May God forgive her.
She doubted that anybody else would.
Chapter Five
MARY’S OLD HOUSE was near the south side of the river. The community hospital where she worked was on the north side.
The city of St. Joseph lay at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Benton Harbor was just on the other side of the river. Together they were locally known as the Twin Cities, but their only congruence was geographical. They were far from identical.
St. Joe had a predominately white population with a median household income that held its own with other parts of the Midwest. It had all the usual amenities and attractions of a smaller lakeside city. In a location that was easily accessible from much of northern Indiana, the city was also close enough for those in Chicago who were affluent enough to own weekend homes and determined enough to make the commute.
Minutes away, just north across a bridge, Benton Harbor had a predominantly black population, with a median household income that was well under twenty thousand.
Mary had to commute daily across the divide to get to work, but she did not have to make that trip today. After shutting the door on her painting studio, she took another cup of coffee to the bathroom and showered. As the coffee sat on the sink and cooled to a drinkable temperature, she stood under jetting hot water and let the heat soak away the tension that had built up in her shoulders and neck. Then she soaped her hair and body, feeling the protrusions and angles of bone under the fluid shift of skin.
Did she really look all bones and nerves? Her appetite had dropped off sharply over the last month or two. Drying quickly, she wrapped her hair in the towel and rubbed fog off the mirror over the sink.
Like her hair, her skin also hinted at a mixed-race heritage in her family’s past. Her natural complexion was a rich shade of honey. Large blue cat eyes looked back at her from a face that had always been thin but had now turned sharp. Cheekbones, nose and jaw were pronounced. Only her lips had retained their original fullness.
She glared as she watched those lips shape silent words.
What’s the matter with you?
As she considered her reflection, she thought about changing her mind and going with Justin to see Tony. As soon as the thought occurred, she rejected it. She didn’t need another doctor to tell her what she already knew. Whatever her problems were, they weren’t physical in origin.
She went into her bedroom, which was as cluttered as the rest of the cottage, and she dragged on a pair of jeans and a light cotton sweater. After braiding her damp hair off her face, she slipped on tennis shoes and grabbed her jacket and purse. She paused to tape a note to her front door.
Gone in search of cigarettes and a penis. Bring Baxter by any time on Friday. M. Man.
Then she read what she wrote and sighed. It wasn’t funny. She didn’t seem to have any real humor in her today, and she needed to stop trying to fake it.
She left the note anyway, climbed into her Toyota Camry and backed out of her driveway. Just before she pulled onto the street, she slammed on the brakes and sat chewing her lip in indecision.
Justin was going to be pissed. Well, piss on him for trying to control her behavior. He’d wait around a while then go away and try to argue with her later. She scowled, double-checked the street and pulled out.
The day had brightened into a beautiful May afternoon with puffy cumulous clouds swimming in an azure sky. The wind was still chilly but the sun was shining, so the interior of the car soon grew hot. She rolled her window down partway, and a breeze gusted in to ruffle her jacket and hair. Since she was broke, she drove to a nearby bank and used an ATM to withdraw a hundred dollars.
Conscious of the haunted, bony face that had looked out at her from the bathroom mirror, she stopped at the nearest drive-thru and ordered a large chocolate shake and a bottle of water. She threw the bottle of water in the passenger seat and jabbed a straw into the lid of her shake. Sucking hard on the straw, she turned on impulse onto Highway 31 and took it south.
She wasn’t aware until much later how such simple desires and decisions were the first steps along a path of action that helped to save her life.
* * *
THREE QUARTERS OF a chocolate shake and half of a U2 album later, Mary crossed the southern state border into Indiana. After she had graduated, married Justin and moved to St. Joseph, she had rarely made the journey to either the Notre Dame University campus or its neighboring city of South Bend. As a result she had grown unfamiliar with the exits off the 31 Bypass. She took a guess and picked the wrong exit.
