Too Near the Edge

by Lynn Osterkamp

  “Of course you feel that way, Sharon. Most people have that experience after a loss. It’s hard to look around and see life moving along when you feel depressed.” We came to a bench on the creek bank, sat down and gazed out at the rushing water below.

  Sharon sat quietly for several minutes, and then continued softly, almost as if talking sadly to herself. “I know I have a lot to live for—Nathan, my job, good friends. But I don’t have Adam. All the thoughts and joys and little jokes I want to share with him go unshared. My daily life has a hollow feeling, a big space that he used to fill. Nothing is the way it was when we were together, and it will never be that way again.” She sobbed inconsolably. “I loved him so much, and he loved me. I’ll never find anyone else I can love so totally and who loves me that much.”

  I knew she needed to grieve. There’s so much bottled up inside after a loss. “It’s true that your life won’t be the same,” I said, thinking to myself that if Sharon could actually reach Adam, she might feel a lot better. I thought about one of my former clients who couldn’t stop blaming herself for not having somehow noticed warning signs of her husband’s fatal heart attack. She had nightmares where he was drowning and begged her to save him but she couldn’t help him. When she finally contacted him in the apparition chamber, he told her how much he loved her, what a wonderful wife she had been, and that she couldn’t have prevented his death. After that, she was able to accept his death and her nightmares stopped.

  “Somehow I have to move on, build a new life,” Sharon went on. “Sometimes I don’t think I can do it. It’s just too hard. But I know I have to do it for Nathan. So I try to find things we can do to have fun together. Then sometimes when I do find myself enjoying something, I feel guilty that I’m having fun with Adam gone.”

  I wanted to normalize her feelings and build on any positive emotions she might have, so I said, “That’s a common feeling people have. But you know Adam wouldn’t want you to feel miserable all the time. Are there times when you don’t feel so sad?”

  “Sometimes anger takes over the sadness. I’m angry that I don’t know what happened to Adam, that maybe someone pushed him over the edge and I’ll never find out. But if I do find out someone pushed him, I’ll kill that person for taking Adam away from me.”

  Blaming someone for a loss is a strategy grievers sometimes use to avoid facing their feelings. This can interfere with their healing. But in Sharon’s case, there was a real mystery to be solved—possibly someone who deserved blame. So, I didn’t try to redirect her back to her grief.

  “Do you have any ideas about anyone you think might have pushed him?”

  “Not really. He didn’t have enemies.” She looked off to the left as if mentally checking a list of suspects. “Well, there is the voice on the answering machine. And of course Natalie—Narmada—whatever. But I don’t see how she could have actually pushed him. I think I need to know more about what was going on before he died, what was bothering him so much. So today I’m hoping to reach him and get some information.”

  We went back to my office, where I set her up in the apparition chamber. While she was in there, I tried another web search on Dr. Ahmed. This time, I followed a bunch of the links that came up. I ignored the ones where Ahmed was the first name, and the ones where the Dr. Ahmed was a Ph.D. rather than an M.D. I found an oncologist in California, a gynecologist in Illinois, and several natural healing specialists, but no one that sounded like he’d been running a drug scam.

  After about an hour, Sharon came out looking confused and not nearly as delighted as she had after her last session. I handed her a big glass of water and nudged her into the counseling room.

  “How did it go this time?”

  “I kept thinking about how you said not to try to make something happen. I was sitting there struggling with wanting so much to reach Adam. I felt like I was trying to force him to show up, and it wasn’t working. So finally I decided that today wasn’t going to be the day. When I sat back and relaxed, I suddenly got a powerful sense of Jenny—and I heard her voice. I didn’t see her clearly, only a shadowy figure in the mirror, but I could feel her right there close to me. She said she knows I’m having a hard time.”

  Sharon took a break for a long drink of water. I waited quietly.

  “I told her that Erik was being a wonderful help to me and Nathan and was like part of our family. She asked me if I remembered her telling me that Erik sometimes tells lies.”

