Too Far Under

by Lynn Osterkamp

  “That’s a point. I guess your concerns would be more about cost and finding reliable caregivers—and deciding whether you want to have her living with you.”

  I thanked Tim for his help and drove home running Gramma’s options through my head over and over, hoping to stumble on a solution I hadn’t thought of yet. But no new ideas popped up. I was leaning more toward bringing her home—after all it is her house—if she had enough money to pay for caregivers. Not caregivers like Glenna though, that’s for sure.

  I pondered the sticky ethical issues involved in whether Glenna had duped Tim’s dad and how she might be duping Vernon Evers. On the one hand, these older men had earned their money and if they wanted to give it to Glenna in exchange for care and whatever else, shouldn’t that be their choice to make? On the other hand, Glenna was a strange one. Who knew what she was up to?

  Had Mirabel actually listened to Tim’s warning about Glenna? I wished I knew. I remembered Shane saying that Mirabel thought Glenna was after Vernon’s money, and was trying to get him to dump her. I got a sudden impulse to add Glenna’s name to the list of people who wanted to get rid of Mirabel.

  Chapter 23

  I got up early the next morning. I love starting my week with a Monday before-work yoga class. Determined to put the Townes family issues out of my mind, I welcomed the focus on breathing and body alignment. I left the session with a relaxed body and a clear mind, ready for a busy day with grieving clients.

  At my office, I was much too busy to think about anything else until about 4:00, when I looked up from some complicated patient insurance forms to find Angelica standing silently in front of my desk watching me. “Angelica!” I shrieked in a very untherapist-like voice. “What are you doing here? And how did you get in without me knowing it?”

  “I tried the door and it was unlocked, so I came in. I was quiet so as not to disturb you. I have to talk to my mother about my dad and Judith, and I need you to help me reach her.”

  She stood very still with her usual glassy calm air as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Good grief. She was a strange child. But, as usual, I felt drawn to this ten-year-old girl set adrift by the death of her mother. She seems both perfectly peaceful and vulnerable at the same time in a way that speed-dialed my helpfulness gene. I still didn’t know if she was special with unique abilities, but I did know she needed help. I wanted to solve her problems, but what could I do? For sure I couldn’t talk to her here.

  “Angelica, you know I can’t do that,” I said reluctantly. I didn’t want to put her out on the street, so I said, “You need to go home. I have my car out back. I’ll drive you.”

  “Cleo, it’s important that I talk to my mother. I know things and I have a bad feeling about what’s going to happen. You’re the only one who can help me, and I can tell that you want to help.”

  I tried to couch my severe message in as soft and kindly voice as possible. “Angelica, I can’t help you because your father won’t allow it, and if I don’t get you out of this office I’ll lose my license to practice and I won’t be able to help anyone. So please let me take you home.”

  Her face fell. “You don’t understand. You’re stuck at a level of conflict because you can’t see the energy beyond that. But I’ll go with you.”

  Stuck because I can’t see the energy? That sounded like something Tyler would say. Probably something Tyler had said. Maybe Angelica truly is tuned in to a higher plane.

  Balancing my anxiety over having Angelica in my office with my desire not to make her feel rushed out, I locked up the office and led her out to my car in the parking area behind. “Where do you live?” I asked, as we buckled ourselves into our seatbelts. She gave me directions to a house in northwest Boulder so I headed north on Broadway. “Angelica, you’ve told me you’re an Indigo child and you’re the first Indigo I’ve ever met,” I said as we drove along. “I’d love to hear more about what it’s like for you if you’re willing to tell me.”

  She remained silent and still, looking out the window on her side of the car. I wondered whether I had crossed a line by asking. Should I apologize? But after a few minutes, she turned toward me. “I don’t mind telling you, but it’s hard in some ways because I don’t know what it’s like not growing up Indigo.”

  “I understand,” I said. “You can only tell me about your own experiences.”

