by Becky Durfee
“No,” Jenny confessed. “When Greg and I moved in together, we used his furniture since it was better. The pictures clashed with his furniture, so we didn’t hang them.”
“It sounds to me like you need new furniture.”
“I think making new paintings would be more affordable.”
“Well then get to it.”
Jenny smiled, realizing at that moment how much she did miss painting. She hadn’t put a brush to canvas in ages, and a pang of longing grew inside her. Although, with the renovation in full swing, she knew her painting supplies would have to be packed up a while longer.
Elanor and Jenny continued to talk for another hour, laughing and carrying on as if they’d known each other for ages. Eventually, Elanor started to look tired, so Jenny said goodbye and headed out to her car. As soon as she closed the car door behind her and was officially alone, an unanticipated wave of emotion swept over her. Tears welled up in her eyes as she turned the key and backed out of her parking spot.
Elanor had struck a copious amount of nerves during that conversation. The feelings Jenny had tried to keep buried down inside were now exposed and raw. She had lost herself, and now she’d been called on it. Somewhere along the line she stopped being Jenny and started being Greg’s wife. Greg’s wife didn’t paint. Greg’s wife didn’t hang her paintings if they clashed with his furniture. Greg’s wife moved to Georgia so he could renovate a house.
Greg’s wife wasn’t a psychic.
Tears drenched Jenny’s cheeks as she drove, trying to figure out when, exactly, she stopped existing. If she had to pinpoint a moment, it would have been when the star running back of the college football team turned to her and said hello in World History class. She remembered the exhilaration of being noticed by such an attractive, popular, and athletic guy. She had always been so nondescript in her own mind; she couldn’t imagine what prompted him to talk to her. Realizing she’d have very few qualities that would have actually impressed him, she made sure that conversation—and every conversation thereafter—focused on him.
“That was it,” Jenny said out loud to no one. “That was why he liked me.” Greg didn’t like her because of her intelligence, sense of humor, or her artistic ability, she mused. He liked her because, with her, he always got to talk about his favorite topic of conversation—himself. As their relationship progressed, she always agreed to go where he wanted to go. She always agreed to do what he wanted to do. She always marveled about how wonderful he was, spending very little time talking about herself. “He doesn’t love me,” Jenny said through sobs. “He loves the fact that I worship him.”
Realizing her ability to drive had been greatly impaired by her flood of emotion, Jenny pulled over into a bank parking lot and stopped her car. She sobbed freely into her hands, leaning her forehead onto the steering wheel. “I could have been anybody,” she cried. “He picked me because I didn’t matter.”
Her crying maintained its intensity for several minutes until slowly she began to regain control. She breathed deeply and eventually the tears stopped falling. She leaned her head back against the seat of her car feeling exhausted and drained, but markedly better since the release of all of that bottled up emotion. She reached for a tissue she kept in her purse and cleaned herself off, although her eyes remained red and puffy. With one last deep breath, she put her car into reverse and continued her drive home.
She didn’t allow herself to think anymore as she traveled. She felt a peace within her, realizing she had a lot more thinking to do, but resolving to save it for another time. As she approached Evansdale, her driving was little more than automatic; then she caught herself taking a right when she should have taken a left.
She knew what was happening. She was being taken somewhere, and she knew she needed to maintain her trance-like state in order to reach her unknown destination. She did not allow the excitement of the experience to distract her; her emotional emptiness was hugely helpful in that regard. She simply didn’t have the energy to become elevated.
The car took what seemed to be automatic lefts and rights until Jenny ended up on a country road she had never seen been before. She drove down to the end of a cul-de-sac where a lone house stood a good distance off the road; she knew this was her destination.
She turned the car off and climbed out, walking somewhat zombie-like into the expansive front yard. She closed her eyes, and she was able to see this house as just a frame. The grass didn’t exist and the mature trees were gone, replaced instead by freshly-churned dirt and rocks. She opened her eyes and the house fell into place like an overlay against the vision of its frame, with the grass and trees back in place. She closed her eyes once again saw a gray haired man walking across the barren soil toward her.
“Hey, thanks for coming out so early on a Saturday morning,” the gray-haired man said.
“No problem.” A deep voice resonated through Jenny; she knew her character—presumably Steve--was speaking. “I’ve got nothing else going on. So what’s the story?”
“I came out last night because I’d forgotten to pack up one of my tools, and I noticed one of the structural beams is rotted and cracked. I wanted you to take a look at it before we did anything else. I’d do it myself, but this damn hip of mine won’t let me get up on that ladder. You seem to know your shit better than anyone else on the crew, so I want you to climb up there and tell me how bad it is. I think we need to replace the Goddamn thing, but that’s going to mean a lot of extra work. It was one of the first boards we put up.”
“Okay,” the deep voice replied, “I’ll take a look at that for you.”
The gray-haired man gestured with his hand, inviting Jenny to approach the house first. As the view changed behind Jenny’s closed eyes, shifting focus from the man to the house, the deafening bang of a gunshot rang out, followed by an intense, searing pain in the back of Jenny’s head.