  “Interesting. What did you say?”

  “I told her I did remember her saying that, but that Erik has never lied to me. Then she said I should ask him about Amber and Melissa

  and about his brother Harry.”

  “Has he ever talked to you about any of those people?”

  “Never. I asked Jenny to tell me more about them, but she didn’t answer me. Or if she did, I couldn’t hear her. I began to feel her fading away, so I called out, ‘Jenny, don’t go yet. I need to know about Adam.’ Then I felt her presence strongly again, and I heard her clearly. She said ‘I didn’t come about Adam. It’s about you. You have to stop the scam before more people get hurt.’ Then, before I could ask her what she meant, she just evaporated. I couldn’t feel her presence at all, and I couldn’t get her back.” Sharon looked despondent.

  “What scam do you think she meant?”

  “It could be about Dr. Ahmed, something about drugs. I know she sometimes took Xanax and other drugs she got from him. And after what you overheard him saying, it looks like there could be a scam. But I don’t have any evidence. How can I stop it?”

  “That’s a problem. I haven’t been able to find out anything more about him either. Maybe I can get my boyfriend to do some checking. He’s a detective with the Longmont Police Department. We haven’t been getting along all that well lately, but I’ll give it a try.”

  Sharon reached over to get her watch from the table where she put it before she went into the apparition chamber. “I have to go in a few minutes. Nathan’s with Maria, but she has to leave at 5:00. I don’t know what to do about what Jenny said about Erik. None of it makes sense to me. Erik’s never said anything about a brother.”

  “That’s strange. Erik told me he had planned on going to the Grand Canyon with Adam, but he had to visit his brother for some important family thing instead.”

  “He said he was going with Adam? I never heard anything about that! Adam never said anything about Erik going with him. Erik hasn’t ever mentioned it either.”

  “That is odd.”

  “I do remember I couldn’t reach Erik right after the accident. I was going to ask him if he’d fly down there with me and drive Adam’s car back, but it turned out he was away somewhere. I thought he told me later that he had to go to Chicago on business. It was a confusing time, but I think I’d remember if he’d said anything about a brother.”

  “So how did you get Adam’s car back?”

  “Oh, my dad arranged to have someone there drive it here. It was no big deal.” She glanced at her watch again and jumped up. “Wow, I have to go. Maybe we can talk more this weekend?”

  “Sure. Call me,” I said as she rushed out the door.

  What had I gotten myself into? I started to wonder whether I was helping Sharon or making her life more difficult. I didn’t want to back off and give Waycroft the satisfaction of believing he’d scared me off—but I wasn’t sure where to go from here. At that moment, I felt a need for comfort, reassurance, or at least some peace and quiet.

  I went into the apparition chamber to tidy up, but instead I plopped into the chair and gazed off into the mirror. My head felt heavy, my eyelids drooped, and I had just begun to doze off, when I heard, “Yo, Cleo.” Tyler appeared in the mirror—the first time I’d seen him there in a while.

  Suddenly I was wide awake and determined to get some answers. I sat up straight and gave him my best no-nonsense look. “Tyler, I need some help if you expect me to play detective. Can you give me some direction here?”

&
nbsp; “Check out what Jenny said. She’s no airhead. It’s all about the 411.”

  “Ok, the message. So we should ask Erik about Amber and Melissa and his brother Harry? What do they have to do with all this? And what scam was she talking about?”

  “These are some major issues. Don’t be afraid to get wet.”

  Metaphor again. If I had to think in watery terms, I’d describe myself as drowning. But I decided to try for some more direct communication. “Tyler! I was confused when I came in here, and you’re making it worse! Can’t you give me a straight answer for once?”

  “Later dude, I’m gone.” And sure enough, he was.

  Chapter 23

  Saturday morning I got a call from Erik asking me to go for a hike and late breakfast at Chautauqua Park. I had other stuff to do, but I was very curious about his brother and other parts of Jenny’s message, so I went.