  She looked off to the side again as she began to speak “As long as I can remember, I’ve known things that other people don’t seem to know. Sometimes I know what’s going to happen before it does—like when the phone’s going to ring and who is calling and why. And I can see auras. Yours is mostly turquoise, so I know you’re a good listener and a caring person. When I was little, I thought everyone could see the colors around people, but then I realized that most of them don’t. I know I’m different than most kids my age. Some of them think I’m weird. But that’s okay. There’s no way they can understand.”

  “What is it like to feel so different from other kids,” I said.

  She looked pained, like an ordinary ten-year-old who felt marginalized would look. “Sometimes it’s hard,” she said. Then her expression changed back to her wise Indigo smile. “But mostly I don’t want to be like them,” she said quietly. “They’re just trying to all be the same. I don’t need them. I’m my own best friend.”

  Whew. That attitude could make for problems at school for sure. “Is it hard to go to school when you feel that way?” I asked.

  “The thing I hate about school is that you have to be there every day,” she said, “and I’m not the same person every day.”

  She was silent for a minute, smiling to herself. Then she said, “Turn left at the next street.”

  She guided me along a couple of curvy streets lined with upscale houses set on large landscaped lots, and into the driveway of a huge two-story white house on an extra-large wooded lot. Just as I pulled in, a black SUV zoomed around the corner and into the driveway right behind me. Oh great, here I was with Angelica, stuck in their driveway. And unfortunately for me the driver of the SUV turned out to be Judith Demar. As Angelica opened the car door and got out, Judith jumped out of her car, ran up and grabbed her by the arm. “Where have you been?” she asked angrily. “You were supposed to wait for me after school. I don’t have time to spend all afternoon looking for you.”

  Angelica ignored her and turned to me. “Bye, Cleo,” she said. “Thanks for the ride.” That would have been the time for me to say, “You’re welcome,” and drive off into the sunset. But Judith’s SUV was still blocking my way out of the driveway.

  As soon as she heard Angelica say, “Bye Cleo,” Judith noticed me sitting in my car. “What are you doing with Angelica?” she shrieked. “I know Derrick and I made it clear last week that you do not have our permission to treat her.”

  Angelica started toward the house, but Judith grabbed her arm again and pulled her back. “Not so fast,” she said. “I want to know what you and Cleo have been doing.”

  I took a deep breath to calm myself, then spoke quietly and evenly. “I gave her a ride home, Judith. No treatment.” Which was essentially the truth. No point getting Angelica in hot water by reporting that she’d showed up at my office. I continued in my calmest voice, “Now, if you’ll move your car for a minute so I can get out, I’ll be out of your way.”

  Judith ignored me and faced Angelica in a confrontational stance. “I need some answers here. Why are you getting a ride home from Dr. Sims when you knew I was coming to pick you up at school?”

  Uncharacteristically, Angelica looked angry. She stuck her face right back in Judith’s and said with a typical pre-teen sneer, “You’re not my mother and it’s no business of yours what I do or who I see. You think you know everything about my dad but you don’t. Two weeks before my mom died, I heard Dad promise her that he wouldn’t see you anymore.”

  With that, Angelica turned and stalked off toward the front door without waiting to hear what Judith might say in re
turn. Judith looked like she’d been slapped. Then to my surprise she sank down onto a wrought iron bench under a big tree and burst into tears.

  So she isn’t a totally tough nut after all, I thought. I wondered whether she was upset at the news that Angelica had hurled at her, or whether she was mostly frustrated at her inability to get along with Angelica. Either way, I wasn’t feeling especially sympathetic, but I did need her to move her SUV so I could get out of the driveway and be on my way. I couldn’t bring myself to yell a reminder about moving her SUV while she was sobbing, so I took a deep breath, got out of my car, walked over and stood next to the bench.

  “I know this afternoon hasn’t gone the way you hoped it would,” I said, “but I want you to know that all Angelica and I did together was drive here.”

