It was Erica, who else? I went to my firstborn, kissed her on the cheek, smiled at her and said, “Good morning to you too, dear.” Her eyes widened in surprise as did Larry’s.
I rolled the bag I used to carry my samples to the car, opened the trunk, and was about to put it in when Larry did it for me.
“Thank you.”
“Mick…”
“That’s okay, Larry. Nothing’s going to change. I know that now. You can’t help how you feel and neither can I.”
“Where are you going?”
“Not where you think.”
“Then where are you going.”
“I’m going to go treat myself to breakfast, and then go do my job.”
“I can come with you.”
I looked at him for a long moment, and I raised my hand to his face to touch his cheek. It was too little, too late. “No, I don’t think so,” I answered him. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
I got in my car and drove away, leaving Larry standing in the drive looking after me. He would be fine. He had Erica and the kids. He had the family he’d always yearned for.
I could barely wait until nine A.M. to call Blaine MaDia, though the last thing I needed in this life was another kid. Maybe a child from a past life wouldn’t be as mouthy. I smiled to myself as I listened to the ringing of the phone.
“Hello.”
His voice was smooth and refined. I felt a sharp electrical jab, amazed that even the sound of his voice was having such an effect on me.
“Hi, this is…hmm…hmm.” I had to stop to clear my throat. “I’m sorry. I came to see you a couple of months ago, and I…I… Well, I…”
He laughed, the sound a musical tinkle. “I know who you are,” he answered me. “I was wondering how long it would be before you called.”
“How did you know that I would?”
“I’m a psychic, remember?”
“I don’t quite know if I believe that.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
He had me there. “Something strange happened to me at your lecture and I want to know what it was.”
“What do you think it was?”
“I think you’re very good at your job, that you seem to be asking all the questions and wanting me to supply the answers.”
I was just a little irritated. I had pictured the conversation going a lot more smoothly. I don’t know if I expected him to tell me how he’d been searching for me as Chance had, but I didn’t expect his evasiveness. He was as mouthy as the kids I had in this life.
“Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“For saying that I’m good at my job. But I can’t take the credit.” He laughed softly. “It’s a gift.”
“Listen, I have my doubts about you. Matter of fact, my husband thinks you’re a con. He’s a very high profile attorney. If that is the case, I mean, if you’re going around conning people, he can make things very rough for you.”
“Excuse me, but are you threatening me?”
I could feel myself blushing because that was exactly what I was doing. “Listen, let’s start over. I want to make an appointment with you. How much do you charge?”
“I’m very expensive. I have to be in case I need to defend myself against a high profile attorney.”
I found myself laughing then. “That just came out. I’d never been to a psychic before your seminar. I didn’t know what to expect and never in my wildest dreams did I expect what did occur. I just want to talk to you, see if you got the same impressions I did.”
“What were those impressions that you got?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Oh, am I? I guess I was fishing for information, probing, as it were. You know that is a method that… what did you call me before, a fake? Well, that is a method used by fakes.”
I listened to the sound of his voice. He wasn’t angry or hurt, but simply amused. “Mr. MaDia, would it be possible for you to be serious for a moment? This matter is very important to me.”
“I’m sorry, go ahead. I sometimes go into my sarcastic mode when I’m nervous.”
“Why would you be nervous?”
“The same as you.”
“Can you see me?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Anytime you say.”
“How about in an hour?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“One more thing. I need to know this. How much is the charge?” I heard his musical laughter once again before he answered me.
“Because of the family connection, this one’s on me. See you in an hour.” He laughed and severed the connection
My entire body tingled. He’d been toying with me. So it was true. He had seen the same images I had. Did he truly believe he was my reincarnated son? I held onto the phone looking at it.
Was it possible that I was this Dimitra and that this man I was going to see was a son I had lost? I must be crazy, I thought.
Suddenly I felt a tremendous lift to my spirit. The dark cloud that had enveloped my spirit for such a long time was lifting. I felt energized, as if I was finally going to get a chance to right a wrong.
“Come on in.”
Blaine was ushering me into his inner office. He was about to touch his hand to my back. I cringed and moved away. He smiled and stepped back, allowing me to enter the room untouched.
I felt stupid, childish. The thought of this man being able to touch me and make me see things was so amazingly terrifying, that I marveled at his gift, yet a part of me feared it.
He sat across from me lacing his hands together. His fingers were long and slender. I watched him, awed at the tenderness that flowed through me.
I felt strongly that this man facing me was a good man, not a con. He was someone I could easily care about. He felt more like my child to me in that instant, than the daughter that was waiting at home.
