Chapter 7

Gus Halburton looked as welcoming and bearlike as she had hoped. He stepped from behind his broad desk and hurried across the office to meet her halfway. His arms spread wide, closing her in a hug against the rough tweed of his coat. She smelled wool and pipe smoke. His warmth and strength engulfed her until he stepped back, hands firm on her shoulders.

“Meredith, dear lady,” he said as if that were statement enough. “To think you’ve been in town a month. And I’ve been gallivanting off to worthless conferences.”

“Gus, you look wonderful.”

He certainly did. Wide brown eyes sparkled above his ruddy cheeks. The salt-and-pepper gray hair she remembered was sprinkled more liberally with salt, but the new lines in his face were in all the right places, betraying seven years of smiles rather than worries.

“And you grew a beard,” she added with surprise.

Gus released one shoulder to tug at the curls lining his jaw. “At my age, you hide as much as you can.” He chuckled. “Best to leave the secrets of age to the imagination. “

Meredith exaggerated her frown.

“But look at you,” he hurried on. “It’s you I want to hear about. And Richard, and your new house. All morning I’ve been looking forward to this good news.”

Gus hustled a leather chair closer to the desk and fussed like a mother hen until she was seated comfortably and the office door was closed. Then he eased into his own chair, somewhat more gingerly than years ago, and took his pipe from the ashtray. He leaned back.

“We can skip most of the case history,” he joked in mock professional tones. “All that boring business about toilet training and early childhood. Go straight to recent history. What brings my favorite couple to Mabton?”

“Work.” Meredith spread her palms open and shrugged. “And a lot more. It all happened so fast, I hardly know where to begin. You remember Richard joined that small family firm years ago?”

Gus nodded.

“Well, we liked it there. You saw the town, and my practice was going wonderfully. But Richard wanted more challenge.” Meredith hurriedly outlined the events leading up to the offer from Mabton. The words came easily, and for the first time in weeks she felt at ease. While she talked she took in the rich familiarity of her surroundings.

This new office was larger than Halburton’s old one. Shelves of books lined the walls, and many of their bindings were familiar, but the new spines beside them tantalized her interest with their titles. A red Oriental rug with an intriguing pattern covered the floor, and soft light spread from two antique lamps, one near the desk and a second beside the wide oak door.

The broad mahogany desk was the one she remembered, and while the arms of his favorite leather chair showed the years of wear, the chair itself fit in perfectly with its new surroundings. On the walls, beside his treasured collection of children’s artwork, hung even more gold-lettered certificates. Over the years she had followed Halburton’s growing reputation in professional journals, and Meredith felt glad he was at last receiving the recognition he deserved.

A gallery of photographs filled the windowsill. She recognized the faces of former students and, set apart from these, to one side, the gold frames holding pictures of Gus’s children and his wife. He had been married to her for many years before she died a decade ago. Gus had told Meredith privately that he did not expect to meet so fine a woman ever again.

Gus himself showed the passage of years only slightly. His movements, when he occasionally shifted in the chair, were somewhat slower, but his smile was quick and his gaze clear and steady. He fiddled with the briarwood pipe, using a brass tool to dig ashes, then tamp new tobacco. He allowed the pipe to roll sideways in his grasp as if he had forgotten to light it.

Meredith spoke freely and easily, as she always had with Gus. She described their move and Richard’s new duties as project manager.

“He loves the work. Besides, I’m absolutely delighted with the house we found.” Her voice faltered for the first time in the narrative, but she hurried on. They were completely moved in, she added, and she was thinking of setting up a new practice.

“But first, before anything, I must have you to dinner.” She paused, suddenly aware that she had been doing all the talking. “Oh, I go on and on. I’ve probably bored you to tears.” She wondered if she sounded as phony as she felt.

“You could never bore me.” Gus lifted his pipe again. He studied the tobacco tucked in its bowl, his expression faintly perplexed. “Now, I could bore you, telling what it’s like to be head of a department. And suffering with that ogre of a secretary I inherited.”

He gestured toward the office door and gave a wink. Then, as if his smile slipped behind a cloud, his face became thoughtful. “It’s you I want to hear about, though. I know all about Richard now, and the job, and the house. I even know your nosiest neighbor on a first-name basis. But what about you? Let me think, any children?”

Meredith glanced away. “Not yet. Not exactly. I mean, we’re thinking about it,” she finished lamely. She tried to recover with a smile, but Gus had lowered his gaze. It was kindness, she realized. He would not stare at her while she was fumbling.

“So tell me,” he said at last, “how is my Meredith? I’ve got the frame, the canvas, and a wall to hang it on. All I need now is a picture.”

Meredith smiled. It was an old joke between them. Patients invariably talked first about everything but the problem. Meredith exhaled a deep sigh of admiration. Gus always knew.