She realized her mistake as she drove into South Bend itself. She would have to travel back north and east through the city to get to the Notre Dame campus. The route would take longer, but she had the afternoon to kill anyway. With a shrug she committed herself to the city streets, driving at an unhurried pace through an unfamiliar part of town.
While she waited at a red light she noticed a wooden sign in front of a charming ramshackle Victorian house: PSYCHIC CONSULTATIONS. TAROT READINGS. WALK-INS WELCOME. The sign looked hand-painted. The ghost of beautiful detail lurked in the curvature of the lettering, which matched the house’s deep pink gingerbread trim. Now the sign was old and battered.
The spring wind, still erratic, blew sharp and hard into her open window. It tugged an unruly lock of hair loose from her braid. Reaching up, she tucked the lock behind her ear.
A little voice whispered, Stop and see.
Her tongue came between her teeth as she considered. She’d never had a tarot reading before. Aside from any amusement factor, if science didn’t have an acceptable cure for her, what might superstition offer?
By the time the stoplight had changed she had made up her mind. She pulled into the small parking lot beside the house, walked up the narrow sidewalk to the front door, checked the hours posted and stepped inside to the sound of a tinkle from an old-fashioned bell.
The breeze gusted in with her, and she had to struggle to shut the door behind her. Then she turned and took in a shabby, spacious foyer and a large open front room decorated with an eclectic mix of modern and antique furniture. To her left a massive staircase curved up to a second floor. A dusty but otherwise magnificent antique chandelier hung from the high ceiling. She gawked at it.
At her entrance a woman rose from the couch in the front room and set aside a book. The woman smiled and walked toward Mary, who blinked and readjusted her expectations. She had expected something that was either exotic or tacky, or an unfortunate combination of both, but this woman was plump, comfortable-looking and middle-aged.
“Good afternoon,” the woman said, offering a freckled hand that sparkled with QVC bling.
Mary shook the other woman’s hand, with an instinctive liking for her direct friendly gaze. “Hi, I just saw your sign and decided to stop,” Mary said. “I was wondering if you had time for a consultation or a tarot reading or whatever it is you do, but of course I understand if you don’t since I don’t have an appointment. Really, this was just an impulse thing—”
Stupid, she meant to say. Off-the-wall, loose-cannon, embarrassing, about-to-do-something-you’ll-regret stupid.
Before she could talk herself out the door, the woman interrupted with a cheerful smile. “I certainly do have time. Business is slow today. This is the first nice afternoon we’ve had in weeks and everybody’s gone outside. My name’s Gretchen.”
Gretchen the psychic. A hiccup of laughter exploded in Mary’s nose.
She clapped a hand over her mouth and turned it into a barking cough. What the hell’s the matter with you, she thought. Be a grown-up.
She managed to say, “I’m Mary.”
“Please come in and have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.” Gretchen gestured to the living room area.
Mary chose an overstuffed armchair. The soft-cushioned chair tried to swallow her. Good thing it didn’t have teeth or it could have done some major damage. Nervousness kept her perched on the edge of the seat. She noted Gretch
en’s quick glance at her erect posture, and she tried to relax.
She explained, “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know why I’m nervous.”
Gretchen grinned and shrugged. “Blind date jitters. I think it’s a typical reaction. We don’t know each other, and you have no idea how this is going to go. Would you like a drink? I’ve got Diet Coke, or I could make tea or coffee.”
Mary forced herself to smile back. The muscles in her face felt stiff, the smile false, and she rubbed the back of her neck. Apparently she had left her social skills in the hall closet along with her winter coat. Her headache wouldn’t budge no matter how she ODed on caffeine, but never call her a quitter. “A Diet Coke would be nice, thank you.”
“My pleasure. I’ll be right back.”
The older woman was as good as her word. She left Mary just enough time to shrug out of her jacket before returning with two cans of Diet Coke and glasses filled with ice. Gretchen didn’t want to lose her unexpected fee. Mary’s smile turned wry. She accepted the drink with a murmured thanks.
