by Anise Eden
As she headed out the door, the rest of the MacGregor group arrived. They barreled into the kitchen, offering us boisterous greetings and foraging for bagels and coffee.
“Good morning, everybody,” Ben said. “Get whatever you want to eat or drink, and let’s get this meeting started.”
He offered me a seat on the couch in the living room area. Then he sat at the other end, about two feet away. It was though an energy field filled the space between us, buzzing with unresolved emotions. I felt the urge to move closer to him and further away at the same time. I kept avoiding Ben’s eyes, unsure what would happen if I looked into them.
Vani settled into a rocking chair by the fireplace. Kai and Pete took the loveseat opposite the couch, and Eve and Asa sat at the kitchen table, forming a circle of sorts. As the room began to quiet down, Ben spoke. “So Cate, I’m sure you have a few questions for us.”
“You could say that!” I shook my head as I looked around the room. “My question is: what the heck happened last night?”
“We saved your ass, that’s what happened,” Pete said, grinning. Kai smacked him on the arm.
Ben said, “Maybe we should let Vani start since it all began with her.”
“That’s true,” Vani acknowledged, “but only because when I was working at my desk yesterday afternoon, I saw a bright yellow flash coming from Asa’s cubicle, like a silent flare. I went over to check it out and the first thing I saw was that piece of paper on the floor, the one with Elana’s name written on it. It was as though it had called me over.”
I shuddered as I remembered that paper—and the outcome of my Distance Healing experiment.
“Elana’s energy was all over it,” Vani said. “As soon as I picked up the paper, I could see her aura. It was almost completely yellow—that means fear. And while I could feel your energy, I couldn’t see your aura at all, which was highly unusual. It was almost as though her aura had swallowed yours. In any case, it was clear that you two were closely connected, and given how scared she was, I got pretty worried. I tried to call you, but you weren’t picking up your phone.”
I remembered with a pang of guilt that I’d turned off my phone after getting rid of Pete. I hadn’t wanted Sid and me to be disturbed. In fact, it was probably still turned off. I wondered how many frantic messages from Vani and Ben I had to look forward to.
Vani nodded toward Eve. “That’s when I called Ben and told him I thought something might be going on, and that I could use Eve’s help figuring out if there was in fact anything to worry about. Fortunately, they were almost back from Rockville.”
“I was so glad to have an excuse to practice, Cate!” Eve exclaimed. “The future only comes in flashes, but when I held onto the paper, I saw you with Elana, and I saw men with guns. I probably could have seen more, but Boss Man heard ‘men with guns,’ and that was the end of that.”
“You did great, Eve,” Ben said firmly. “You were pretty deep in trance, and we didn’t want you to stay in there too long. But we couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Whatever,” Eve said, but she was smiling proudly.
“By the time I picked Kai up from his studio and got back to the church,” Pete said, “I could tell Ben here was about to go off all half-cocked, and judgin’ from your mood earlier in the day, Cate, I knew that wasn’t gonna go over too well. So I said we should ask Kai to check in with the Other Side and see if they had any advice for us.” He beamed at Kai, who basked in the glow.
Kai said, “That’s when your mother came through and told us that you were already on your way to Elana’s apartment.”
My eyes widened. Could it be that my mother really was watching over me? I pushed myself to focus on the conversation.
“So,” Pete said, “we tagged Asa to come with us and tell us what was goin’ on in these guys’ heads so we could tackle them before anything serious went down.”
Asa spoke in the rapid-fire manner of a sports commentator. “Okay! When we got there, the three guys were already standing at the door, so Pete and Ben were loading up their guns. But then the guys walked away, which bought us some time. So I hid behind the storage shed and focused in on them and the fourth guy once he got there. I got to wear one of those earpieces with the little microphone on the end of a wire, and I told Pete and Ben when those guys were coming and from where. Once that one guy broke the door down it was like, whammo! It was just like in the movies! They totally nailed ’em! I had a bad headache afterwards, though. I had to give myself Reiki for like an hour.”
“I got to stick needles in his head too,” Eve added with enthusiasm.
“Oh my god, that’s incredible.” I started to pull all of the pieces together. “Was that you, Pete, who knocked Don on the head?”
“You know it.” He winked. “Don’t worry, though, no permanent damage done.”
“And you did all of the talking.”
Pete sucked in his cheeks and rubbed his chin. “Well, Big Ben and I had a little talk about that and decided my cowboy drawl might put your friend more at ease. Plus, Ben was more in a mood to deal with bad guys than to talk. We pretended we didn’t know you cuz we figured the more distance we put between you and us and the fewer questions asked, the better.”
“That was probably wise,” I agreed. “By the way, which one of you figured out where Elana lived?”
Ben slowly raised his hand. “That was me.”
I looked at him in shock. Had he been concealing some secret paranormal ability the whole time? “Really? How did you do that?”
Ben gazed at me affectionately, as though I had been put on earth specifically for his amusement. “There was only one Elana Bruter in the phone book.”
“Oh right.” I blushed as I recalled furtively logging onto the clinic’s computer to get the same information myself. I cleared my throat. “So you guys do this kind of stuff a lot?”