She tried to decide where to begin. Seven years had passed, but that was not the difficulty. She felt more like a college girl, seated in the safety of his office, ready to pour out her grief over statistical analysis. Only today’s fear was a whole lot deeper than a computer printout. She felt stupid for believing that Gus could untangle it as easily.

She searched for the best words, something not too near the truth, but not a willful deception, either. The words did not come. At last she gave up and asked for help.

“You tell me?” She risked a glance at his wide, inquiring brown eyes. “I mean what do you see? You probably already know more than I could tell you.”

“What do I see?” A gentle smile flickered over the large man’s features. He selected a match from the tray on his pipe stand, struck it on a strip of flint, and held the flame close to his pipe. When he had drawn the fire down and rich clouds of smoke billowed, he slowly waved the match out.

“I see a beautiful woman. I see my brightest student who has fulfilled every hope I had for her, and still has time and energy for more. I see promise. I see sparkle and loveliness. And beyond that, I see something else.” He paused, taking a long pull on the pipe. He let the smoke rise.

“Beyond that, because you ask me honestly, I see fear. You are anxious, Meredith. Something is making you afraid. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to ask what it is.”

Meredith lowered her gaze. Her hands gripped each other so tightly in her lap that the knuckles stood out bright white. She waited to be sure Gus had finished, then spoke without looking up.

“That’s true, I mean about the house, the job. We really are happy,” she said at last. “But you’re right. This other thing, this ‘something else’ as you call it, it’s aside from the happiness. It’s not in the daylight, Gus. It’s in the night.”

She looked up. Gus was nodding slowly, his steady gaze an assurance that nothing she could say would offend him. She went on.

“I have frightening dreams. For a while they came almost every night. They’re all about the same man. I don’t know who he is, and in the dreams, even out of them now, I feel afraid. You said I look frightened. I am,” she finished.

“Perhaps you could tell me when they began,” Gus said softly. “I want to know everything you want to tell me.”

“At first I thought he was someone I’d seen.” Meredith recounted her theory about an encounter at Westwood. As she described the dreams, how they placed her at a cocktail party or in a park where she had never been, she could feel the warmth in the older man’s attentive silence. She told how the stranger’s presence had gradually crept into her awareness. Then it had pressed closer and closer until now she not only knew what he looked like but recognized his voice.

“You tried doing dream enactment?” Gus put in, not so much to prompt as to assure her that every word was being heard.

“I did. And, well, it was terrifying. It got worse.”

She told of Friday afternoon’s bizarre sequence of events, how she had progressed from disbelief, pretending to a vision, to full-blown hallucination. Halburton’s steady gaze never left her face, except to glance away once or twice to where her hands twisted in her lap.

“It was so awful,” she said at last. “I almost believed he was really there. And then to have changed clothes, for no reason. And not to remember.” She shuddered and looked up. “I think I understand what patients mean now. When they say they feel they’re going crazy.”

Meredith stopped speaking. She let go of a long, painful breath. Slowly the knot her fingers had formed began to unwind. The burden of the past weeks lay between them now, an ominous-looking package still unopened on the desk. It belonged to both of them, she realized. She was not alone anymore.

Gus had let his pipe burn out. He stared down at it, but seemed unaware. Then he let his glance drift upward, watching a thought that only he could see rising in the air.

Meredith waited, tension ebbing from her chest. At last Gus leaned forward to brace his elbows on the green blotter.

“The man really was there,” he said firmly. “For the mind, it does not matter if something exists in three dimensions. The mind is wiser than we are, Meredith. It shows us things not because they merely exist, but because we need to see them. The question, as always, is why? In your case, there are several possible explanations. You’ve explored two.” He paused and cast an inquiring glance at her.

Meredith nodded.

“I can think of two other explanations,” Halburton continued. “But before I talk, you must answer the most important question. Do you feel—please be honest with me—do you feel that you’re ready to hear and possibly reject another analysis?”

“I certainly need one.” Meredith smiled. It was the first genuine and easy smile she had felt since coming here. “If it’s not your opinion that I’m going crazy. If that’s your answer, I don’t want to hear it.”

Laughing, Gus leaned back in his chair. “No, my dear, you are not crazy. The word means nothing, and even if it did, you’re a poor candidate for the asylum. You know too much about yourself, not too little. And that’s why I agree, for the most part, with your own best analysis. You misunderstood the signals, that’s all. Like all young people, you look for an answer that is easiest to find.”

The stranger did not have to be anyone she had seen, Gus explained gently. She might have created a composite of many men, but the reason for her creation was what mattered. No question about it, she was lonely. She had left family, friends, and clients behind and come to a new place. Richard was at work all day. Even when he was home, he would be tired and distracted by his new duties. Of course she was lonely. As for Friday’s events, they were frightening, he agreed, but the mind’s logic hid behind them like a mischievous imp.

