“Yes ma’am… er… Phyllis.” Carter pushed air though his nose in an attempt to stop a nervous laugh. She really did look good for her age, and Carter meant every word of it when he said that Brenda got her looks from her mother. She would pull her silky black hair back frequently, just like her daughter, as it always seemed in the way. She was about average height and weight, which Carter put at 125 pounds and five and a half high. What a smile, he thought. He had a sneak peek at what he’d be looking at in another 20 years, and he favored it.
“Come on,” said Phyllis. “You guys could use a break. Follow me.”
Brenda’s mother led the charge into the kitchen, and they sat around the kitchen table sipping iced tea. Brenda had warned Carter against mentioning driving by their house a week ago. Carter did not have to be told, but Brenda did not want to take any chances, especially since they had gone through their files pretty thoroughly.
“Mom… I really missed you and dad. I was just so angry back then and I didn’t ever want to see you guys again, but then… I guess… I’m grown up now. I know that you and dad are not going to be around forever, so I thought it was time to mend fences. I’m so glad that you don’t resent me. What about dad? Does he hate me?”
Phyllis looked into Brenda’s eyes from across the table and put her hand to her mouth to muffle her feelings. A high-pitched squeal snuck through. It took her a minute to regain her composure. “Brenda… after you left… your father and I grew apart. It was almost like… when parents bury a child. There was a lot of guilt and blame and all the other crap that goes along with… losing… your kid.”
Phyllis had to take another moment to regain her composure, and another sip of iced tea, which served as gasoline for her mouth. “Brenda… we loved you so much that when our family went from three to two… we felt that we were no longer connected. Your father and I saw eye to eye on nothing. All we did was fight. It was miserable living with him. Then one day I woke up wondering why I was doing this. I survived a year of this misery. You were gone for a year when I woke up one day and told myself that if your father slept one more night in this house… I very well may kill him in his sleep.”
“Oh my God, mom. If I only knew... ”
“No, no… you wouldn’t have known. It’s just something I needed to do, and your father slept at a motel in town that night. He kept trying to come home, but I kept pushing him away. As long as you were gone, even though I loved your father very much, I couldn’t go on with him in my life. Every time I looked at him, it reminded me of losing you, and the pit in my stomach was making me physically sick. Finally, I persuaded him that there was no chance in hell that we could remain together and that he better think about getting an apartment. He finally did.”
“Mom, I feel so bad.”
“Brenda, I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. It was our fault for letting our 16-year-old daughter go out into the world before she was ready. That’s on us. We really didn’t think you would be gone for good. We thought that maybe you’d go to… I don’t know… a friend’s house… for… maybe a week or so. Then you’d come back. When you didn’t… that’s when things really went south.”
“I loved you guys so much,” said Brenda. “I just didn’t know it at the time, and I thought I knew it all. It’s almost as if someone else was controlling my actions.” She paused in thought, and then said, “By the way, where’s dad now?”
“He’s still living in town, but I haven’t heard from him in a while. I think he finally got the message.” Phyllis grabbed Brenda by the arms and looked into her eyes and smiled. She was overwhelmed with joy. She dreamed of this moment happening for years, but as each day and year passed, the likelihood of realizing this dream dwindled. She had pretty much lost all hope.
“As far as you know… dad is healthy?”
“Yes, but he did send me a letter once in a last ditch effort to get back together… told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer.”
Brenda let out an award-winning gasp, and her mother got her back on track. “No, Brenda, he’s fine. He doesn’t have cancer. He never did have cancer. He just said that as if I would take pity on him and take him back. That was the last straw. When he told me that he was lying, I told him that I wanted nothing to do with him ever again. This time he listened. I never did hear from him again.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said Brenda. “I’m sure he didn’t lie to hurt you. It sounds like he really loved you. I know he did because he would always tell me how much he loved you.”
Phyllis melted when she heard Brenda say this. “You never told me that.” She quickly hid her mouth with her hand, muffling sounds.
“I didn’t think I had to. Mom… it was obvious. He treated you like a princess, but you never really noticed, I guess.”
“Oh, I know he treated me well, and that’s why I loved him so much, but with you gone… ”
“I’m back. Well… I’m alive, but back for a visit. Can you let him know that I’m here and maybe find it in your heart to invite him over? Please mom… I really want to reconnect with my father too, before I leave. It would mean the world to me.”
Phyllis could not stop smiling, but the smile diminished when Brenda mentioned inviting her father over. Carter and Brenda could see the wheels spinning in her head, but then the smile returned and she said, “Oh, of course I can do that for you. I’ll call him right now. He’s not going to believe this! He’ll surely be as happy as I am.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Carter stayed seated at the kitchen table and just watched this scene unfold before his eyes. He was about to witness a family of three that had been torn to shreds and split in three, reunite, even if only for a day. He was overcome with emotion himself, because he knew how much Brenda wanted to reunite with her family, and he could see in plain sight what this moment was doing to her mother. Their decision to take the exit was so enormous. As a result, Brenda’s mother was about to contact Brenda’s father for the first time in years. He could see in both their faces how much that exit meant to them.