“No, actually,” Ben said. “Most of the time we do individual healings. We occasionally work as a group when a client has a particularly complex problem, but this was our first ‘mission,’ so to speak. Having to protect one of our own was pretty motivating.”
One of their own? I looked around the room; all eyes were on me. I felt completely embraced by their warmth, their acceptance. Gratitude welled up inside of me.
“So, Cate,” Ben asked softly, “do you have any other questions?”
“No, just…thank you. Thank you all. I don’t know what else to say. I’m just amazed by what you did.” I stood up and went to each of them, embracing them and thanking them individually. They responded with various versions of “No problem, our pleasure, anytime.”
I reached Kai last. He pulled me into a tight hug and murmured in my ear, “We all care about you, you know. Everyone here would love it if you joined us.”
So everybody knew I was being recruited. “Thanks, Kai,” I said with a smile, “that means a lot. And I am thinking about it.”
“Good,” he said and patted me on the arm. “Keep thinking. Just be sure you decide ‘yes.’”
Ben stood and clapped his hands. “Okay, everybody, I’m sorry I have to kick you out, but we have to get ready for lunch. We’re having a special guest—not that all of you aren’t special.”
“What special guest?” I asked Ben as the others started to gather their things.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said lightly, as though he weren’t about to drop a bomb on my head. “It’s just Dr. Nelson.”
• • •
Ben and his mother had invited Dr. Nelson to lunch, thinking that it would be good for us to talk everything over in a relaxed setting. Although I was initially resistant to the idea, it turned out to be a good call on the part of the MacGregors. I’d feared that Dr. Nelson would be angry with me for acting on my own to help Elana. But the first thing he did upon arriving was to apologize to me for the deception he and the MacGregors had wrought.
Ben eased the mood by telling his mother and Dr. Nelson about the successful wor
k we had done on his eating issue. After we all promised not to die during or immediately following lunch, Ben managed to eat with us, instead of just sitting idly through the meal like he usually did. I sensed that he had pushed through his fears just because he knew I needed a boost. I became aware that in the face of Ben’s heroic acts, both large and small, the anger I’d felt toward him after our huge argument the day before was steadily receding.
As it turned out, Ben had told me the truth. Dr. Nelson’s decision to terminate my employment had nothing to do with my failures as a clinician. Instead, it had everything to do with his desire to protect me from the deterioration he had seen other empaths suffer. He made it clear that his decision that I should resign was final, and that although he sympathized with my reluctance, nothing I could say would change his mind.
I felt a heavy ache in my chest when I thought about leaving my clients. I had no idea how I would find the courage to say all of those goodbyes. Ben and Dr. MacGregor reassured me that they would help me cope with whatever emotions came up, and Dr. Nelson promised that he and Simone would fully support all of us in making the transition as smooth and positive as possible.
As I suspected, Dr. Nelson was none too pleased with my multiple violations of clinic policy the day before. But he seemed to feel so badly about lying to me and making me leave his clinic that as a goodwill gesture, he decided to overlook everything I’d done. By the end of the afternoon, the mood was warm again, and a small seed of optimism for the future was sprouting inside of me.
The MacGregors left me to accompany Dr. Nelson to the front door. As we reached the threshold, he embraced me.
“Cate,” he said, “your departure will represent a great loss for our clinic and for your clients. But it will represent a great gain for the work the MacGregors are doing and for all of your future clients there. They’ve been looking for an empath for a long time, one who would be a perfect fit for their needs, and it appears that they’ve finally found her. Believe me, joining the MacGregors is the best thing you can do for yourself and for your future.”
“That’s nice to hear, Dr. Nelson, but the truth is that I haven’t decided whether to join their group. I haven’t had a spare moment to think about it yet.”
His voice grew gentle. “I don’t have a daughter, Cate, but if I did, do you know what I would tell her?”
“What?” I asked, touched by the implication.
“I’d tell her to listen to her father. Oh and by the way, I think that MacGregor boy has his eye on you.” With a mischievous wink, he turned and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dr. MacGregor offered to make dinner, but the strain of the previous twenty-four hours was starting to wear on me. All I wanted was to be back in the comfort zone of my own home. Someone had retrieved Calamity Jane and parked her at the MacGregors’. Ben followed me home in the Land Rover, “in case that rattletrap of yours finally breaks down.” But I knew he was really thinking the same thing I was—we had some things to discuss, and we needed to do it in private.
It wasn’t long before we were both settled on either end of my couch with fresh cups of coffee. There was an awkward silence. I didn’t know where to begin, and I suspected that Ben didn’t either. Finally, I ventured, “So you’re really good at fixing things up, aren’t you?”
Ben looked wary. “You don’t mean classic cars.”
“No.” I shook my head slowly. “What I mean is that I was so mad when I left the church yesterday that I never wanted to see you again. But since then,” I said as I began counting on my fingers, “you rescued Elana and me. Then your mother took responsibility for the weird stuff around my recruitment. And Dr. Nelson pretty much took the rap for the whole lying and conspiracy thing, leaving you almost completely off the hook.” I wiggled my three fingers. “Did you orchestrate all of that?”
