Safe Harbor?

by Wardell, Heather

  “I’d probably still be drinking if Malcolm hadn’t helped me,” she said. “Booze filled in the spaces in my energy field and I didn’t know how else to do it. So I really would love to pass that help along to you.”

  “Energy field?” Was she as weird as the people I’d read about?

  “Think of one of those pasta strainer things,” she said.

  “Colander?”

  “Yeah, that. I always forget the word. Like a bowl, but full of holes. You’re like that. Other people’s energy gets in through the holes and you can’t control it. Once you learn how, you’ll be able to open up to people when you want and stay safe and protected inside when you don’t.”

  Excitement filled me, and before I could say anything she laughed. “You’re leaking, but yes, it’ll be great. Are you able to hang out with me for a bit after each class? By the end of the session we’ll have you empathic only when you choose to be.”

  “Absolutely. Whenever it works for you.”

  “Good stuff. Okay, until next week, here’s what I want you to do. Whenever you feel an emotion, ask yourself, ‘Is that mine or someone else’s?’ Just get used to noticing when you are feeling things yourself and when you’re feeling what someone else is feeling. Okay? Do it as often as you remember.”

  “Every chance I get,” I said, thrilled to have something concrete to do to take control of my situation. “And thanks.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Over the next five weeks I learned a lot about art and even more about what it meant to be an empath. Pam taught me how to close those gaps in my energy by imagining a field of white light surrounding me with no holes in it, how to keep visualizing that light while in crowds or in emotional situations to keep myself protected, and how to open it deliberately when I chose. But most importantly, she taught me I wasn’t a freak. She knew, she said, at least ten other empaths, and they’d all managed to get their own emotions under control and learn to handle the emotions of others. Knowing that there were others out there, and that they were people just like me, made everything feel better.

  While I still enjoyed my evenings with Owen, where I could relax and not worry about my energy field because nothing he’d do would hurt it, I didn’t need them quite as badly, and to my surprise he seemed to cling harder to me as I loosened my hold on him. Where before he might have gone off to his man cave and done whatever he did there for at least part of the evening, now he suggested we watch TV together or talk for ages about everything and nothing. Though it confused me, I liked it.

  The one thing we didn’t discuss was the upcoming cruise. I’d asked him, once, whether we needed to do anything to get ready, but he’d said Linda would get us all together when she was ready to tell us what was going on and we wouldn’t do anything before that. Since Owen was usually so proactive in the rest of his life his passivity here didn’t seem to make sense, but he clearly didn’t want to discuss it so I let it go.

  Nothing happened until the first weekend of March, two weeks before the cruise. As we walked up Linda’s sidewalk I envisioned my white light surrounding me with extra thickness because dealing with Melissa still made me uncomfortable.

  Despite my best efforts, though, my bowl became a colander again the minute we were all in the living room, because wild excitement from Melissa and Nicholas swirled with a deep resentment from Linda and simply stripped away my field. Pam had warned me that could happen in the presence of big emotions until I was better at controlling things but I hadn’t expected to feel this completely open and vulnerable.

  While I tried to pull myself back together, Nicholas said, his voice shaking, “Before we start with the cruise stuff, we have an announcement.”

  We all turned to them, and I saw the joy between them and a special brightness from Melissa and I knew even before he said, “We’re having a baby. Due the last week of August.”

  Austin, predictably, didn’t care beyond a sort of vague happiness, but I was hit hard by Linda’s sudden pain and desperation, which I didn’t understand, and Owen’s frustration and misery, which I understood all too well. On Friday Troy had announced he and his wife would be having a baby in five months and he’d received a special lunch out with Lawrence to celebrate. Owen had hinted that night that perhaps we could get started on having a family sooner rather than later but I’d told him I still wanted to be married for at least two years first, and now his former fiancée was having a baby with his brother.