  Judith stopped crying and sat silently looking at the ground beneath her feet. Then she looked up at me and said, “Despite what she thinks, I don’t hate Angelica and I don’t want to hurt her. I can see she’s a troubled child and I’m trying to help her. But she’s arrogant and willful and Derrick encourages that behavior by letting her have her own way most of the time. He thinks he can’t say no to her because her mother died. I’m having a hell of a time getting him to see how she manipulates him with this Indigo nonsense.”

  I wondered again why Derrick was relinquishing his parental role to Judith. And why was she telling me all this? After insisting that there was no way I could treat Angelica, was she trying to draw me in to the family drama in a way that would support her point of view? No way was I going to respond to anything she’d said. “I can see you’re frustrated, Judith,” I said quietly. “Maybe you and Derrick should find a couples counselor to discuss this with. But I need to get back to my office now, so could you please move your car and let me out?”

  She nodded silently, got up and backed her car out. I quickly got in my car and drove off. I noticed my cell phone beeping from inside my purse to let me know I had a message, so I grabbed it out and checked the caller ID as I drove. It was Lacey. I punched in my code and listened to her message.

  As usual, she sounded frantic. “Cleo, I thought Grandad could help me get Dad to let Angelica work with you and then Angelica could be the one to contact Mom. But Glenna doesn’t approve of your work and Grandad won’t go against her. I tried one more time to get Dad to give in about letting Angelica work with you, but it was no go. So I’m giving up on that. I can see that I need to be the one who does your contact session, so we need to schedule one ASAP. Call me back. Please, please call!” she begged with her usual dramatic urgency. “We can’t waste any more time.”

  The more I thought about the mess the Townes family seemed to be in, the more I myself wanted someone to reach Mirabel. Maybe she’d been murdered and maybe she hadn’t, but either way it seemed that it would be good for them to find out what they could. So, when I got back to my office, I called Lacey and set up a contact-session appointment for Wednesday.

  Chapter 24

  Before one of my clients starts a contact session, I like us to spend some time together in a place where the deceased loved one lived or worked—ideally a room that contains things that person used often. Being in the room sets the scene, and telling me about the deceased person’s daily life helps the living person remember and move into the space of the deceased.

  I agreed to meet Lacey at their family home where she and Angelica lived with Derrick. Judith was also living there most of the time and I didn’t want to risk running into her, so we set up our meeting for 1:30 Wednesday afternoon when she would be teaching a seminar at the university.

  Lacey was waiting for me on the front porch when I drove up. She ran over to greet me as I got out of the car. “I’m so excited,” she said, “I woke up this morning with a strong feeling that Mom is waiting to hear from me. I can’t wait to get started.”

  Of course the process is more complicated than she thought, but I didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm, so I just said, “Great. Let’s go right in to your mom’s office.”

  She led me through the front door into an airy two-story entry hall, with a large living room off to the left, a long hall heading off to double French doors at the rear of the house, and a staircase at the right leading to the second floor. The house had a cheerful feeling, enhanced by the hardwood floors and buttery yellow walls that magnified the sunlight streaming in from a skylight high above. “What a lovely house,” I said.

  “Mom and Dad designed it,” she said. “It was their dream house. Too bad they weren’t happier living in it.”

  “Maybe they were in the beginning,” I said. “How long ago did they build the house?”

  “About ten years ago,” she said. “It was right about the time Angelica was born. Kari was five then, Shane was thirteen and I was twelve. And you’re right—they were happy then. At least they seemed happy. But what does a kid know about how happy her parents are? Well, Angelica knows lots of stuff about adults, but I never had her special abilities.”

  I would have liked to explore her childhood memories further, but time was short and we needed to move on with what we needed to do before Lacey’s attempt to contact her mom, so I said, “We need to be around some of your mother’s things so we can focus on her and begin to feel her essence. Are her clothes and jewelry still here? People’s favorite things take on their essence.”