“So,” Gretchen said. “You have never done this before.” Mary shook her head, pouring soda into her glass. “Well, perhaps you can tell me what you’re looking for and we can figure out where to go from there.”
“I’m . . . not sure.” Mary sipped at her fizzy drink. She bet she knew what was coming in this next part. This was where Gretchen pumped her for information then regurgitated it back for money. She suggested, “Why don’t you tell me what your, er, specialty is. Perhaps we should try that. Is it tarot readings?”
The older woman frowned. Strong sunshine fell through the window on the back of her head and on one round shoulder, throwing most of Gretchen’s face into shadow. The unforgiving light showed a thin strip of gray – and mouse-colored hair at the roots of a vivacious butterscotch rinse from L’Oréal. “Actually, I tend to pick the medium from instinct depending on the client and what questions he or she might have.”
This was supposed to be for entertainment purposes only, but they hadn’t reached the entertaining part yet. Mary looked at the front door, already half regretting her impulse to stop. She was a fool.
“Usually,” Gretchen continued in a quiet voice, “people come in with some kind of question on their minds, even if they’re skeptics and it’s just a frivolous question. Do you have a question, or are you one of those rare people that doesn’t?”
Keeping her gaze fixed on the front door, Mary asked, “What do you think dreams are?”
A pause. Then Gretchen said, “I believe dreams are our minds freed from the definitions placed upon us by our physical bodies.”
Mary’s gaze turned to the other woman. She leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
She heard a rustle of clothing as the other woman shifted. “I mean that when we dream, we are able to use our minds while being free of our bodies. We could dream of something we imagine, dream to relieve stress, or we could dream of our past. We could dream of our past lives and we could dream of our futures, or of other worlds, other realities. We can travel and speak to people we know who are alive, or to those who are dead. Or maybe we can speak to people who were never alive in any sense that you and I understand that word. Maybe we can even sometimes speak to those creatures that aren’t people.”
The other woman fell silent, and Mary laughed. “That covers a lot of ground.”
Gretchen smiled. “Yes. That’s what the dream world allows us to do.”
“You believe we can dream of the future.”
“Absolutely.”
“How can that be when it hasn’t happened yet?”
“Well I’m no genius scientist, but I do think we perceive reality through the limitations of our human senses and brains. Our actual reality is a lot bigger than we are. In our dreams we aren’t subject to a linear existence, which is how we experience time in our physical bodies. Why not dream of the future, or of the past? All times are now.”
Mary looked into her dark bubbling drink and struggled with that concept. She had never been all that good at understanding quantum physics either. She muttered, “Sometimes I have dreams that come true.”
“Do you? I do too,” said the other woman. “I always wished I could turn it into something useful, but usually for me it’s nothing more than my hairdresser getting sick, or my cat running away. Once I did dream what my tax return was going to be. This was before all the fancy software programs that calculate what your return will be before you file. In my dream, my return was more than I thought it would be, so I kept rereading the check in disbelief. Turns out I was correct, right down to the penny, but of course you can’t gamble on things like that, in case you’re wrong and you just had a dream of imagination or wishful thinking.”
Mary stared and then chuckled. She had made one of the hardest confessions she’d ever made to another person, but it was clear Gretchen was not very impressed. “How mystical and yet pragmatic.”
“I think you just described my cultural heritage,” said Gretchen with a twinkle. “I am part German and part Yugoslavian.”
Mary was still processing what Gretchen had said earlier. She said, “You mentioned past lives, so you believe in reincarnation.”
“Yes, I do,” Gretchen replied, sipping her drink. “At least I believe that some form of it exists. A more Greek version of reincarnation is to ‘transmigrate,’ or to pass from one body at death, drink forgetfulness from the river Lethe and then pass into another body. Or something like that, anyway. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the details.”
Mary had heard of the river Lethe, but she had never heard of transmigration before. “You said something about spirits.”
