Chapter 11

Two hours later, seated in the dining room, Meredith watched Gus Halburton, who sat at the far end of the table. His solid bulk and strong presence almost made her deny the truth of what she knew. Halburton was a scientist and he was her teacher. He stood for rationality and lucid explanations. Even the physical size of the man seemed almost too large for the confines of their small dining room. He took a bite of bread, his gaze intent on Richard, who was explaining the hierarchy of Mabton’s electronics industry.

Meredith watched the two men, relieved that they talked so easily. The chill of sitting outside for forty-five minutes was beginning to fade from her limbs, but she did not feel like holding up her end of the conversation. She had been relieved when talk turned to Richard’s work.

The panicked vision that had sent her stumbling through the dining room and out onto the patio haunted her thoughts. She had stayed on the patio for a long time, huddled in a cold aluminum armchair. The blue sky faded to an orange haze as the sun went down, then slipped into the purple blanket of gathering darkness. She tried to sort out her thoughts, but the images would not come clear.

Whatever had happened, it had to do with Elsa Johnson’s visit. It also had to do with the man in her dreams. Every time she tried to bring the two images together, they would not join. Elsa knew nothing of the stranger, nor did she ever appear in the dreams. Meredith told herself that the older woman had jarred her from a fantasy and caused the vision of anger and despair. The explanation felt shallow. It could not account for the horror that had kept her shuddering with fear and cold on the patio until the headlights of Richard’s car turned into the drive.

She had let herself in the house then, her heart pounding, and hurried upstairs. From the second floor, she called a greeting to Richard and managed to remain there until only a few moments before Gus arrived. When she crept down the stairs again, meeting Richard for a hug, she stared over his shoulder. The living room looked as normal and warmly lit as she had prayed it would. It was filled with familiar furniture, and on the mantel the two silver candle holders gleamed where they belonged.

“So then you’ve got some freedom, troubleshooting for the company.” Gus Halburton’s deep voice called her back to the present. “They send you between the departments and you make the decisions.”

“That’s part of it.” Richard’s face glowed with enthusiasm. He leaned forward in his chair, describing how he consulted with department managers and helped coordinate their projects.

Meredith felt a pang of envy. It was easy for him, stepping into a ready-made community in this new place. If Gus was right, she herself needed exactly that: work to do and people to be with during the day. If she had those, this fantasy with good dreams and nightmare days might go away. The imaginary man would wither and disappear. Meredith dropped her napkin on her plate to cover the uneaten portion of her meal. She hoped the men would not notice that she had hardly touched her food.

“And what about you, Meredith?”

Meredith looked up to find Richard and Gus both looking at her.

“Given any more thought to starting up a practice?” Halburton studied her, perplexed by her silence. “Don’t tell me all this shop talk about electronics has swayed you from counseling.”

Meredith forced a laugh. “Not yet,” she said. “Actually, it’s interesting. Richard’s work is a lot like mine. Troubleshooting.”

“Mine, too.” Gus leaned back and pulled a pipe from his coat pocket. Meredith rose quickly to clear the plates and bring an ashtray. She searched her mind for a topic to keep Gus talking.

“Speaking of work, did you get that reading done?” she asked. “You promised to tell us all about parapsychology.”

“Well, now that.” A sparkle came into Halburton’s eyes as he puffed his pipe, then cradled its bowl in his large palms. “In fact, Meredith, I’m beginning to think my judgment was too hasty.”

Meredith stepped to the sideboard, listening while Gus explained the nature of last week’s conference to Richard. She sliced three wedges from the cherry pie she had baked that morning and laid them on the delicately patterned bone china plates. When she had set desserts in front of Richard and Gus, she carried her own to her place at the table.

“And the reading?” she asked as she sat down.

Gus finished describing how experts, gathered from throughout the world, had spent three days delivering papers on research into unexplained mental phenomena. Richard’s interest, betrayed by his avid gaze toward Halburton, seemed more than merely polite.

“The reading. That’s what got to me.” Gus took a bite of pie and chewed thoughtfully. “At the conference I heard all about results. Results can be a lot like ghosts, if you’ll forgive the pun. They can come out of thin air. To trust them, you’ve got to go back and find what’s really in the evidence.”

“And?” Richard had nearly finished his pie and shot a glance of appreciation toward his wife. “Did you find any ghosts? The real thing, I mean.”

“One,” Halburton said firmly. “I found plenty of other things, too—sloppy laboratory practices, borderline research, a few interesting possibilities, but only one genuine and reliable study of trustworthy phenomena. Fellow from England did it. I can’t argue a single point.”