  I clapped my hands over my mouth, trying to look happy and surprised instead of horrified at the negative emotions from my mother-in-law and especially from my husband who never felt anything, and somehow managed to say, “Congratulations. That’s great.”

  Even to my own ears it didn’t sound entirely sincere but I had said it and I had meant it and Melissa seemed to know. “Thanks,” she said, blushing. She started to go on, but Austin said, “You really think I’m mature enough to be an uncle?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Nicholas said, looking proud and delighted, “but if we wait until you are we’ll be a thousand years old.”

  “Rude. Accurate, but rude.” Austin looked at his mother and I felt his nervousness and realized he knew something was up with Linda. Austin was more perceptive than people gave him credit for. “Mom? Aren’t you excited?”

  She blinked as if he’d woken her from a deep sleep. “Of course. Obviously. I just wasn’t expecting it yet, that’s all.” She turned to Nicholas. “You haven’t even been married a year yet. Has it even been six months? I... but no, I’m glad you did it now. Yes. It’s great. And I can plan your baby shower, right?”

  “I don’t think officially you’re supposed to, since we’re family,” Melissa said, “but--”

  “I’m doing it anyhow,” Linda said, brightening up and seeming more like her usual self, “and you can’t stop me.”

  “That’s what I was going to say.” Melissa rolled her eyes but smiled. “Thank you. No ultrasound yet but I feel sure it’s a girl so feel free to go nuts with pink. But whatever you do, it’ll be great, I’m sure.”

  “Of course it will,” Linda said. “I’ll make it amazing.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “You can still go on the cruise, right?”

  Melissa nodded, Linda dropped her hand and gave a sigh of relief, and Nicholas said, “We asked the doctor specifically. Melissa can’t do anything that might involve a fall, and drinking’s out--”

  Austin pretended to faint.

  “But other than that,” Nicholas continued without giving Austin the attention he wanted, “it can be just like it... always is.”

  His confused pause was short but noticeable, and I knew why he’d done it. We all knew why. Linda and her sons had been taking this cruise for decades, but this was only Melissa’s second trip and she was going as a second man’s partner. There was no ‘like always’ for her.

  “It’ll be great. One big happy family,” Linda said, sounding like she was trying to convince us all and herself too.

  An emotion so black and cold I couldn’t bring myself to try to identify it poured from Owen, and without thinking I said, “But we can’t go.”

  Everyone turned to me. Owen’s awful emotion vanished as he stared at me, and I stared back in panic. What had I done?

  Linda leaned forward. “Why not? You have to be there.”

  A moment of frozen silence, then I said, “Owen has a business trip.”

  But I didn’t speak alone.

  Owen, amazingly, had said, “Celia’s art class.”

  I looked at him, shocked, and Linda said, “Well, which is it? And why is this the first I’m hearing of it?”

  “It’s both,” Owen said, as smooth and blank now as he’d been overwrought a moment ago. “I do have a business trip, which I only heard about yesterday, and Celia does have her class. She’d miss it twice for the cruise, and I don’t want her to have to do that.”

  “You’re seriously not coming with us?” Linda said, while Melissa and Nicholas
sat looking horrified and Austin leaned back like he didn’t want to be involved in the drama. “Is it because of...” She waved at the parents-to-be. “Because they just sit by that one pool all day, so just stay away from there and--”

  “It’s not that,” Owen said. “Mom, I’m sorry. I will try to get out of the work trip but it doesn’t look good. I’ll reimburse you for our flights and the cruise and--”

  “I don’t care about the money,” she said, and to my horror her eyes filled with tears as her heart filled with misery. “I want you there. All of you. My boys and their girls.”

  “I’m sorry,” Owen said again. “But I just don’t think it’s possible.” He glanced at me as if he wanted me to say something, but I didn’t know whether I’d done what he wanted or ruined everything so I didn’t have any idea what to add.

  “Well, then, I guess you guys should go now,” Linda said, her eyes snapping with rage. “Since you won’t be with us you don’t need to be here.”

