looked in his police uniform. I tried not to think back to the night of the accident, what he must’ve seen when he arrived, how I must’ve looked, how he would’ve interviewed everyone and then spoken on camera with the TV reporters. I took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm myself.

  “Why is he here?” I whispered to Mr. Dixon, pointing at Brian.

  “Is he the arresting officer?” he whispered back.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. They don’t usually come for arraignment.”

  And finally, the judge called my name and Mr. Dixon and I both walked to the front. A bailiff read the charges and the judge asked if I understood.

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t hear you,” the judge said.

  “Yes,” I said, louder this time.

  “How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty,” I replied, my voice quivering.

  “Do you have an attorney?”

  “Yes,” I replied, looking at Mr. Dixon.

  “Paul Dixon, your honor,” he said, nodding at her.

  She made a note and, without looking up, announced that my preliminary hearing would be held in four weeks. Then Mr. Dixon led me into the crowded hallway.

  “I’ll call you,” he said, and headed back into the courtroom where he was representing another client.

  I closed my eyes and heaved a sigh, not of relief, but of disgust. I didn’t like being here in this environment with all kinds of law-breakers and miscreants. It made me feel cheap. I headed for the elevators but I didn’t make a clean escape. Brian walked up as the elevator doors opened. It was already crowded and there was just enough room for the two of us. He nodded but didn’t speak. We stood shoulder to shoulder for the ride to the first floor. When we piled off the elevator into the marble-floored lobby he followed me out the front door.

  “Jenna,” he said softly.

  “Were you trying to intimidate me?” I asked, hurrying down the granite steps.

  “No, I just…”

  “Then why did you show up dressed in your uniform, standing there so you’d be sure I saw you?” I raised my voice as I headed for the street.

  “Well…”

  “You were trying to bully me into pleading guilty, weren’t you?”

  I don’t know why but my voice cracked. I continued toward the street, looking for the taxi that brought me. I’d asked the cabbie to wait.

  “Jenna,” he said, stepping in front of me on the sidewalk.

  But I went around him, groaning in exasperation, as I looked up and down the street for my cab.

  “Where the hell is he?” I snapped.

  “Who?”

  “My taxi.”

  “I can drive you.”

  “No, thanks!”

  He shook his head as I continued scanning the street.

  “You wanna know why I came today? Well, just turn around for a second and I’ll tell you.”

  I didn’t want to turn around. I wanted to get the hell out of there. But he stepped in front of me, very close to the curb, and looked down into my face. I studied the eagle wings on his police badge and swallowed hard.

  “I came today because I care very much about you,” he said, his voice soft and low.

  I clamped my eyes shut as he put his hands on my shoulders, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. I realized I’d been trying to tamp down the growing affection I felt, trying not to like him too much. Which was, no doubt, the reason I’d been so angry. But it wasn’t really him I’d been mad at – it was my screwed up life. And now he knew my secret. Why had I blabbed at the hospital? Even if I was high on pain meds, why had I confided in him?

  A horn honked close by and I jumped. It was my cab. I pulled away from him and headed into the street.

  “Jenna, I just came off duty. Let me drive you.”

  I opened the back door.

  “Please,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “Please.”

  Something made me hesitate and when I did, he tossed a couple of bills to the driver, then closed the door and put his hand on my back.

  “This way,” he said.

  We walked to the parking deck and got in his truck. I winced as I climbed into the front seat and knew I needed another pain pill. We drove in silence until we reached a tree-lined street on the edge of Decatur.

  “I thought you were taking me home,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve got homemade zucchini soup in my crock pot. I think you could use a bowl of soup.”

  We pulled into the driveway of what would’ve been described in a real estate listing as a charming bungalow. It was a small, grey brick home surrounded by two huge magnolias, bushes and flowers, with a screened porch on the front. He helped me out of the truck and led the way.

  We entered through the porch into a sunny living room with hardwood floors, a tan couch and a couple of overstuffed chairs. A large potted ficus tree stood in the corner and there was a big screen TV. We followed the aroma of homemade soup to an old-fashioned kitchen – knotty pine cabinets, red Formica and chrome table and chairs. Pots and pans hung above the stove.

  “Make yourself at home,” he said. “I’ll change into my civvies and be right back.”

  I needed to sit down but more than that, I needed a pain pill. So I fixed myself a glass of water from the tap, swallowed the capsule, and gazed out the window above the sink to the back yard. Half the yard was a lush garden. I spotted tomatoes and green beans and what looked like cucumbers. Of course, maybe they were zucchinis, since he was cooking zucchini soup. A thick carpet of grass covered the other half of the yard, with pretty violet asters along the fence. Several cushioned lawn chairs sat on a patio. They looked so inviting that I unlocked the sliding glass door and wandered out back to sit down. The sun felt good on my face so I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the cushion, folding my arms across my rib cage.