  The park contains several hundred acres of open space at the base of the Flatirons. We met at the Bluebird Mesa trailhead, just off the parking lot west of the ranger cottage. Erik greeted me with one of his irresistible smiles and an extra water bottle in case I had forgotten mine. He set a fast pace as we hiked up the trail that rises steeply through a prairie grass meadow to the top of the mesa. Walking behind him on the narrow trail, I admired his solid leg and shoulder muscles. Even in Boulder where fitness is almost an obsession, Erik stood out.

  Pride pushed me to match his speed, leaving me little breath for talking. We stopped a couple of times to drink from our water bottles and enjoy the panoramic view of the Boulder valley below. But we kept our thoughts to ourselves.

  As we got to the top of the ridge where we’d take the more level Bluebell Baird trail through a ponderosa pine forest, I thought about how to ask Erik about what Jenny had said. I couldn’t tell him that Sharon had contacted Jenny, so I couldn’t see any way to bring up Amber and Melissa. But I could ask him about his brother, since he had mentioned him to me before.

  I didn’t need to find a way to broach the subject. I was still catching my breath and admiring the vista of the meadow and the city below, when Erik turned to me with a nasty scowl. “What business do you have interfering in my life with my dead wife?”

  All of a sudden, Erik was livid. He seemed to be able to turn his emotions on and off like a water faucet. I was still contemplating my response when he attacked me again. “Don’t you have any respect at all for other people’s privacy? I hate people poking around in my life. It makes me damn mad.”

  I was taken aback. “Wait a minute. What do you think I did?”

  “I saw Sharon last night. I know what you did. Now I want you to tell me exactly what Jenny said to her—every single word.”

  I became more and more nervous, and was about ready to run right back down the trail to my car and leave, but I remembered Tyler telling me not to be afraid to get wet, so I stayed. I tried to calm him down with a reasonable response. I said, “I can’t do that. I wasn’t in the room with Sharon when she talked with Jenny. All I know is what she told me—which I gather she’s already told you as well.”

  “Look—I’m not saying I believe you can connect living people up with dead people. But let’s just pretend it is possible. Don’t you think you should at least check with the living person who was closest to someone who died before you go resurrecting that person?”

  I didn’t even know where to start to answer that. Dead people’s rights to talk to whomever they choose? My inability to control who appears to someone in the apparition chamber? Client confidentiality? Finally I said, “I didn’t resurrect Jenny. As I’m sure Sharon told you, Jenny appeared when Sharon was trying to contact Adam. And if you want to know what she said, you’ll have to ask Sharon.”

  Our conversation was interrupted briefly as a couple with two young children—a baby in a backpack and a little boy with a walking stick— came toward us along the forested trail from the west. We exchanged hiker greetings and stepped aside to let them pass. I hoped Erik would take that as a natural end to our conversation about Jenny. But no such luck. As soon as they were out of range, he started in again.

  “Sharon and I did talk. She thinks Jenny gave her a message about some scam involving Dr. Ahmed. She wanted to know whether Adam talked to me about Ahmed. I told her Adam never mentioned Ahmed to me. We never talked about him at all. And, like I said before, I don’t like Ahmed, but I don’t think he’s a criminal.”

  “So why is Jenny’s message about a scam so upsetting to you?” I asked, thinking his anger was way out of proportion to the situation. I wondered whether Erik was worried that maybe the scam Jenny had warned us about was the herb growing kits his Natural Herbal Remedies Company was selling for $500 a pop. Hmm…something else to have Pablo check into?

  “I’m upset because she was my wife, and I don’t want her memory dragged though the mud as part of some spiritualism experiment.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with Erik about the legitimacy of my project. And furthermore, he was all over the place about whether he believed Sharon had actually talked to Jenny.