  Owen sat frozen a second, then pushed to his feet and held out his hand to me. I took it and scrambled up, and we walked out without a word.

  We got into his car without a word too, and drove in silence toward our condo. When we reached the park across the street, he turned into its lot with a sharp jerk of the wheel and parked in the nearest spot.

  “Are you okay?” I managed to ask, wishing I could suggest we go down the path to my pond to have this conversation. Being near water might make it easier. A tiny bit easier.

  Without turning to look at me, he said, “Why did you do that?” with no expression in his voice.

  I hung my head and told him the truth. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to, but I felt like... like you didn’t want to go, and I didn’t either, so I just started talking. I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry.”

  Owen laid his hand on my knee. I looked up at him, and he turned toward me and said, “I’m so glad you did.”

  I stared. “Really?”

  He nodded. “I’ve been dreading it since last year, but I didn’t know how to back out.”

  “Apparently,” I said, trying to get my head around this, “you just say you can’t go.”

  He laughed. It sounded like it hurt but it was still a laugh and I loved hearing it. “Yup, apparently you’re right. And I’m glad you did. I just... I guess I still wonder what your reason was.”

  I couldn’t tell him I’d sensed his emotion. He’d think I was insane. From my work with Pam I now knew I wasn’t, but how would someone like Owen understand it? I made myself shrug. “I didn’t want to spend two weeks trapped on a boat with Linda?”

  This laugh seemed more relaxed. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Owen, why don’t you want to go? Don’t you usually have fun gambling?”

  His hand fell away from my leg. “Yeah, I do.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I just... can’t face it this year. That’s all, really.”

  Because of Melissa. Melissa and the baby she was giving Nicholas. The baby she might have given Owen by now. The baby I couldn’t give him yet. My heart hurt, and I said, “Okay. So, we’re not going to go. Right?”

  He reached out again and gave my knee a squeeze. “Right. Let’s hope they drop it.”

  *****

  They didn’t, of course. On the Tuesday afterward, my cell rang in the middle of the morning. I didn’t usually answer it at work, but when I saw Melissa’s name on the screen I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

  “Celia, look, I’m sorry,” she said, sounding like she might have been crying. “I don’t want to be calling, I don’t want to be harassing you.”

  “I’m sorry too. Linda’s making you?”

  “She’s going nuts. All the boys have to be there, they’re always there, it’s pointless without everyone. She even said I should stay home so you and Owen could go. Nicholas shot that down, of course, but... but she’s really upset, and I guess I was hoping maybe you could convince Owen to go.”

  But to do that I’d have to want to, and I so didn’t. “Melissa, Owen’s made up his mind and--”

  “Is it my fault?” She sniffed. “Linda says it is. She backed off when Nicholas made her but I still think she thinks it. If I weren’t going, would he be?”

  I couldn’t answer that. And even if I could I wouldn’t blame it on her. She hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not recently, and if she had married Owen then I couldn’t have had him. “He’s been working so hard lately, and I think he just wants to relax. And I guess the cruise could be relaxing, but I think he--”

  “I thought he had a business trip. Isn’t that the reason you gave?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, furious with myself. “He does, but not for the full two weeks,” I said, frantically trying to piece together a reasonable story. “So he wants to rest before and after and do the trip in the middle.”

  “Okay,” she said, and you didn’t need to be an empath to hear the misery in her voice. “Thanks.”

  “Melissa, wait. It’s not your fault. It’s really not.”

  But she’d already hung up.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After all my work with Pam, I was far better at handling my friend dinner on Thursday when Dawn arrived bursting with excitement about yet another new, married, man in her life. I kept my energy field closed through all her foolishness but was able to open up at my own choice when Erin tearfully admitted that after her years of criticizing Dawn she too had fallen for a married man and didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t try the ‘sending her my positive emotions’ thing Pam had done to me, because I wasn’t sure I liked the concept, but I did let in and process Erin’s pain and confusion without letting them color my own emotions and having that level of control meant I didn’t get upset like I usually would.