She instantly placed her hands on her head, expecting to feel a large, gaping wound and oozing blood. There was no wound, no blood, and no more pain. She opened her eyes to find the grass had returned, and the house once again had walls, shutters, and plants in hanging baskets. Jenny’s heart raced and her hands shook as she stood alone in a seemingly innocuous suburban yard. However, she knew this wasn’t just an idyllic yard; this had been a crime scene. Elanor’s father hadn’t blackmailed Steve into leaving town; Steve had been murdered, right there at the construction site by a gray-haired man he’d regarded as a friend.
Chapter 9
Jenny made a note of the house number and climbed back into her car. She allowed the air conditioning to hit her face for a moment before driving, providing her with much-needed clarity and sobriety. As she drove back out the way she came, she searched for a street sign to indicate where she was. Eventually an intersection informed her that she was on Meadowbrook Road, which she jotted down on the back of a receipt from her purse.
Unaware of where she was with respect to her own house, she typed in her address and allowed her GPS to guide her home. She knew Greg was going to be less than thrilled with her when she arrived, but she didn’t have enough energy to care.
As she walked through the door of her house, Greg was patching holes in the drywall where phone jacks had once been. “Let me guess,” he said without looking at her, “you were visiting Elanor.”
“Yup,” Jenny remarked casually. She walked into the kitchen, dropped her purse on the counter, and then headed upstairs to the laptop.
She could hear the heavy sighs of Greg’s disapproval, but they had no impact on her. She was still emotionally void, and she actually enjoyed the numbness. She knew she would ordinarily be feeling insubordinate at that moment, and the inability to feel anything was a welcome replacement.
She opened her laptop and pulled the receipt out of her pocket. Using the county’s website, she typed in the address on Meadowbrook Road to see when the house had been constructed. The house was completed in 1954 by Larrabee and Sons Custom Home Builders and purchased
by the original owners shortly after.
Unable to remember exactly when Elanor had been born, Jenny searched for her name, eliciting the same results she had found last time. She clicked on the helpful website from before, confirming Elanor had been born in 1934. That would have put her at twenty while this house was being constructed, which was the age she claimed to be when Steve disappeared.
Part of her wanted to get back into her car and drive immediately to Maple Estates, but she had left because Elanor was becoming tired. She, too, was exhausted, so she decided to make the drive the next morning. Knowing full well that Greg wanted Jenny to come back downstairs and help him, she instead climbed into bed, let out a big sigh, and drifted quickly off to sleep.
Elanor’s face had turned a pale shade of green, worrying Jenny tremendously. “But I could be wrong,” Jenny added quickly. “It was just a vision. I may have made the whole thing up.”
“No. No you didn’t,” Elanor said weakly. “I remember the house on Meadowbrook Road. That was where Steve was working last. I went there that Monday morning looking for answers.” Elanor covered her heart with her hands. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“I’m so sorry, Elanor. I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, I’m glad you did. I wanted answers, and now I have them.” She appeared dazed as she spoke. “I just never would have imagined that would be the answer I’d get.”
Jenny looked sympathetically at Elanor, knowing all too well how it felt to have her foundation rocked to the core; Susan’s pronouncement had the same effect on Jenny a few days earlier. She wished she could take Elanor’s pain away, but she knew nothing she could say would provide any relief. Riddled with helplessness and guilt, Jenny felt almost as if she had killed Steve herself.
“And now I have a whole new set of questions,” Elanor added.
“I know. I’m sure they’re the same questions I’ve been asking myself. I was actually hoping you might have some of the answers.”
Elanor shook her head slowly. “I don’t know the gray-haired man’s name, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way that man was your father and I just saw things wrong…”
“No,” Elanor said, “My father went straight from brown to bald. There was never any gray. Besides, he wouldn’t have had any reason to meet Steve at a construction site.”
“I know,” Jenny admitted. “I’m grasping at straws.”
“I am still positive my father was behind it, though,” Elanor declared. “I’m quite sure he paid off this gray-haired guy. Typical Luther Whitby…he didn’t have the balls to do the dirty work himself. I just wonder who that guy was who actually did it.”
“It appeared to be the foreman of the construction site.”
Elanor looked angry. “The same piece of shit who told me that Steve left town…he did have gray hair, that asshole.” With a furrowed brow, she added, “But why would he do it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Elanor chuckled. “Yeah, of course he got paid. But I’d like to think that most people wouldn’t commit murder for money. What made this guy willing to kill someone for a couple of bucks?”
Jenny shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I’d love to find out.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” Jenny said. “I’ll do a little research for you and see what I can come up with.”
Elanor smiled lovingly at Jenny. “You truly are a doll, you know that?”
“Thanks, Miss Elanor. You know, I was thinking…there is one…” Jenny made a face, unsure of the correct word, “positive thing to come out of this.”
Wordlessly, Elanor lifted her eyes in Jenny’s direction.
“Your whole life you wondered how Steve could have left you. But it turns out he didn’t. He was taken from you.”