There was a moment of awkwardness that evaporated the moment he spoke.
“I know you’re nervous.”
He smiled at me and I watched the dimple in his cheek. He was a handsome man, if perhaps a little too pale. He had wavy almost white blond hair and eyes that I couldn’t tell if they were blue or gray.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Michelle,” I answered barely above a whisper. “Michelle Powers?”
“That’s a nice name, Michelle.” He appeared to roll my name around on his tongue. “Would you mind if I call you Michelle? Or would you prefer that I call you Mrs. Powers?”
“Michelle’s fine, Mr. MaDia.”
I watched him smile more fully this time, his eyes barely crinkling. Laugh lines dotted his features.
“If I’m going to call you Michelle, you may as well call me Blaine.”
“Okay, Blaine.” I snuggled into the seat and stared at him. “What do we do now?”
“What would you like to do?” He stopped and laughed. “I’m sorry, that’s a habit. I’ll try and stop when I’m with you.”
When I’m with you. The words played in my head. He was making it sound as if he expected an ongoing relationship.
“Michelle, I’m sorry for the way I approached you at the seminar.” His eyes probed my face. “I know you’ve come here to me for answers to what happened, but I really don’t have any. I can only guess.”
I stared at him. This was not what I had expected. I thought in a matter of minutes he would be able to answer every question I’d ever had about my life, about my marriage, about Viola and about Chance.
He held his hands toward me as if he wanted to touch me, then thought better of it and drew back
“Listen, this has never happened to me.” He stopped. “Or to anyone I know, psychic or otherwise.”
“You want to touch me, don’t you?” I grinned at him.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because it’s obvious. Your hands are twitching and you seem ready to spring out of your chair.”
>
He laughed and I joined in. “Are you curious to know if it will happen again?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes, but unlike you I don’t have the gift. I don’t know what to make of all this. You seem to be adjusting to it much better than I am.”
“Ah, that’s just what I wanted you to think. I’ve talked to a ton of people since the day I saw you. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on and nowhere did anyone ever mention anything like what happened between us. I’m not altogether sure you’re not psychic though.”
“Believe me I’m not. What did happen, Blaine? Tell me what you saw.”
“So you want me to go first. You’re still a little skeptical, aren’t you?” He laughed off my objections. “Don’t…don’t worry about it. I’m glad that you’re cautious.
“Here goes. I was standing on my stage minding my own business, trying my best to get a bead on all the voices that filled my head. I was trying to focus the energy on just one person in the audience. It didn’t matter who. But I had to still the voices to allow just one to come through.”
“Did I interfere with that?”
“I believe you did.” He smiled. “But it wasn’t your fault. For the first hour of the lecture nothing unusual happened. I was about to give a reading when I felt an electrical current begin in my toes and work its way toward my groin. I tried to ignore it, but then it reached my belly and kept moving until it reached my chest.
“It took me so by surprise that I remember dropping to my knees. I didn’t know what was happening. The voices in my head were no longer clear. I couldn’t focus. I looked up and saw a thin stream. It was silver in the beginning but it turned to a blinding white light. I saw it leave my body and rise up in the air and shoot out into the audience.
He stopped talking for a moment, breathing hard. “The whole thing was so damn freaky it scared the hell out of me.” He paused, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry for the language.”
“Don’t worry about it, continue.”
“I didn’t have time to think about what was happening before this stream of energy came back and hit me in the chest. It seemed to go inside my body. I could do nothing for a few moments.
“When I went off the stage I could barely stand. I thought it was perhaps just someone from the other side that was pissed at being ignored. I didn’t know.
“When I came back out I kept hearing your thoughts. They were louder than any of the voices of the spirits I was trying to reach. That’s another thing that had never happened to me.
“At first I thought you were another psychic trying to ruin my lecture. That’s why I was so rude to you. That’s why I came to where you were. I never would have done that otherwise. It wasn’t until I touched you that I knew you were the source of the phenomenon. You were the voice in my head, the voice I’ve heard my entire life saying, “I’m sorry. I love you. Forgive me. Your voice was the voice of the mother I’d known only in my heart.”
He stood, clearly agitated, and began moving around the room. “I touched you, Michelle, and I was in another place. You were there and the man that was with you, the high profile attorney, I presume.”
“No,” I answered, feeling my face flame with my shameful knowledge. “He’s a friend. He’s not my husband.” I looked down, biting my lips.
“I’m not judging you, Michelle.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want me to continue?”
“Yes, please. What happened next?”