  Then I was driving a shiny black taxi, using a crystal ball because there was no steering wheel and no pedals. I was escaping the fire and had burn marks where ropes had tied me to the stake. I was on that winding road again with tree branches closing in above me, in a full-blown panic.

  “Jenna, Jenna,” a voice called.

  I opened my eyes, feeling disoriented and lost. Brian was on his knees beside me, holding my shoulder.

  “It’s all right. You were dreaming,” he said.

  I took a deep breath, feeling the need for more oxygen.

  “I should’ve taken you home,” he said. “You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I saw him out of the corner of my eye studying me for a moment.

  “How about some soup?”

  And we returned to the kitchen where he had set the table with bowls, plates, silverware and napkins, along with a serving plate with sliced tomatoes, pickles and wheat crackers.

  “How long did I sleep?” I asked, taking my seat.

  “About half an hour,” he said, ladling steaming soup into the bowls. I could see bits of zucchini, tomato, onion, celery and green pepper.

  He returned the crock pot to the kitchen counter, fixed two glasses of ice water and sat down on my left, leaving me a clear view of the back yard through the sliding glass door.

  “What were you dreaming?” he asked, forking a slice of tomato onto my plate.

  “I was driving a car.”

  “Hm.”

  “Except it didn’t have a steerin
g wheel, a gas pedal or a brake pedal.”

  “No wonder you cried out.”

  “I screamed?”

  “It sounded more like moaning,” he said. “Cracker?”

  I shook my head and put a spoonful of the soup in my mouth. It transported me back momentarily to when I was a little girl when Dad used to say that Grandma’s soup was so good, it warmed his cockles. This was that kind of soup.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I considered whether to tell him but figured it couldn’t hurt at this point.

  “Well, I was scared to death, trying to drive the car with a crystal ball.”

  “A crystal ball?”

  “Yeah, the kind of crystal ball a psychic might use.”

  He was looking at me, waiting for more.

  “The soup is incredible,” I said.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Well, I was escaping being burned at the stake as a witch.”

  He made a small guttural sound, set his spoon down and reached over to touch my arm.

  “I’m a good driver, you know,” I said. “This is the second time I’ve dreamed about driving a car with no steering wheel. And I was better at it this time, better at keeping the car on the road. It’s like I could send a message to the car through the crystal ball.”

  And I chuckled.

  “It was like the car became an extension of my body, just like in real life,” I continued. “That’s how I feel when I’m driving – almost like the car knows what I want it to do before I consciously think about it. Except, of course, for that night at Mr. Spencer’s house.”

  He nodded but, unlike some people I knew, refrained from making any smartass comments.

  We made small talk as we ate. He didn’t press me further about my dream, which was good. When we’d had our fill, he stored the rest of the soup in the fridge but left the dishes for later. When I rose from the table he crossed the room to stand in front of me.

  “You’re not looking at me anymore,” he said. “You haven’t looked at me at all today. And I’m not entirely sure you looked at me yesterday, although I didn’t realize it at the time.”

  I gritted my teeth, studying the button on his black polo shirt, which, I confess, looked very good on him.

  “Does that mean…” he said, and stopped.

  “That means I’m afraid.”

  “You’re not alone anymore,” he whispered. “Now close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just close your eyes for a minute.”

  When I did, he pulled me into a gentle embrace and put his mouth on mine, kissing me tenderly. And I found myself returning his kiss and wanting more.

  “I love you, Jenna.”

  30.

  I must’ve flinched as we made the short drive home. I desperately needed to lie down. Brian reached over to hold my hand as we drove.

  “Have you been to the doctor lately?” he asked.

  “Yeah. He says I’m fine. It’ll just take time.”

  I could feel him looking at me.

  “Remember the guy who played my husband in Rose and Lily?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I ran into his wife as I was leaving the doctor’s office. Or maybe I should say ex-wife.”

  “Oh?”

  “She left him.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “Very much.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I had a vision with Randall during rehearsals and I saw him cheating on his wife with the actresses he worked with.”

  “But I thought you only…”

  “Yeah, but Sam had told me to really get into character and I was trying hard to feel the emotion of the moment when Randall was supposed to kiss me in the moonlight. And, well, I guess I got so totally into character that when I looked into his eyes, I saw his future.”

  “Damn!”

  And then I told him about the unpleasant scene at the cast party when I spilled the beans about Randall’s infidelities after Wendy accused me of having an affair with him.

  He pulled the truck into the driveway and turned off the engine. But we just sat there.

  “That’s very interesting,” he finally said.

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Because it finally dawned on me that if Wendy left Randall, then what I saw in his eyes won’t happen. At least, she won’t be the wife he comes home to and makes excuses to.”

  “So…”

  “Something changed. What I saw won’t play out the way I saw it.”