Phyllis gave her daughter one more squeeze before walking over to the telephone and picking up the receiver. She glanced at the bulletin board on the wall and somehow spotted his phone number amongst dozens of pinned notices and scraps of miscellaneous information. She slowly dialed the phone and listened for an answer, while looking at her daughter.
“Hello?” Phyllis smiled and waited nervously for a response, and then continued. “Yes… it really is me. The reason that I’m calling… is that there’s someone here… right now… who wants to see you. No, not me… nope… nope, wrong again… ” There were several guesses on the other end of the line, until Phyllis spilled the beans with exuberance, and her facial expression changed from flat to exaggerated. “Our daughter has come back for a visit!”
Carter and Brenda could hear screams blasting through the phone, and by the time the quick conversation ended, Brenda’s father was en route, and only 10 minutes away. Phyllis began to tremble, but Brenda’s presence continued to fill her with enthusiasm. It was a very long 10 minutes, but soon enough, there was a little blue pickup truck swerving into the driveway, and the sound of a car door opening and closing quickly.
Phyllis nudged Brenda to invite her father in, but she did not move quickly enough. As she reached for the door knob, she saw her father running and leaping up over the step and onto the porch. He swung his hand around the door handle, and helped himself in before Brenda could open the door. Her father was of tall stature and a solid build. He had a thinning mullet of black hair and a mustache. He made it inside and quickly hugged Brenda as hard as he could, muttering “My little girl! My little girl!”
Carter watched this reunion from across the kitchen, then glanced over to see Brenda�
�s mother in even more tears than before. For the first time in nearly a decade, this family of three was together. So much had transpired during that absence, but a lot of issues were now wounds starting to heal. As Carter watched, he thought about his two families and how he would never get this chance to reconnect. His biological and adoptive parents were dead. He got choked up a little from the emotions of all these thoughts coming at him. That exit kept getting bigger.
Brenda’s father finally let go of Brenda after about 10 minutes, continuing to mumble things to his little girl. He looked over at his wife. “Phyllis,” he said, “it’s been so long. Too long… Phyllis. I miss you more than words can say, and… when I heard your voice on the telephone… I thought I was dreaming. It was surreal. The whole ride over here… I was thinking this was all some sort of prank or something. That’s how much I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought the two girls in my life were gone forever.”
Carter sat there as if he was a spectator at a tennis match, but his heartstrings were being tugged by this emotional roller coaster. He battled hard against losing his composure. In front of him was a family of three that had been split three ways. They all finally took a seat around the kitchen table, and Brenda’s dad kept shaking his head as he looked back and forth from Phyllis to Brenda. Brenda and her mother held hands across the table as they continued to reconnect.
After Brenda introduced the two men in her life, she turned to her mother and said, “Mom, did you ever see a psychic by the name of Angie?” Brenda held her breath as she awaited her reply. It took some time for her mother to remember the name, but Brenda was fairly certain that her mother was just playing it that way. From what Angie stated, and from what her father’s letters revealed, her mother would not soon forget Angie… the psychic.
“Angie… I think I… yes… yes, I do remember Angie. We hired an Angie… she was a psychic. We were so worried about you back in your teen years… honey, because you were going through some things and saying a lot that was alarming, and cause for our concern… to your father and I.” She stopped and folded her hands up, then leaned her chin on them. “Angie came in to check things around the house to see if anything was wrong.”
“Mom… cut to the chase. I know Angie.” Brenda smiled tightly. “We ran into her in Colorado and there was a terrible accident, and she’s no longer with us. You can talk. There’s nothing to be afraid of and… ”
“Okay, okay… I guess I was just trying to protect you then, and I’m still trying to protect you now. I still think of you as a child. You were a child when you left. I’m sorry, but you’ll always be my child… my baby.”
“I just want you to tell me what happened. I’m an adult now. Look at me. I’m fully grown. It’s important that I learn everything there is to learn from you and dad, since Angie is gone. I’m a grown woman now. I can handle it. There’s no use trying to protect me. You’re only hurting me.”
Phyllis stared into Brenda’s eyes as if the answer was written on a monitor inside her pupils. “Okay,” she said quickly, “here it goes.” She shifted her chair into the table and sat up straight.
Brenda’s father cut her off. “Phyllis… let me have this one. I think it’s important for me to say something here. Brenda… when you were a child claiming to be… as you well know… Shirley… who lived in Colorado… it was cute at first.” Her father, Paul, took a swallow and continued on. “It was cute… but… but it got to the point where it wasn’t cute anymore. It got to the point where it was frightening… frightening as hell.”