  When we’d talked that mess through enough, and Erin had made the decision to put in for a transfer to another department so she wouldn’t see the man any more, April said to me, “What about you? Fallen for a married man?”

  Erin managed a laugh. “She should, if she hasn’t. That Owen’s a nice guy.”

  “He is,” I said, glad she thought so, “but he’s having a rough time.” I told them about Melissa’s pregnancy and how we’d backed out of the cruise and how quiet and miserable he’d been since then.

  “I thought you were pregnant,” Dawn said, reaching for her cocktail.

  I looked down at my stomach. “I’ve only gained a few pounds since I got married. Do I look that bad?”

  She laughed. “No, you don’t look it. I just... well, we thought that was why you got married so fast. Trying to legitimatize your early bun in the oven.”

  “You did, really?” I looked at Erin, whose sheepish expression said it all. “Well, I wasn’t, and I’m not.”

  “Then why did you marry him so fast?” Erin leaned forward. “And with so little fuss... you didn’t even have a honeymoon.”

  “It wasn’t the right time for a honeymoon,” I said, ignoring the ‘why so fast?’ part. “I was still new at the job and he was getting a promotion. And I had to save my vacation for the cruise anyhow.”

  It seemed to hit all of us at once.

  “But now you’re not--”

  “So we could--”

  “And you should!”

  I smiled at my friends. “Yeah, maybe we should. I’ll see what he says.”

  We had both booked the two weeks off work for the cruise, after all. Since we weren’t doing that, why not go somewhere together and have some fun?

  *****

  I went home deep in thought about where we could go, and once I arrived I found Owen on the couch clicking away at his laptop and nervously began making my case. I didn’t use the word “honeymoon”, since it implied a level of romance that didn’t really fit with our relationship, but I did point out that we hadn’t gone away and we had vacation time scheduled and we could do something together.

  He studied me, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Great
minds think alike, I guess.”

  I raised my eyebrows, and he turned his computer so I could see that he’d been searching for ‘March vacation ideas for couples’.

  Feeling warm and fuzzy inside, I sat down next to him. “Really? Awesome. What did you find?”

  He shrugged. “A few things, I guess, but none of them seem quite right. Did you have anything in mind?”

  “I was thinking Vegas, actually.”

  He blinked. “You were?”

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it? You wanted to play poker on the cruise, and you can certainly do that there. And I wanted to swim and relax and I’m sure we could find a hotel with an awesome pool and maybe even a whirlpool.”

  Owen set his laptop aside and gave me a quick kiss. “You’re the best. I’d love that, if you’re sure you wouldn’t hate it.”

  “Quite sure. Oh, but could we make it so I don’t miss too many art classes?”

  He grinned at me. “Since that’s the reason I gave Mom for skipping the cruise, I guess we’d better.”

  On Tuesday I had, reluctantly, told him about Melissa’s phone call, because I’d figured it would probably come out eventually. He hadn’t seemed surprised or upset, but he’d also locked himself away in his man cave for the rest of the night. His making a joke, even a small one, about it all felt like a good sign.

  “If we went for the whole time we’ve booked off work I’d miss three, but I’d rather not. Two at the most, and preferably one. Think that’s doable?”

  He nodded, then his neck turned red. “Are you okay with me going ahead and planning it? I’d sort of like to surprise you with it.”

  Feeling my cheeks taking on his neck’s heat at how sweet he was being, I said, “Absolutely. Do what you want.” A thought hit me. “How much money do you want from me? I do have some I can spare, but maybe only five hundred or--”

  “Let me see what I can do. I might not need anything. And if I do I’ll keep your share low. Deal?”

  Wondering what had gotten into my previously ‘we split everything according to our incomes’ husband, I said, “Deal.”