  He jumped out of the truck and walked around to my side, opening the door to help me out. Then he wrapped his arms around me and held me carefully.

  “You did it,” he said.

  When he stepped back, I was feeling reassured and hopeful for the first time in forever. And, of course, I’d been so used to looking at him since that day I found him on my doorstep, that I looked straight into his smiling brown eyes. For an instant, I could see the love in his heart, but then my knees buckled as I was thrown headlong into a harrowing dream-like sequence.

  It was dark and rainy and he was running and running, panting hard as he raced between two buildings. As he ran under a streetlight, I could see a gun in his hand. There was the crackling of a walkie-talkie as he charged ahead. And then there was a loud popping noise – gunfire – and he hit the ground as voices on the walkie-talkie continued hissing into the night. Footsteps faded into the distance as though someone were running away on wet pavement. Then it was dark and quiet and I came to, dizzy and weak, with Brian holding me in his arms, my cheeks wet with tears.

  “Jenna, are you all right?”

  His voice seemed so far away.

  “Jenna?”

  But I couldn’t speak. The horror of what I’d seen was too much to bear.

  He walked me inside and helped me lie down on the couch, handing me a tissue. He sat on the edge of the sofa next to me, but didn’t say anything. He waited patiently for me to speak. But I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. It was like my heart had taken a sucker punch. I lay there until the tears finally stopped.

  “Tell me what you saw,” he said.

  “You… you were chasing someone with your gun drawn. And then there was gunfire and you were shot and I… I saw you die.”

  My voice cracked and tears welled up again. He put another tissue in my hand and I blotted my eyes.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not all right.”

  He faced the TV, watching me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Listen, you just told me how you changed what happened with that actor and his wife.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at the side of his handsome face. His jaw was set like he was ready to go into battle. He nodded his head and put his hand on my arm, giving it a tiny squeeze, still looking across the room. Was it really possible that warning him would protect him?

  “Any idea when that scene takes place?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you see anyone besides me?”

  “I just heard footsteps. And voices on a walkie-talkie. And gunfire.”

  He nodded thoughtfully and I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. I wondered if he was as frightened as I was.

  “I think you need to rest and I need to run a couple of errands,” he said, and he leaned down and held me close, kissing my forehead. “I’ll come back this evening. Don’t worry, okay? Everything will be all right.”

  “You think?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  He kissed me again and locked the door on his way out, taking a key with him. I really needed to drift off to sweet, restful sleep. But I couldn’t stop the vision from playing over and over in my head. And I dreaded being burned at the stake again and the panic that overwhelmed me as I used a ridiculous crystal ball to drive a car.

  “Shit!” I yelled at the ceiling.

  I dragged myself off the couch, triggering a spasm of pa
in in my ribs. Another pill, that’s what I needed. I hobbled to the kitchen, trying to remember when I’d taken the last one. I poured myself a glass of wine instead and headed out the back door. I wandered around the garden looking at the fruits of Brian’s labor. I wasn’t sure when I’d fallen in love with him. I didn’t even realize I had until today. And now that we had found each other it was torture to think I would lose him.

  “It’s not fair,” I cried.

  I was so tired but I was terrified of the dream. I wished Mrs. Robertson had never told me about my poor twelfth great grandmother who was burned at the stake. I thought about her daughter, the one who was concerned for her own daughter, afraid she might be accused of sorcery. So much so, that she told her not to let anyone know she had any kind of psychic abilities. But it was amazing that the daughter – what was her name, Ellen, Ila, Eileen, yes, Eileen – it was amazing Eileen ignored her mother and made a living from her talent. With a crystal ball!

  And that’s when it hit me. If she made money telling people’s fortunes, she must’ve been able to control her visions so she could see people’s futures when she wanted to. And it dawned on me that I had accidentally done that. I’d seen Randall’s future, hadn’t I? And Judy’s. Even though I didn’t like them one bit. I suddenly wanted to know more about Eileen and fired off an email to Mrs. Robertson.

  I set my empty wine glass in the sink and was struck by how it sparkled in the sunlight. I thought again of the crystal ball in my dreams. Ever since Mrs. Robertson told me about Eileen, I’d been dreaming of using a crystal ball to drive my getaway car. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and brought my laptop to the kitchen table where I did a little research about crystal balls. As I sipped my coffee I concluded they were used mainly as a stage prop to convince customers or an audience that magic was being performed. But it appeared they were also used as a means of focusing the mind, something to stare into so you weren’t distracted. And I thought any number of things could be used to help you focus the mind – a pattern on a computer screen or maybe a wine glass.

  I returned to the sink and picked up the empty glass, holding it up to the light. Was it possible to drive my vision-sight episodes like I drove a car? I remembered my words about the experience of driving, that the car seemed to be an extension of my body, that my hands and feet responded without conscious thought, almost by instinct.