  Without warning, Erik’s bad mood cleared, like clouds swept away by a brisk wind. An engaging smile lit his face. “Look Cleo, I know you and Sharon are my friends, and you care about me. And maybe you thought you could help me somehow by reaching Jenny. Sharon has been telling me I should try it. I had some bad luck with Jenny, but she and I are over. I’ve moved on, and I don’t want to go back. So how about we agree to forget about Jenny, finish our hike, and get some breakfast.” With that, he turned and set off at a good clip along the trail to the west.

  I wasn’t in much of a mood for breakfast with him at that point, but I followed along behind. The trail is a loop and I had to get back to my car one way or another, so I figured I might as well keep going. We hiked in silence through the pine forest to the Bluebell Shelter. As usual, the forest had a calming effect on me, such that I remembered I hadn’t yet gotten answers to any of my questions. So why not have breakfast? How nasty could he get in a restaurant full of people? And anyway, I was starving. So I kept following along down the fire road from the shelter to the auditorium and the historic restaurant just beyond.

  The Chautauqua Dining Hall was built in 1898, in the style of resort architecture of the time. It was part of the Chautauqua movement to bring lectures to smaller towns. The large wrap-around covered veranda is its main appeal as a summer dining spot. Tables on this porch seat about a hundred diners, who enjoy views of the extensive lawns that make up Chautauqua park, and a wide view beyond of the city below. Erik charmed the hostess into giving us a porch table, where we ordered large glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, and extra-large cups of dark French roast coffee.

  While we waited for our food, Erik talked enthusiastically about his herb and nutritional supplement business, boasting he would get rich while helping people at the same time. He was wildly optimistic about the potential of his business, and I couldn’t help but be captivated by his passion for his work. So I listened quietly, enjoying the luscious combination of crisp waffle, smooth cream and ripe berries.

  Just as I finished the last bite, Erik leaned toward me and said, “I decided when I was just a little kid that I would get rich. My parents worked hard but got nowhere. They were stupid. They let life use them rather than using life. I made up my mind not to let that happen to me.”

  This gave me the opening I was looking for. “So what about your brother? Is he rich?”

  “What brother? I don’t have a brother.”

  “The brother you told me you had to visit because of some important family thing back in April when Adam was going to the Grand Canyon.”

  “You must have misunderstood, Cleo. All my family are dead. I don’t have anyone.”

  “Erik, that night we were at the Rhumba, you said you had planned to go to the Grand Canyon with Adam, but then you couldn’t go because you had to go visit your brother instead.”


  “Well you know—I didn’t really want to go with Adam, but I had said I would, so I made that up about my brother. I was doing Adam a favor, making it easier for him by not telling him I didn’t want to go,” Erik said earnestly.

  “So you don’t have a brother?”

  “No, I do. But I usually don’t like to talk about him. He’s a real jerk. We were both abused by our parents and ended up being raised in foster homes. He never got over that—been a whiner all his life. I never see him or my parents. They’re dead to me and that’s what I tell people.”

  My head spun with all his contradictions. But in spite of his confusing stories, I couldn’t bring myself to write Erik off, even if he was a little scary. He had such an endearing way about him, plus—I’ll admit it—he was hot. And overall, he still seemed mostly sincere and caring. As a therapist, I deal with some very difficult people, and while I see their weaknesses, I generally like them and believe they are basically good people. I did consider asking him about Amber and Melissa and maybe about how Jenny came to forget her inhaler, but I didn’t. I guess I wasn’t ready to get that wet.

  Chapter 24

  Saturday afternoon, Sharon called to invite me to Nathan’s soccer game so we’d have a chance to talk. He’d been attending an intense soccer camp for the past two weeks, and this was the final event. The game was at 4:00 at the South Boulder Rec Center, off Gillaspie in the Table Mesa area. When I got there, I found Sharon wearing beige linen shorts that showed off her long legs to their best advantage and a reddish-brown sleeveless shirt that matched her hair perfectly. She was all set up with blankets to sit on, big jugs of water and lemonade, and a platter of watermelon slices. Looked like she expected more guests than just me.