A half-hearted smile graced Elanor’s lips. “I guess he didn’t leave me, did he?”
“No, ma’am. And I’m hoping you’ll be able to take some solace in that.”
The smile faded from Elanor’s face, replaced with a look of deep reflection. “Over the years I have often wondered where he was—what he was doing. Even though I missed him, I always hoped he was happy. I took pleasure in believing he was out there changing some piece of the world in his own way. I never imagined his life would have been cut so short. He was a good man. He didn’t deserve that.”
“No one deserves that,” Jenny agreed softly.
Elanor let out a deep breath. “I guess I underestimated a lot of the people in my life. I should have known Steve wouldn’t have betrayed me. I knew him better than that.” Elanor smoothed her sheets as she looked down at her lap. “And I guess my father was an even bigger asshole than I thought.”
Jenny felt positively horrible. Her abilities were supposed to be helping Elanor; instead she had just made things immeasurably worse. She stayed by Elanor’s bedside for the remainder of the afternoon, consoling her until the conversation eventually turned lighter. By the time Jenny headed home, Elanor’s spirits had elevated to the point where Jenny felt she could be left alone. It wasn’t until Jenny was in her car that she allowed her own tears to flow. Had she made a terrible mistake by disclosing her vision? She knew only one person in the world could answer that for her.
Chapter 10
Jenny sat at Susan’s kitchen table, the smell of bacon still lingering in the air. “I’m really not sure I did the right thing,” Jenny concluded. She lowered her eyes to meet the stare of Buddy, Susan’s overweight--and overzealous—beagle, whose eyes were bulging out of his head. Jenny wasn’t entirely sure what spectacular trick Buddy was expecting her to do.
“You did,” Susan replied confidently. “Steve wanted you to have the vision. It’s a piece of information Elanor was supposed to have for some reason.” Susan blew on her coffee and took a sip. “You’re not the driver, remember? You don’t get to choose what the messages are. It’s your job just to deliver them. Maybe the purpose of the vision was to set the record straight about her father—get her to realize exactly what his true colors really were.”
Jenny sighed. “But that only made her feel worse.” Jenny reached down and scratched Buddy’s ears. “I guess I envisioned myself telling Elanor things that would make her happy. I never imagined I’d be relaying such sad news.”
“Oh, it’s not always happy, that’s for sure,” Susan declared emphatically. “In fact, it usually isn’t.” With a sigh, she added, “I remember once I had to tell a grieving set of parents that their murdered teenage daughter had been exchanging sex for drugs.” She shook her head in a near shudder. “I had teenagers myself at the time, and I almost couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was like adding insult to injury in the worst possible way.
“But it was a message the daughter wanted them to have. Once the toxicology reports came back on her body, her parents would have been made aware of the high levels of heroin in her system anyway. She wanted her parents to know that she didn’t blame them for her drug use. She regarded them as good parents. She only got into drugs because she was bored and had a little too much money for her own good. She never meant to hurt her parents, and she was sorry for the anguish she had caused them.”
“I can’t imagine having to tell her parents that.”
“Like I said, I almost didn’t. But it explained why she was murdered, so I had to tell them. It wasn’t a random act of violence like everyone suspected. She had been promising sex to drug dealers and then not delivering. Her rape and strangulation was nothing more than an act of revenge on the part of the drug dealers.”
“Dear Lord,” Jenny replied. “I guess this girl didn’t know what she was getting into.”
“Not at all.”
“How did her parents take it?”
“They told me to fuck off.”
Jenny winced.
“But,” Susan continued, “when the toxicology report did come back, I�
��m sure a small piece of them felt some understanding. That’s what you have to realize. It’s not your job to deliver happy endings to people; it’s your job to make the unhappy endings make sense. I think people take comfort when they can piece things together, no matter how disturbing the puzzle. It’s the missing pieces that cause people the most anguish.”
“I feel like I handed Elanor some pieces but took away others. Now she wants to know who that gray-haired man was.”
“Well, at least she has the correct pieces this time. The picture is becoming a little bit clearer.”
“The picture is uglier than she ever imagined.”
“It usually is.”
“We need to talk about this.” Greg stood with his arms folded as Jenny poured herself a glass of water. She headed for the medicine cabinet; her primary concern was to relieve the headache that had started at Susan’s house.
Unlike every moment in the past when Greg spoke to her in a disapproving tone, Jenny felt remarkably unabashed. “Talk about what?”
“You know what I mean. You disappearing every chance you get to go play cops and robbers.”
“Cops and robbers, huh?” Jenny was surprised by her own indifference. She swallowed two tablets with a long drink of water and added, “I suppose this is the point in the conversation where I’m supposed to apologize.”
“What is with you?” Greg asked. “You have been dogging your responsibilities since we moved in here, and now you’re getting a bitchy attitude with me.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you just called what I’m doing cops and robbers. That’s not exactly amicable. But I guess it’s okay for you to be condescending with me, just not the other way around.”
Greg threw up his hands in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re acting like this. It’s like you’ve become a totally different person since we moved here.”