“I saw myself as a baby wrapped up and off to the side in a heavy towel. I was cold, very tiny, covered in blood and having a difficult time breathing. I saw you and the man beside you.
“I heard you call him Jeremy and he called you Dimitra. I saw you bleeding. You were crying and asking him to take care of the baby. He didn’t want to. He blamed me for your dying, but you made him promise to love me. Then you made him promise to find you in the next life.”
He looked at me hopefully. “Is that what you saw?” he asked finally.
“Yes. That’s it exactly. Am I crazy?”
“If you are, then so am I. I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, other psychics,” he answered my questioning look. “I also talked to other people I trust, people who are experts in regression. I’ve helped others with regression thousands of times. In fact I’m quite good at it,” he stated proudly. “But this, it had me stumped.
“I tried to find you. I put an ad in the paper; I talked about it on the radio. I hoped you would call. It was beginning to feel as if you weren’t, but I knew you would eventually.”
“Is there a way to find out if this really happened?”
“Only one that I know of.”
“What’s that?” I asked, suspicious that I already knew the answer.
“Everyone I talked to agreed with me, that we should try it again.”
Suddenly I wished Chance was by my side. He’d gotten me into this. If I’d never met him I would not be sitting here now trying to make sense of a vision, trying to find out if it was real.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you…the man you were with?”
“Yes.” I had decided lying would be impossible with a person who could so easily read my thought.
Blaine laughed at me. “Your thoughts come through loud and clear. Also, you wear your feelings on your face. Even if I weren’t a psychic, I think I would know what you’re thinking.” He smiled. “You love him, don’t you?”
“I have no right to love him. I’m married.”
“But you’re unhappy in your marriage.”
“It doesn’t take a gift to figure that one out. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have been with Chance, now would I?”
“So that’s his name?” His eyes became veiled, shutting off the hint of something. I was aware he was trying to hide something from me. Something to do with Chance. “Are you ashamed of loving Chance, Michelle? He’s not ashamed of loving you.”
I looked at him.
“I could tell. He was so protective of you.”
I saw the way Blaine’s eyes darted around the room before focusing on my face. There was something going on with him.
I could only solve one mystery at a time. The one concerning information Blaine was hiding from me would have to wait for another time.
“Chance has nothing to lose, Blaine. He doesn’t have a family. I have a husband. I have five children.”
I looked at him seeing a tiny twitch around his lips. “I have five children this time around. I also have grandchildren. I have responsibilities. I can’t just run off and forget all of that.”
“You’re making a great defense. But I’m not a lawyer. You don’t need to defend yourself with me. Seems like you may have picked up some of your husband’s skills.”
“I’m sorry I’m ranting. It’s just that I got into this fight with my husband this morning. This thing with Chance really hurt him. I’d never cheated on him before, never thought I would.”
I laughed then. “You could have bet me a million dollars and I would have taken the bet. That’s how sure I was. I knew I would never cheat on my husband.”
“How did it happen?”
I closed my eyes tightly and held my face in my hands. “He picked me up in a parking lot.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“There’s not more to this story?”
“Nothing that will justify it. I wanted to die that day. I was crying in the rain. He came over to me to help. He held me in his arms and the next thing I knew I’d destroyed my marriage and hurt my husband beyond belief.”
“You were destined to meet, Michelle. You made him promise. If you had not met this time you would have met in the next life.”
“Do you really believe in reincarnation? I mean, the whole thing sounds so far out.” I attempted a lighthearted shrug. “My husband threatened to have me committed if I don’t stop talking about this stuff.”
“And you came anyway.” He
opened a small compact refrigerator he had tucked away and offered me a bottle of juice. I took it, careful not to touch him. He laughed at me and took a long swig from his own bottle.
“Larry would never do anything intentionally to hurt me. He loves me.”
“Do you love him?”
Now I was offended. “Of course I love my husband.” I bristled, stopping at the look on his face. “Just because of what happened with Chance doesn’t mean I don’t love my husband.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you’re looking at me.” I ignored his indulgent smile. “Your look says I’m lying. I’m not. I love my husband.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
I took a long drink. “I feel like you’re a shrink. I don’t know, I guess I feel unnecessary to his life. He’s accomplished his goal and now I’m dispensable.”
“What were his goals?”
“To have a family.”
“Aren’t you a part of his family?”
I stared at Blaine. Those were Larry’s words. “I guess I am.”
“So then, it has to be more.”
I thought about it for a moment. For some reason things were spilling from my lips that I had never uttered aloud. I don’t think I’d even thought them.
THE AFFAIR Page 17