Ben appeared to be weighing possible responses, but ultimately said nothing. Instead he took a sip of his coffee.
I tossed my hands up. “No answer? Nothing?”
“You said I was almost off the hook,” Ben said carefully. “I’m trying not to say anything that might slide me back on.”
I managed to keep from smiling, but barely. “So you just plan to just dangle there indefinitely?”
He appeared to be considering the question as he stretched his arm out along the back of the couch. “Only until you tell me what I’m still on the hook for so I can take care of it.”
“Making me spell it out for you will not improve your situation,” I said, chagrined.
“Well, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.” Ben put his mug down on the table. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with the handcuffs thing.”
I glowered at him. “Good guess. That, and the threat of involuntary commitment.”
“Right, involuntary commitment,” he said with a nod.
“Any threats to my liberty are completely and utterly unacceptable, actually,” I added, just to make sure the point was well and truly made.
“Got it.” Ben rubbed his jaw. “Well in that case, I believe have a solution.”
As though there were more than one. I gave him a warning stare. “Really.”
He held one hand out, palm up. “I promise not to bring up handcuffs or hospitals,” he said, then held out the other hand, “as long as you promise not to hurt yourself.” He then pressed his hands together. “That serves both of our needs, don’t you think?”
“Oh for God’s sake!” I covered my face with my hands. When was he going to get that it was not okay for him to threaten me handcuffs, hospitals, or anything else for that matter—ever, under any circumstances? Who did he think he was? But as I dropped my hands and prepared to tell him exactly what I thought of his “solution,” the look on his face stunned me into silence. His eyes were raw with pain, his expression grief-stricken.
“Cate, if anything ever happened to you…”
The agony in his voice blew my anger out like a candle. For him, the agreement he’d proposed was deadly serious. “Ben,” I reminded him quietly, “I told you yesterday that I would never…you know.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed the deepening lines in his forehead. “Yes, I know. And I knew you’d be true to your word, even though you spoke in anger. Of all of your outstanding qualities, I trust your stubbornness the most.” He looked up at me and tried to smile. “But now I’m asking for something more robust—something permanent, not said in the heat of the moment. Please indulge me in this, Cate. Please promise me.”
I looked down at my fingers as they twisted around each other in my lap. I knew how Ben felt about me. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to read my suicide note. If our roles had been reversed…well, I couldn’t be sure what I would have said or done.
Was what he was asking really that unreasonable? Yes, I would have preferred an abject apology without any conditions. But all he wanted was for me to promise not to hurt myself—and that was a promise I finally felt confident making. The crisis with Elana the night before, the dramatic rescue, everything that had transpired since… Somewhere in there, my tenacious infatuation with suicide had evaporated. Maybe helping Elana had given me faith that my life was still worthwhile. Maybe it was finally sinking in that I could use my gifts without destroying myself. Or maybe it was the fact that I felt a new sort of family forming around me. All I knew was that thoughts of suicide suddenly seemed like the twisted artifacts of a distant mindset. Those thoughts were fading from view, as though I’d tossed them out the car window onto the highway and kept on driving.
I wanted to share that with Ben, but I had seen the fear and agony in his eyes every time he thought about something bad happening to me. I wanted to do something to comfort him, to give him a more solid reassurance than mere words. “Hang on,” I said as I stood and went upstairs. I reached into the back of my closet and retrieved the envelope that held the remaining suicide notes. I hesitated for a moment, wondering i
f I should give him the pill bottles as well, but then I thought better of it. After all, my goal was to make him worry less, not more. I would throw the pills out myself.
Ben was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I handed him the envelope. “Will you please get rid of these for me?” I held his gaze, trying to press home the meaning of my words. “I won’t be needing them anymore. I promise.”
Upon hearing that final word, the tension in Ben’s shoulders relaxed a bit. He opened the envelope just enough to see the familiar marbled blue stationery. Then he froze for a moment, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. There were a lot of notes in there. I had never revealed something quite so dark about myself to another human being. Hope mixed with trepidation as I wondered what the consequences would be.
Ben carefully folded the envelope closed as if it contained some state secret. “I’ll take care of it.” He walked over to his overnight bag on the floor near the front door and zipped the envelope inside. Then he came back and gently took my hand. When we returned to the sofa, he sat close to me so he wouldn’t have to let go. In a voice filled with gratitude and intense relief, he said, “Thank you.”
Swallowing the tears that threatened to rise, I managed to whisper, “You’re welcome.”
We sat there for a while in a peaceful silence, taking in the sensation that something was deepening between us. After some time, Ben looked down and cleared his throat. He took hold of my other hand as well. “There’s one more promise I’d like you to make.”
Something else? “What is it?”
“Please tell me that you won’t put yourself in harm’s way again like you did last night.”
Slowly, I pulled my hands away from his. Promising not to hurt myself was one thing, but that…I started out speaking softly. “I’m sorry, Ben, I can’t promise that. And it’s not your place to ask me to. If someone I care about is in danger, I’ll do whatever it takes to help them. And if that means putting myself in harm’s way, then that’s what I’ll do,” I said, my voice gaining volume. “And I know you’d do the same. Don’t even try to tell me otherwise!”