“When people move, not only do their surroundings change, Meredith, they change, too. Buying a new dress, putting it on without thinking, these things could be read as symbols. A world rich in possibility has opened for you. You must discover who you want to become in this new setting.”

Halburton continued, his explanation sure and knowledgeable. Meredith let the comfort of his words soothe her. Each thing he said added another piece of the puzzle. At last she felt the weight of the dreams lift.

“And this morning? When I thought someone else was in the house?”

Gus raised his bushy eyebrows and gave a slight smile.

“I was alone again,” she answered her own question. “Richard left for work and there I was. No one to be with. Nothing to do.”

Gus spread his hands palms down on the green blotter. “Exactly. But only if we want to accept this answer. Remember, no one said that we have to.”

Gus turned his attention to the task of relighting his pipe, waiting while Meredith tried the explanation on for size. She matched it to her own feelings. The explanation fit. It accounted for the insignificant, frightened woman she became in the dreams and for the unreal lapses into dreamlike wakefulness that had come over her lately. A need did lie unsatisfied in her. It was a need to be known and recognized, something more than a faceless housewife falling prey to her buttinsky neighbor. But what about the helpless compulsion to buy the brown dress, she wondered suddenly. And what about those two footprints on the hallway rug? She was sure she had vacuumed carefully.

Maybe she had not. Of course they were Richard’s prints. Loneliness, wishful thinking for company; either one had to be the right explanation.

It was the explanation she had seen first, but she had not looked deeply enough into the loneliness. To be absolutely certain, she asked, “So I have to unpack my life here as well? Redecorate my world with new friends and new activities?”

“That would be my first recommendation for therapy.” Gus leaned forward again. “You must create a new world. Or your mind will do the job for you, as we have seen. You must find out who you are in this new world. The mind is so susceptible to change, Meredith.” He smiled and gave a rueful laugh. “Look at me. I get a promotion. They give me a fancy office and a highpriced secretary, and what do I do? Grow a beard. I get all grizzled to confirm my old homeliness.”

Gus extended his arms over the desk. Meredith lifted her own hands into his and felt them warmly squeezed. “I get out to meet the neighbors this Saturday,” she assured him. “At least I hope they come. I’ve giving a sale.”

“Good. And if they don’t come, you’ll think of something else. Give a party. Join a club. Or set up practice so I have someone I trust to send the worst cases to.”

Meredith laughed. She had not been so at ease in a long time. This explanation had to be true. She gave his hands a quick squeeze and let them go. “And I’ll bother you for advice on what to do for them.”

She smoothed her dress on her lap, stood, and pushed back the heavy chair. She had taken more than her hour already, she should go. Nevertheless, a shadow of doubt lingered. She could not resist the impulse to settle it.

“You said you had a couple of explanations. What was the second? If I’m not going crazy, that is.”

Using the sides of his chair, Gus pushed himself to his feet, then walked to the side of his desk. He closed his arm around her shoulder to guide her toward the door. “Pooh, that. You see those?” He gestured toward the stack of papers and books that covered the top of an antique table.

“That’s this week’s reading from last week’s conference. And I must somehow read it with a straight face and a serious frame of mind. I went to the conference strictly, strictly,” he emphasized, “because the college president demanded I go. He gets excited about all the new stuff. They called the conference the Interim Review of Parapsychology and Unexplained Phenomena. I call it hooey. At least I called it that to the college president’s face before I left.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Some of the papers were surprisingly well documented. Interesting ideas.”

“And your second explanation?” Meredith glanced from the pile of papers and books to his face.

“Their explanation, not mine. I’m not ready for spirits and talking tables. Perfectly rational men were there who would have said you were experiencing a visitation—maybe a poltergeist—although I don’t think so.” Gus waved a hand in a vague way. “They have all kinds of classifications. A lost spirit needs fulfillment or revenge or both—or a better brand of mortuary clothing, I presume. Check with me after I do the reading, will you? I might know more by then, or I’ll tell you all about it by ESP.”

Meredith took hold of the doorknob, laughing. “You’ll tell us all about it on Thursday,” she insisted. “It will make wonderful dinner-table discussion.”

“Deal,” Gus agreed. Then he hesitated. “But don’t worry, dear. Not a word about the dreams to your husband. Poor fellow.”

The secretary in the outer office was on her feet before the door swung completely open.

“Dr. Halburton.” She glared at Meredith. “You are seven minutes late for Faculty Forum.”

“Ah me,” Gus said, sighing. “I’ll have to retire before they give me the watch that keeps my kind of time.”