“Yes, I believe in spirits. We are spirits inhabiting bodies, and everything alive has a spirit. And there are spirits who have never had a body that we could conceive of, or understand, like, for instance, the Wakean.”
“The Wakean?”
“The Wakean are the American Indian thunder beings. I always smile when a good thunderstorm rolls in, and I hear them crashing around up in the sky.”
Mary watched the older woman in fascination. Gretchen sat not fifteen feet away but lived in an entirely different world from hers. She said in a doubtful voice, “What it all boils down to is that you think your dreams can either be real or not.”
“Oh no,” Gretchen said. “I believe every dream is real. I just think it takes a dexterous and sophisticated mind to determine to which level of reality a dream belongs. That’s the difficult part.”
Mary sighed. Disappointment crept in. After this whole conversation, she didn’t have much more than what she had walked in with, aside from an odd thought or two that carried a bit of Gretchen’s QVC sparkle. She had been ridiculous to hope for more. “Well, thank you for your time. How much do I owe you?”
“That’s it?” Gretchen asked. “Are you sure you don’t want something else?”
“No, I think that’s it for today. You’ve given me a lot to think about,” she said, keeping her tone polite. She drew out her checkbook. “How much do you charge?”
“Nothing.” Gretchen smiled as she looked up and began to protest. “No, I’m serious, please forget it. I wasn’t busy, I enjoyed the visit and you didn’t ask hardly anything of me. I wouldn’t feel right taking your money. If you want to change your mind and come back sometime, though, I’ll sock you with a bill then.”
No matter what Mary said, the older woman wouldn’t be moved. After a few minutes she gave up. Gretchen saw her to the front door and pressed a card into her hand. “Call me,” she said.
Mary smiled at her. “Thank you.”
Gretchen gripped her hand. “You have blood on your hands.”
Ice slithered down Mary’s spine. “Excuse me?”
“You have blood on your hands. A lot of it. And I don’t know why the color red is so important to you, but it is. I didn’t want to say it earlier, because you were nervous enough, and I didn’t want to frighten you.” Gretchen looked a
t her searchingly. “Yesterday the blood was all down your front. Are you an EMT?”
“I’m a doctor,” she whispered. “I work in an ER.”
“Someone died yesterday.”
“Yes.” Her lips felt numb.
“I thought I felt someone hovering around you. Maybe even a couple of someones. I’m sure she’s grateful for everything you tried to do for her.” Gretchen smiled and squeezed her hand. “You’re a good healer. A lot of people are thankful for what you do.”
The conga drums were back, playing an encore in Mary’s chest. Boy howdy. No more caffeine for her today. And this conversation had turned far too Ghost Whisperer for her. She swallowed, pulled her hand away and forced herself to say, “Thank you.”
After she walked to her car, she stood for a few moments, looking around and breathing hard. Okay, that last bit rattled her. Why was she so upset? She was a fool. For entertainment purposes only, remember? How could she have allowed herself to hope for something else—from a psychic consultant, of all people? She was tired, that’s all. She was strung out from feeling this pressure building up inside of her, and if she didn’t work hard to avoid it, she was going to . . .
What was she going to do? Explode? Crash?
Her mind felt frozen, her thoughts running thick and sluggish, and yet inexorable, like mud in a landslide. What was BabyMama Two’s name? The girl was scheduled for an autopsy today. That shouldn’t be the only thing you remember about a person.
Pain filled Mary’s chest. A thin keen came from the back of her throat as a feverish heat flashed through her body. She pressed a hand to her sternum.
It was an actual, physical pain. It felt like someone who was shattered with grief, like someone who was so far beyond the end of her rope she didn’t know where the end was, like someone who was at the mercy of a convulsing sob.
Sweating, taking short, shallow breaths, she blew out through her mouth until the tight band around her lungs had loosened and she could draw in a deep gulp of air. The wind burst against her cheeks with a frantic urgency.
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