Paul leaned back in his chair and looked at Phyllis, who nodded her approval, and then he returned his focus to his daughter. “Brenda, I’m gonna tell you this straight. You want it. You’ll get it. It’s the least I can do for you. Angie came by after you left town and we gave her an article of clothing… a shirt of yours… I believe is what I provided for her. So I got her a shirt, and she held it in her hands right over there in the living room, and her eyes began to flutter back and forth in her head. They fluttered!”
Carter shifted in his chair, aware that anything he said could impede Brenda’s progress. He thought that maybe he should have stayed behind in the car. However, it was about Angie now, so he thought that maybe there’d be some use for him, but it was getting a tad awkward. He shut up and just looked around the kitchen, pretending that he wasn’t hanging onto every word, but he was. He certainly was processing each word as if the words were passing through a computer. He knew the score.
“Her eyes were fluttering? What was she doing that for?” asked Brenda.
“She was channeling… is what she told us, but that’s not all she told us. She told us a lot more… about you, my dear.”
“What about me?”
“Angie went on and on about your life as Shirley and something about your husband, Martin… putting his hands around your neck and snuffing out your life. Oh, she said that. She also said that she indeed was from Colorado… town of Boulder is what I believe she told us at the time. I think she confirmed everything that you had made comments about since you were a child. It was strange. It was so bizarre. We hated Angie for it. We actually used her as a scapegoat. I couldn’t see it then, but it’s clear as day now… now that I’ve been removed from the situation. There was just one thing she had mentioned about you that you had never made comments about. I thought that was strange. Everything was right on, otherwise.”
“Yeah? What was that?”
Phyllis decided to take over. “She told us that you would be involved in a kidnapping, and there would be… dead… bodies in the house.” Phyllis let out a wail as she reflected on Angie’s premonition. “I was scared to pieces! That’s why I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Really. Now that’s pretty bizarre,” said Brenda.
“Well, the strange part about that is… it was the only thing you neglected to mention, and Angie actually came back to me in a dream the other night… more like a nightmare. It was as if she had a message for me.”
“When was that dream?”
“Tuesday night,” said Phyllis.
Brenda thought about the timing and realized that Tuesday night was the night that she had been kidnapped. The dream was during the time she was tied up, struggling for her life.
“Just this past Tuesday?” Brenda asked. “You haven’t seen me for a decade. Angie made an appearance in a dream the same week that I came home?”
“Tell me about it. It’s like a reunion,” said Phyllis.
“What did she say? Was it just a quick cameo appearance… a flash, or did she spend some time with you?”
“Oh, she spent some time, Brenda… she spent some time. More time than I wanted her to… believe you me. She spent some time all right. I thought she’d never leave… an overstayed welcome of sorts, and it was only a dream. When I woke up, I realized it was only a dream… nightmare’s more like it, but she was very concerned about it… seemed she was, anyway. It was almost like she scared the shit outta me on purpose, just so I’d wake up and remember what I’d dreamed about.”
Phyllis closed her eyes and they remained closed as if she was meditating. With her eyes closed, she continued to speak. “Brenda, I don’t know if she was saying that Shirley was kidnapped or you were kidnapped or you were going to be kidnapped. Just be careful. I know it’s just a dream, but it seemed so real. I mean, even when I woke up suddenly, I felt like she had been winding down her speech. I felt like I could still hear her when I woke up. She made it seem like it was happening right then and there.”
“Was there anything else,” Carter piped in. “Did Angie say anything else?”
Phyllis paused, then said, “At the end of the dream… as she was being pulled away, and I was about to be startled awake, she kept repeating
how bad the scene was going to be for you, Brenda.” Phyllis paused and took a swig of iced tea and a couple of deep breaths. It was evident that she was extremely bothered by this last item. “She was moving backwards… somehow… I’m not sure how… just moving backwards, but still communicating with me. She kept saying that there was one last thing. She wasn’t saying what that last thing was… only that there was one last one.”
“So you never got that one last thing either?”
“Either?”
“I didn’t mean either,” said Brenda.
“Oh. I didn’t get the one last thing that time. But when I got back to sleep after being awaked by that nightmare, Angie returned to me and finished her story. She explained that the reason she got spooked was because her readings indicated that her body was going to be affected with the invasion of a negative spirit, and that it would be taking over her body. There was some connection with Shirley, and when she found out that you were the reincarnation of Shirley, she just lost it. She did say her last message was that the evil spirit wreaking havoc in our circle will eventually be attached to the house.”
“So that’s it,” Carter said. “That was the one last thing.”
“Yes. The one last thing was two last things, but yes… that was the one last thing.”
“But that was just a dream,” Brenda said. “No way would something like that ever happen to me… or our house.”
“That’s right,” said Carter, “especially since we are moving back to Boston and we’ll never step foot in that house again.”
“I’m so happy to hear that,” said Phyllis. “It scared me to pieces… that dream… and I’m here all by my lonesome, so there was nobody to tell.”
“Well, you can now tell your daughter, because although we’ll be in Boston, I will be in touch. I’ll call you once we get there. It’ll be great talking to you both on a regular basis.”
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 46