After a moment, he pulled her over so she faced him. “Thank you, Grace,” he said.
She kissed him warmly.
Scott was reminded of why he married her and confused as to why she stayed with him.
***
That afternoon, Scott rocked in a creaky, wooden rocking chair on the back porch, Gumby by his side, watching the layers of mountains shift and shuffle as the clouds came and went in front of the bright sun. He paused when he heard a voice, “Y’all home?”
Gumby first raised a head and then jumped up to all fours to discover who had come to visit. Scott rose to his feet, too, and greeted Tom Jackson striding up the steps behind the house.
“Nice view, isn’t it?” Tom asked. “Mind if I join you?”
“My house is your house, literally,” Scott said motioning to one of the chairs. As he had hoped, the mountain air and view had him feeling refreshed
Tom rolled back into the chair and started it rocking. The chair complained and the floor beneath it groaned. After several minutes of rocking the creaking chair back and forth, he asked, “Scott, what do you do back home?”
Scott answered, “I’m in Human Resources, at least I was until I was recently laid off. Grace is a nurse.”
“HR? That’s a noble profession,” Tom said. “It usually doesn’t get much respect from others, I’m afraid.”
“You’ve got experience in corporate life?” Scott asked.
“Corporate life; an oxymoron. No. I know very little about corporations. But I think I have a handle on people and they work in corporations.”
“True.”
“And that’s your focus, isn’t it? People.”
“Over twenty years,” Scott said.
“That’s a long time,” he said, staring after the mountain range. He drew an aged hand to his chin and stroked it as if stroking a beard.
“Have you always been in the rental business?” Scott asked in an effort to be polite.
“No,” Tom said. “This is my retirement hobby. Before retirement I was a Methodist minister. I still dabble in it a bit here and there. Preach some Sundays at a little church over in Upper Crabtree. Do some weddings now and then.”
“Oh,” Scott said. He had not had a one-on-one conversation with a minister since he was a kid in Catechism, except for that brief encounter with Rev. Gordon Thompson while he was in jail. He wasn’t sure how to respond.
“But I hope you won’t hold that against me,” Tom said looking his way with that special gleam in his eye.
Scott shook his head.
Tom shot him a quick wink.
Scott felt his neck grow warm.
“Gotcha,” Tom said.
“Yeah.”
***
Grace came into the bedroom early the next morning and gently shook Scott awake. He brushed her off. The fresh air made sleeping in late easy and he wanted to enjoy this treasure.
“Scott, I need to talk to you,” she said softly.
“Later.”
“Okay.”
But he couldn’t go back to sleep. The urgency in her voice, the level of concern kept him from staying in bed.
She was at the kitchen table when he shuffled out of the bedroom. “What’s up?”
“Sit down, honey,” she said, pulling out the chair next to her. She opened the laptop computer and turned it to face Scott. “You did everything you could. You tried to stop it.”
The headline from their hometown paper said, “Man Kills Two, Then Self.”
Scott didn’t need to read more than the headline. “When did it happen?”
“Yesterday,” Grace said. “It was just as in your vision.”
Scott stared at the table. He had failed again. He saw it. He knew it would happen, but just not when. And he couldn’t stop it.
“You did everything you could,” Grace said again. She reached out and held Scott’s hand.
Scott slowly pulled his hand away and stepped out on the back porch. Jeff was dead. Scott would never hear his sarcastic voice again. He had bought a handgun in a gun shop, taken it home, and killed Amy and her lover. Chris was dead. The world would continue to struggle without his genius and without his innovative ideas. What had the old lady said after Dr. Blackwell died? “What a waste.”
Scott felt utterly helpless. “Why have an ability if you can’t do anything with it?” he asked no one in particular. Tears filled his eyes blocking his view of the mountains.
Grace came out a moment later and wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind. They stayed that way for a long time.
Scott couldn’t see the mountains through his tears, but he heard the birds chirping nearby. He heard something rustle in the leaves down below and smelled smoke from nearby chimneys. It brought him back, reminding him that he was still here, away from home, but very much alive and kicking. Unlike Chris and Amy and Jeff.
He turned around and embraced Grace, holding her tight. “Such a waste,” he said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It didn’t take long for Scott to recall painting always brings out the best and worst in people. For those with any talent, any patience, any understanding of beauty, a little paint on a wall is a good thing. But Scott didn’t have any of those attributes. He took the rag from his back pocket and wiped more drops of paint from the floor where they had fallen when he filled the pan with globs of white.
“Have I ever told you how much I hate painting?” he shouted to Grace who stroked a perfect thin line between the wall and the ceiling like a pro.
“No,” she called back. “Not that I recall.”
He rolled a thick, bubbly mass of paint against the wallboard and watched as a tiny river of white traced the bottom of the roller handle, flowed over his hand and down his arm to his elbow, where it dripped to the floor. “Son-of-a-Bitch,” he jumped back, slinging more paint around the room. The mess bothered him a lot; a lot more than it should have. “I’m a total fuck-up!” he shouted.
