THE AFFAIR (33 page)

“Say the words and I’ll take you back to the accident. You just need to tell me what you want.”

Fear invaded my body for a moment but I’d already decided I was done with running away. I gave Blaine a weak smile before saying, “Let’s try.”

“Michelle.” He laughed, holding up his hand as though in defense. “I do have an idea. I can hypnotize you, take you back to the accident.”

He pushed the table away after sneaking another bite, prepared to begin. Too many things had happened to me in the past months, things that I felt I could verify at least to myself. I didn’t want to be put under.

I felt myself smiling, me who had run in a panic from this man just a few short months before. I couldn’t believe what I was about to propose.

“Try touching me, just a little, while I think about Viola and the accident.”

“Michelle, I’m not a crystal ball or a genie. My touch can’t give you the answers to your questions.”

“How would you know? You admitted you don’t know why we have this thing between us. Maybe it can work.” I was insistent. “We can at least try.”

“Are you the same woman who didn’t want to touch me without rubber gloves for insulation? I can’t believe it; surely you have to be someone different.” He laughed softly. “Is this what I missed by not having a mother, being coerced and manipulated by your wonderful smile?”

I knew then he was going to give it a try. “Mothers are famous for that, Blaine.” I gave him a grin. “I’ll bet you’re thinking now that you didn’t have it so bad.”

He turned serious. I saw it in his eyes, in the slight change of his body, his jaw tightening. “I’m glad to have you in my life. I hope no matter what happens you’re here to stay, Michelle.”

I didn’t answer. He was asking me for a promise and I couldn’t give any more of those. In my heart, I knew I would never be far away from Blaine, but the memory of the promise I’d given to Larry years before our marriage wouldn’t allow it. I had not been able to keep my promise to him. I didn’t want to break another one.

Blaine frowned slightly apparently having decided to let go of the fact that I’d not answered about remaining in his life.

“You know there’s no guarantee. So far we’ve only seen images of us, of our past. I have no control over this, Michelle,” Blaine offered, “But we can give it a try if you want to.”

My heart felt as if it had wings. It would work, I knew it would. Staid, stilted, responsible, traditional Michelle Powers was asking a psychic to help her have a vision. Wow, what a transformation.

We sat close together, our knees touching slightly. Blaine held out his hand. This was my show; I would decide how to do it. I reached the tips of my fingers out toward his, not quite touching him, yet I could feel the magnetic force. I closed my eyes and thought of Viola and the accident.

I could see it clearly. I was driving, my mood cheerful. I saw myself look down to push the number on the CD player in my car. Number seven of the Police. I listened as the sounds of Sting singing ‘Every Breath You Take’ came through my speakers.

I saw myself singing along with the music, checking the rearview mirror occasionally. I glanced over at the sidewalk, heard my voice saying, “
Oh no
,” as I realized that an elderly woman was stepping out in front of me.

I pressed my foot on the brake as hard as I could, but it was too late. The woman flew up onto the windshield of my car and fell back down.

I watched her groceries fall in slow motion, the cans of tomato sauce, the eggs as they broke.

I looked to the other side of the street and saw the city bus. The elderly woman had walked out into oncoming traffic to catch a bus. I had forgotten that.

I pulled my fingers away from Blaine and opened my eyes. I didn’t need to see Viola lying there sprawled on the ground. I didn’t need to see the blood, or feel her touch. I would never forget it.

Blaine looked at me with concern. “You have your answers?”

“More than I ever imagined. I did see Viola and I tried to stop but there wasn’t time. It was very important to me to know if I’d not been paying attention. I was. The accident really wasn’t my fault but my breaking my promise to her was. Blaine, I know now why I cried so hard in the parking lot. When my groceries fell, I thought of Viola.”

I closed my eyes and saw myself in another life, as Dimitra covered in blood, my life ebbing away. All that blood surrounding Viola had made me subconsciously remember Dimitra.

I looked at Blaine. “You’re right. I am the key. Chance knew me because the moment we met, I was remembering my death.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Michelle, It’s time to face him. You’ve waited a lifetime for this.”

Blaine ran the pads of his fingers down my arms. “He deserves to know that you remember.”

I raised my head from Blaine’s chest, where it had been resting since I discovered I had not been at fault for hitting Viola. That guilt was gone.

Still, I felt bad that I had not kept my promise. Now I knew why promises were so important to me. Jeremy and Dimitra had made promises that had not been forgotten, through death or another lifetime.

Breaking my promise to Viola had started a chain reaction which made me fully remember my past. I might not have remembered had it not happened. Blaine was right. I had to see Chance, the husband from my past that I’d called out to in my dreams.