At the conference, he explained, he met a young scientist who worked in brain-wave research. The man had received a grant to study families that had recently lost a member to an accident or disease. He had interviewed nearly a thousand people. Then he monitored the electrical patterns of their thinking, both in the laboratory and at their homes.

“The difference can’t be explained by being at home. He tested families that were not bereaved. No similar pattern showed up. Then you figure in the age of the one who died, and the circumstances. There’s a rare twist in the alpha pattern. From the interviews, this British fellow could practically predict it.”

Gus described how the irregular pattern appeared with amazing frequency in the relatives of those who died young and unexpectedly. It confirmed research that other speakers had done, and what psychics had been insisting on for years. Those who died young or in emotional turmoil could apparently have unusual effects on the minds of others.

“Clever research, too,” Gus admitted. “He doublechecked by bringing complete strangers to the families’ homes. No relation, no knowledge of the deceased. The same alpha sequence showed up every time. Sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, but always there. Every time.”

Gus stopped speaking and scanned the faces of his listeners. Meredith looked away. The speculation struck too close to home, and she fought to suppress the chill that made the hair on her scalp prickle.

“Come now, Gus.” She struggled to make her tone mocking. “Surely you’re not falling for ghost stories and hauntings and things that go bump in the night. You of all people.”

“Meredith, that is not what I said.” The rebuke commanded her to meet his eyes. They were stern, fixed on her with uncompromising authority. She was sure that he suspected something was wrong. She had told him about dreams, but had not told him about the manifestation of a strange man.

“There is evidence,” Gus said. “In some cases. Notably those of premature, unexpected deaths, or when a person was suffering an emotional disorder at the time of death. Looking back now, I see where the explanation may fit.” His tone softened, but the authority had not left it.

Meredith desperately wanted to disbelieve him. How could Gus, careful, skeptical scientist that he was, accept such things? Of course, he was getting old. An old man, thinking of his own death, would be more inclined to believe in the afterlife. She felt immediately ashamed of the thought.

“But, Gus, you’re a scientist,” she said at last. “Science accepts new information, but it has to make sense. This doesn’t tally with anything we’ve discovered.”

“Not so.” Gus picked up his pipe and lit a match. “That was what I was about to explain. It does fit, if you look at the right pieces. We know in psychology that bonds between people can be the most powerful things in the world. Family bonds, bonds of friendship. Even the bond a Good Samaritan accepts when he stops to offer help.”

“So what does that have to do with it?”

Richard cut in, annoyed at her interruption. “Gus is trying to explain. Listen a minute, darling.”

“Human beings have responsibility to one another.” Gus resumed his slow analysis. “We know in schizophrenia that if one person cares, if only one person matters to the patient, there is hope for recovery. I’m not the scientist to say bonds like that cannot survive death, or even exist before birth. You’re a counselor, Meredith, you know the first rule.”

Meredith nodded absently. She saw where Gus’s argument was leading, and did not want to go further.

“The first rule,” Richard asked.

Gus waited, watching for Meredith to respond. She stared down at the untouched slice of pie on her plate, reviewing the words. They were the first Halburton had ever spoken to her, the opening of his introductory lecture on interpersonal psychology. Over many hours of helping clients, she had learned that they were true, but they could not mean what Gus asked of them now. Even as she spoke, she could not believe he was right.

“Need never belongs to one alone,” she said at last. “If I know about it, it is mine.”

Gus waited a moment, then responded to Richard’s perplexed stare.

“Simply put, it means we are responsible to do our best for those we find in need. We cannot do everything for them, and we should not. But when another member of our species needs something he cannot get alone, and when we know that, he is no longer alone. We are with him, seeking it together.”

“You said, ‘another member of our species,’” Richard broke in. “What does the rule have to do with those who are dead, prematurely or otherwise? I don’t get it.”

“Neither does science. We cannot say precisely when life begins or ends. I do believe each life has purpose. From this research, I must consider the possibility that when that purpose is unfulfilled, the spirit, the quickening of nature that makes a life, may linger. I can’t say why it is, or how. But I can admit the possibility.”

He had been responding to Richard, but Meredith knew he was watching her. Now he turned. “Can you, Meredith?”

“I can’t argue with what you’ve said. I would like to see the evidence. You’ve got to admit, Gus, it’s pretty farfetched.”

“Agreed, but if the evidence held up, and let’s assume that it does, could you accept it?”

Halburton’s gaze grew uncomfortably penetrating. He saw her to a depth she did not want to acknowledge. “As a possibility,” she said at last. “A possibility, that’s all.”

“Of course.”

The words formed a frost on her heart. They made her think of the stranger, of Elsa, of the coldness of death she had witnessed that afternoon. This could not be, she told herself. Yet she had just admitted that it could.