“Whoa, Mister,” Grace said, laying her brush down on a paint can lid and rushing into Scott’s room. “I’m married to that man you’re talking about there.”
“Well you married a total fuck-up.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m messing up this nice old guy’s house, wasting his paint and he was so kind to let us use it this week.”
“We can clean up any mess you make,” she said.
“You always do that,” he answered. “You clean up the messes I make. I get thrown in jail and you have to leave your conference to bail me out. I lose my job and you have to increase your shifts to make up the difference.” His voice grew louder and higher in pitch. His throat began to constrict and his eyes began to water.
Gumby hated crying and shouting. He slinked into the kitchen to hide under the table.
“I can see the fucking future and I even fuck that up. I can’t stop people from killing themselves even though I knew it was going to happen.” He was ranting now, between sobs.
“That wasn’t your fault,” Grace said, trying to stop him, hold him. But he kept walking away from her.
“I’m given a detailed script of what will happen and I can’t prevent it.”
“Scott, Scott,” Grace urged.
“Four people died, I knew they would, and I couldn’t save one of them,” he cried.
She hugged him tightly. Scott felt his knees buckling from the stress and from his weakness. He dropped down and then rolled on his side and against Grace, who had lowered herself with him to catch him.
He felt her arms warmly around his head as she rocked him back and forth. “I saw Chris with you,” he said through the sobs.
“I know you did. Through the kitchen window. We talked about that.”
“No, I had a vision of Chris and he was making love to you,” Scott said without looking at her face.
“That’s preposterous,” Grace said.
“It was as real as all of the other visions,” he said.
�
��But some of them didn’t come true,” she said. “Neither did that one.”
“Well, it can’t now.”
“It couldn’t before,” Grace said.
Scott knew from the conviction in her voice, from twenty-five years of marriage, from knowing someone else better than you know yourself, that what she said had to be true.
“Knock, knock.” Someone was at the front door.
“Who’s there?” Grace asked.
“It’s me, Tom,” the voice said. “I brought some dessert.”
“Tom! You shouldn’t have done that.” She got up from the floor and stroked her jeans with her hands.
Scott quietly got up and went into the bathroom to wash up.
Grace straightened her hair, hurried to the front door, and opened it wide.
Tom Jackson offered a small package, covered in a checkered cloth.
“Please come in,” Grace said.
“It’s a blackberry pie,” Tom said, handing the gift to Grace. “They grow wild up here.”
“Thank you. You shouldn’t have.”
“Well, I can’t take all the credit. I pay the Samford kids. They live in the house at the bottom of the valley. I pay them five dollars a bucket to pick. Then, I just mix them together into a recipe Jenny, my wife, created and pour them in a pie shell.”
This was the first time Scott had heard him talk about a wife. He was washing his face. However, the more water he splashed on, the thicker the area around his eyes became. He grabbed a hand towel and wiped his face dry.
“I can smell it from in here,” Scott said walking out of the bathroom. “Delicious.”
Grace said, “Let’s don’t wait. Let’s have some now.” She hustled the pie into the kitchen where she placed it on the table. Scott and Tom walked in behind her and watched as she pulled a knife and some forks from the drawer and sliced the pie into pieces.
“Oh, none for me,” Tom said.
“Too late,” Grace said, plopping the third slice onto a plate. “Come. Share some with us.”
The three gathered around the table.
“Oh, my,” Grace said after savoring a bite of the warm pie. “That is wonderful.”
Scott echoed her sentiment.
“It’s a good recipe,” Tom said humbly.
They ate in silence, savoring each delectable morsel.
“Your wife must be a wonderful cook,” Grace said.
“She was the best,” Tom said, pausing between bites.
“What happened?”
“An accident. Three years ago. She was driving home from the store during a heavy snowfall and the truck slipped off the side into a ravine. It took several hours for the authorities to find her. By the time they did, she was comatose. She never came out of it. She died alone,” he said. He stopped eating and stared at the kitchen table. “You know, this used to be our table. I moved it up here when I bought this place. I don’t need such a large one anymore.”
“You’re welcome to come up and share this table with us anytime,” Grace said reaching over and patting his aged hand.
“Especially if you bring dessert like this,” Scott said, trying to add a little levity.
“Thank you,” Tom said. “Thank you,” he said again and Scott felt he was talking about more than the dessert.
***
The next day, they finished painting the two rooms they were charged with in lieu of rent. Scott took the larger brushes, cans, rollers, and pans to the faucet on the side of the house and washed them clean while Grace touched up one or two spots he had missed. When she finished, she handed him her brush and he washed it as he had done the rest. Then he gathered all of the painting supplies and lugged them down the wooden steps to the driveway and eventually to Tom’s house.
Mounting the stairs carefully he tried not to drop any of the clean brushes, cans, or pans. He started to tap on the door to let Tom know he was there when he looked up through the screen and saw the old man sitting by himself in the late afternoon darkness, his head in his hands. Scott backed away from the door carefully.