“Because your promises are binding. Chance is hurting and I don’t know that I want to be a party to his pain. He’s stayed away from you out of respect for your marriage. You’ve ended it. There’s no reason you can’t be with Chance.”

I reached out my hand to touch his face. “Blaine, I wasn’t a very good mother this time around. I know what you want. You’re a psychic, you tell me, is it in the cards for me to finish out this life with Chance?”

He turned away. “You have the power to do what you want, to love whom you choose.”

“That wasn’t my question. I know how miraculous this all is, that we found each other. But what about my family? I’ve cheated them out of so much. I didn’t want children.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He was watching me closely, trying to read something that I wasn’t saying. “I didn’t. I did the things for them that a mother is supposed to do, but I always felt removed from them. The only one of them able to break through my reserve was Derrick.” I remembered my eldest. For a short time after her birth love for Erica had been overpowering. I had no idea when or how it left.

“I still don’t believe you,” Blaine said softly.

“Only because you don’t want to. You want to see me with Chance, here and now. You want us to be the family we didn’t get the opportunity to be before. Blaine, I’m not a saint. I’m a woman who’s made a lot of mistakes in her life, and who’s hurt a lot of people, probably more than I was even aware of.”

“How could a woman who had so much love for her baby that with her dying breath she told that baby she loved him, not love her children in this life?

“That woman’s love lived on through death and found that son. Don’t deny that you love me. I know you do, I feel it in your energy, I see it in your eyes and I feel it in your touch. Love doesn’t die, Michelle.”

“Then why didn’t I feel that with my kids? Why did I feel so distanced from them, why didn’t I want them?” I sobbed.

Before I knew what was happening, Blaine grabbed my hands and held on really tight. “I don’t know, but I’m damn sure going to find out,” he said.

“No, Blaine. I’ve been through too many memories today.” He ignored me and held on.

I fell against him as both of us relived his birth. I heard Blaine ordering me to focus only on Dimitra, on her thoughts, her feelings.

We’d never done that. I didn’t know if I could. It was hard to not focus on the infant, or on Jeremy who was in agony over the death he knew he couldn’t prevent.

“Focus,” Blaine shouted at me. This time I attempted to push my mind past the blood, past the poverty of the couple in the room. I concentrated only on Dimitra. I became one with her, allowing myself to enter not only her body, but her mind.

It worked. I heard the thoughts she didn’t utter to her husband or child. I heard her crying out to God, asking him why he would give her a baby only to take her away. I heard her thinking, “
In the next life, I’ll never love another child, because you’ll only take it away from me.”

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I moaned over and over again. Blaine released the grip he held on my hands and gathered me in his arms, letting me cry until I felt cleansed.

“I knew it,” he said to me as he patted my hair as if he were the parent comforting the child. “I knew it all along. A woman with love strong enough to defy death couldn’t not love her children. Michelle, because of your fear and your wanting to keep your children safe you buried your love so deeply into your subconscious that you wrongly thought it didn’t exist.”

As I stared into Blaine’s eyes the memories came rushing back, the love for Erica, the pride in the miracle of her birth. He was waiting for me to speak to give him some profound wisdom. I had none. I had more questions than anything else. He was the one I was seeking out for knowledge.

“Blaine, it would have been so much easier if I had known. I’ve carried this guilt around since Erica was just a baby.”

I looked up at him. “But I do think I understand what you’re trying to say. My soul was trying so hard to convince God that I didn’t want my children, didn’t love them, so he wouldn’t snatch them away, that I convinced myself.”

“Exactly. The mind is a very powerful instrument. Now that you know, how do you feel?”

“Grateful and relieved. To know this within myself, that it’s not just your telling me but my knowing that I love them has freed me.” I couldn’t help smiling.

“I’ve always loved them. I was too afraid that if I admitted it, or allowed myself to feel it, they would be taken away. What kind of karma do you think I’ve created for my kids?” I shook my head.

“I’ve only met two,” Blaine sighed. “Derrick loves you. It’s not too late to start over with all of them. Bad things happens, people die, that’s all a part of life. But if it happens,” he tilted my chin to look into my eyes. “Sometimes we’re lucky enough to see each other again.”

For the next week I worked, going to Blaine’s office as soon as I was done. It was his suggestion. He freed up his calendar in order to have dinner with me each evening.

He’d stopped asking me to call Chance, for which I was appreciative but surprised. On this particular Friday we’d decided to take in a movie before dinner. I was looking forward to it. I knew Blaine was trying to fill my hours to diminish the pain of my failed marriage.