  Lacey frowned. “Mom’s essence isn’t in her clothes or jewelry,” she said. “We should go to her office. That’s what she cared about. None of us has felt up to sorting through all that stuff. I think Dad’s searched through it looking for a new will, but otherwise it’s pretty much the way she left it.” She led the way down the hall toward the back of the house, then up four steps to a large kitchen and family room. Mirabel’s office was a small room off the family room. Other than a big window that looked out on the flower garden and wooded grounds behind the house, there was nothing much to look at. The room was jammed with papers everywhere—covering a wide desk that faced the window and stacked in boxes on the floor. “Mom was always going to get this stuff organized,” Lacey said sadly, “but she never got around to doing it.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said. “Papers seem to multiply in an office.” Then to move us along with the process, I said, “Can you feel or imagine your mother in this room like she used to be?”

  Lacey laughed. “No problem. In my mind’s eye I can see her sitting right there at that desk, talking on the phone, sifting through a stack of papers. That’s how she spent most of her time when she wasn’t off at meetings. I’d say this is for sure the best place in the house to feel a connection.”

  There was no place to sit in the office other than Mirabel’s desk chair, which also held a box of papers. “Let’s just sit on the floor,” I said. After we made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the floor, she began to tell me about Mirabel’s work in the community. But we were quickly interrupted by a glaring Derrick standing in the doorway.

  “What’s going on, Lacey? Why is Cleo here and what are you doing in Mom’s office? Surely you could find a more comfortable place in the house than this to sit and talk.”

  I wasn’t any more pleased to see him than he looked to see me. I hoped Lacey could give him a quick answer that would satisfy him enough that he’d leave us alone.

  “We’re in here because it’s the place that most helps me feel close to Mom,” Lacey said. “Cleo’s going to help me try to contact Mom today and I need to start out by being around stuff that was important to Mom so I can get a strong feeling of her.”

  Derrick’s frown turned into a smile. “You sure picked the right room for that, even if you do have to sit on the floor,” he said in a much pleasanter tone. “Mirabel wasn’t home much, but when she was, this was where you’d find her.”

  Lacey didn’t smile in return. She just looked up at him and said, “Dad, we need to get on with what we’re doing here, so could you please close the door and give us some privacy.”

 
He made no move to step out of the doorway. No longer smiling, he said, “I’m glad to hear you’re going to contact Mirabel. When you do, you need to find out something for me. Your mother told me she’d kept her promise and made a new will that left out the Scientologists. But I can’t find it. Vernon handled all her legal stuff and he says he didn’t help her make a new will. I think she did, but I can’t prove it. So you need to ask her where it is.”

  Oh, no. The will questions again. I thought I’d already made it clear to Derrick that we weren’t going to give Mirabel his messages.

  Lacey jumped to her feet. “Dad I don’t want to talk about this. Now you need to go.” She reached for the door—I assumed to close it in his face. But he was blocking her way.

  “You haven’t answered me, Lacey,” he said. “I made a simple request and I’d like you to be courteous enough to give me an answer.”

  I was still sitting on the floor looking up at them as they both stood facing off in the doorway. I considered getting to my feet and joining them, but I couldn’t see anything to be gained by involving myself in their argument—especially since it was a discussion Derrick and I had already had. So I waited quietly.

  Lacey planted her feet right in front of Derrick and leaned in, close to his face. “Okay, here’s your answer,” she said in a steely voice. “No, no and no! I’m not going to ask Mom about her will. That’s not what this is about. This is for me to connect with Mom and talk to her about what I want to say. I’m not your messenger. If you have questions about her will, you should take them up with Grandad or try to contact Mom yourself.” She snickered. “Of course Mom wouldn’t be likely to want to do you any favors if she knows about how Judith has moved in here and what the two of you are doing to Angelica. And I figure she does know because dead people can see everything. So good luck with finding out anything about her will.”