A large, imposing shadow filled the screen door. “All finished, Scott?” Tom asked.
Scott returned up the porch and handed the painting supplies to him. “Don’t know how good it looks, but here’s your stuff.” Tom’s eyes were streaked with red. Their hands brushed softly as Tom accepted the cans and pans and wished Scott a good afternoon.
Scott was disturbed by the sight he had witnessed of Tom just a few moments earlier. He walked over to the edge of the driveway which led out over a huge abyss stretching hundreds of feet down the mountain. Leaning against a hickory tree, absorbing the shade the few leaves left provided, he thought about Tom and what might be on his mind. He wondered what might haunt ministers and who they talk to when they’re alone. He had Grace, but Tom didn’t seem to have anyone.
Watching the cloud shadows dance over the valley far away, he let his mind wander. It appeared that the valley was gently changing before his eyes. The land would appear to rise and fall and change shape as the shadows shifted. It seemed alive. A soft breeze passed through his hair, calming him and stirring him at the same time. Somewhere, far down below, music was playing. Its rhythm blended with the cloud shadows in a graceful dance.
A steady beeping sound interrupted the music. Gradually, the music faded and the beeping increased. Muffled voices echoed overhead. Someone nearby, very near, was talking to him. Scott blinked once and he was in a bright, sterile hospital hallway. A doctor, dressed in white coat and striped tie was talking softly outside a patient’s room. The name, “Greenwald” was embroidered on his coat. “We’ve done all we can, Tom. I’m afraid she was too far gone by the time we got to her. Her heart is strong, but there is no brain activity. I’m terribly sorry.”
Scott watched, amazed that he could see this vision without medicinal enhancements.
He slowly walked into the room where an older lady lay attached to machines around her. He took Jenny’s hand to try to coax life back into her.
“Jenny, I am so sorry I wasn’t there. I know it must have been frightening, terribly frightening to be alone. I would do anything to have been with you. Anything.”
As he watched, Scott saw the vision change.
The warm, sterile hospital room gave way to a cold, muddy wilderness, surrounded by debris and dirt and grime. The old truck had embedded its bumper deep into the side of the ravine. Jenny sat in the driver’s seat. A glance to the mirror revealed a severely bloodied forehead. The window beside her had broken, and cold wind chilled the inside of the car. She tried in vain to push the driver’s door open, but she didn’t seem to have the strength. She breathed with difficulty. Slowly, her eyes closed and opened again. She looked resolved.
“Hello?” he heard a voice shouting nearby. “Are you all right?”
With difficulty, Jenny turned her head and looked toward the sound. There was a person, a man, stumbling down the ravine. He reached the side of the truck, but she could not recognize his face. His clothes indicated he was little more than a homeless vagrant; someone who happened to be on the road when the truck went down.
“I’ll go get help,” he said.
“No,” she answered. “Stay.”
He slipped his dirt-smudged arm through the broken window and took her hand. “I’m here, ma’am. But I ain’t no doctor. I don’t know if I can help you.”
“Stay,” Jenny said again.
She continued to stare at the homeless man holding her hand. Gradually, the vision faded. The sounds slipped away and she was gone.
***
The experience shook Scott like a slap to the face. He backed away from the tree, stumbled over roots and rocks. Gradually, his vision and sense of presence came back. He turned and moved clumsily toward the cabin. Grasping the wooden handrail, he pulled himself upward, mounting each step one at a time. In a daze, he reached the deck and walked around the side, around the back to where Grace was reading a paperback novel.
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p; “Honey?” she said after he staggered onto the back porch. “Are you all right?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Scott said. He grabbed both arms of the rocking chair and eased his body down into it. A light breeze floated up from the valley and cooled his damp neck.
Grace set her book down and leaned forward. “What happened?”
Scott told her about approaching Tom’s home and seeing the figure through the screen door. He also told her about the vision of Tom and Jenny and how the homeless vagrant seemed to comfort her in her final moments. They wondered how the vision could have taken place without medication and assumed Scott had developed the skill after practicing it over and over.
Grace asked, “Should we see someone—get some tests?”
His life was a highway littered with doctors and shrinks whose expertise was never enough. His time with Blackwell was helpful, but Blackwell allowed his darker self to drag Scott into a dangerous world he never wanted to enter again. “Who would we see? We’re treading on new territory, here. No one knows how to test for this.”
“But what if the medicine caused some sort of serious, permanent damage?”
“Tell you what…if I start dancing naked in the streets, we’ll go see a shrink.”
“I’d kinda like to see that,” Grace said. But the look on her face showed more concern.
***
Late in the day, Scott was sitting in his now favorite rocking chair looking out over his favorite mountain view when Tom Jackson walked around the corner on the cabin’s wrap-around deck.
“Busy?” he asked.
2nd Sight: Capturing Insight Page 14