Chapter 7

11

As Julia sobbed, she rotated back and forth between the professor and his wife, making sure that they clearly understood that she would not hesitate to stab or slash them if they came anywhere near.

However, Julia needn't have worried about Sarah; the professor's wife stood well away from the younger woman, and her attention was not focused on Julia at all. Instead, she stood, arms folded over her chest, glaring across the kitchen toward the professor. The anger flying from Sarah's eyes toward her husband might as well have been a handful of daggers. Over Julia's hiccupping sobs, Sarah coldly demanded, "How could you, Leland? How could ruin the trust we were building with Julia by using such a stupid memory?"

Wounded by his wife's reaction, the professor sagged back against the kitchen island, wondering if there was anything he could say to rescue the situation and diffuse the anger of the woman he loved and the fear of the woman he'd come to like. Finally, failing to see any way to finesse the issue, he decided the best course was the most direct one... the truth.

He stepped forward just a little, until he was about two feet from tip of the knife in Julia's hands. Facing her directly, he opened his arms wide, palms out, as if beseeching her to listen and understand him. "Julia," he began...

"Shut up!" she spat back at him, jabbing the end of the blade at him; the professor remained completely still, unflinching despite the close proximity of the weapon. "I've heard enough of your verbose bullshit to last a lifetime! Don't try to sell me, or soothe me, or use that tone that policemen use when trying to talk someone down off a ledge! I just want you to step out of my way just enough that I can get past you to the kitchen door, and then I am getting out of here!" To herself, Julia thought, 'And even if they think I'm crazy, I'll calling the police and telling them that you killed my brother and I want you arrested for it!'

The professor did not move, keeping his arms open and his gaze steady. "Julia, I need you to listen to me, if only for a moment, and then I will gladly move aside and let you leave. In the meantime, I am going to stand right here, and if you deem it necessary, you may plunge that knife into my body and I won't try to stop you. But... I am going to say what needs to be said.

"I have told you that there are very few people who get to where you are now, perhaps as many as four in any given year. Those that come generally have been set on a course to our door by those who have already used the process; they see something in a friend or an acquaintance that cries out in need of what we can do. If - and that's a very large IF - they can convince these usually sensible people that there may be a solution... a very unorthodox solution... well, then they come here, and we subject them to our tests, and many we turn away.

"Among those very few who have made it this far was your brother Richard.' The professor's face seemed to droop a bit as he thought back to the moments Julia's brother had spent at the kitchen table. "Your brother was an introvert, who masked his aversion to meeting and interacting with people with hostility and indifference. However, sitting in that same chair where you did, he made an impassioned plea to look into his own future, to try to determine what lay ahead for him."

The professor took a moment to look across the island countertop toward his wife, who had dropped her folded arms and now gripped the edge of the counter; her face was no longer angry, but instead showed sadness and concern. Using the palm of his left hand, he covered his mouth, and then pulled his open hand slowly down the lower part of his face, as if trying to rub something away.

"Your brother sat here with Sarah and me, unable to eat, unable to relax. It was Sarah who felt that he was not telling us all there was to know, and she urged him to tell us the absolute truth of why he wished to see the future... or risk being asked to leave. He sat in silence for almost five minutes before finally deciding to share his dark secret with us.