Chapter 2: The Conversation

Her: "How did you become such a good psychic? My friends all say you're the best one they've ever met!"

Psychic: "I can't really explain it. I've just always been this way."

Her: "I wish I could do what you do."

Psychic: "It's a mixed blessing, dear. Besides, from my point of view you can."

Her: "I've heard that before, that anybody can be a psychic."

Psychic: "That's true. Most just don't choose it for their lives here. But that's not why you came to me."

Her: "I have a question..."

Psychic: "Go on."

Her: "There's this guy..."

Psychic: "There always is."

Her: "He drives me nuts because he won't just be like everybody else. First he wanted me more than anything else. He pursued me for years."

Psychic: "And you always held him away."

Her: "Well, yeah."

Psychic: "You tell yourself that you love him as a friend. Or that you love him, but you're not in love with him."

Her: "That's right! How did you know that?"

Psychic: "I'm the psychic, dear, remember?"

Her: "Right."

Psychic: "Go on."

Her: "Then after all these years, he suddenly left."

Psychic: "You told him something."

Her (petulantly): "I've told him lots of things. Go away wasn't any of it."

Psychic (calmly): "I see that the two of you got together back in 1997 for a short period of time."

Her: "We had lunch together. It was the first time we'd actually seen each other in awhile. But I don't think it was then."

Psychic: "Why would you not think it was then?"

Her (thinking): "Things didn't change after that. It was a year later that he got engaged to someone else. They married a year after that. But even after he was married he didn't suddenly become distant."

Psychic: "You didn't attend the wedding."

Her: "Well, no."

Psychic: "Even after you were invited and had confirmed back."

Her: "There were reasons..."

Psychic: "The reasons never matter as much as the actions do."

Pause.

Psychic: "You know that you two are brother and sister otherwise?"

Her: "I've been told that. A lifetime sometime during the 1600's in England."

Psychic: "It's more than that. But instead of going back so far, let's return to 1997. Do you remember what you told him on that day?"

Her (thinking): "I think I said he wasn't my type."

Psychic: "I believe you might have been a bit more elaborative than that."

Her (frowning): "I probably said he didn't turn me on sexually. That I like short intense men, and that he didn't qualify."

Psychic: "I would hazard a guess that you were even more blunt than that."

Her: "Where are you seeing all this?"

Psychic: "Each of us has the book of our life that we've written before we come down here to actually live it. We're very detailed about what we create for ourselves, and to some extent I'm able to peek into those pages. Important events especially stand out, as do life courses. So he preceded you here."

Her: "I notice that you don't phrase that as a question."

Psychic: "Why should I need to?"

Her: "Yes. He's just over three years older."

Psychic: "So you were still working on your life book after he arrived here."

Her: "I guess so. I don't remember."

Psychic: "You will when you return. And he'd been chasing you how long by that day?"

Her: "Don't you know?"

Psychic: "I do. I just want you to be clear about it as well."

Her (thinking): "We first started dating in 1974 or 1975. Close to there."

Psychic: "So by my very poor math skills, this nonsense had gone on for about twenty-three years by that point."

Her: "Yeah, that's about right. Although there were a lot of times in there where we didn't see each other, or even talk, for many months."

Psychic: "Yes, I see those small divergences. You were even married."

Her: "Yeah. For about six months."

Psychic: "You knew better than that from your last lifetime with that beau."

Her: "Sort of."

Psychic: "We'll repeat our mistakes until we learn from them."

Her: "Umph."

Psychic: "So this guy that you don't want to marry, that you pushed away for at least twenty-three years, what makes him suddenly special?"

Her: "It's not really sudden. He was always the one who was different. The one who would tell me something most unexpected about myself at the least expected time. The one I could never classify in my life. The one who's mind I never could read."

Psychic: "Mind reading is overrated, my dear. We only allow ourselves to do it out of fear."

Her: "If you say so."

Psychic: "Don't feel ashamed about being afraid. Everyone here is. That's part of the lesson of being here. It's a lesson we can't learn on the Other Side."

Her: "Is 'the Other Side' how you refer to Heaven?"

Psychic: "Heaven is another word. I prefer not to use it because of the religious overtones that connote a single lifetime here followed by eternal bliss there afterwards, which is inaccurate. But we may use it if you prefer."

Her: "The Other Side is fine with me. I know I've lived other lives before. So just what are you getting at?"

Psychic: "Is there anything else he does?"

Her: "Well, he has been a regular visitor in my dreams far longer than anyone else, although I don't understand why."

Psychic: "Tell me exactly what you told this man when you had lunch with him back in 1997."

Her: "We talked about lots of things. I don't remember most of them."

Psychic: "You'll remember the one that matters. You went out with him for a reason that day."

Her: "Are you a psychic, or a psychiatrist?"

Psychic: "Is there a difference? People come to both types looking for answers."

Her (hesitatingly): "Well I rather, sort of, implied to him that as much as he wanted it, I'm never going to sleep with — I mean in the have sex kind of way — with him."

Psychic: "And you meant it?"

Her: "I meant it that day."

Psychic: "And that meant that you were never going to marry him. At least on that day."

Her: "Well, yes. I don't think either of us would get married under those circumstances."

Psychic: "And how did he take that?"

Her: "Better than I feared. He stayed there, which is good because he'd driven us that day. I would have been stranded if he'd walked out on me. There was a long moment where he looked like a deer caught in the headlights, but then we finished lunch and he took me home afterwards."

Psychic: "And you and he spoke many times after that?"

Her: "Well we never talked real often, but it was pretty much like before."

Psychic: "Comfortable to you?"

Her: "Yes, I'd say so."

Psychic: "And he never mentioned that conversation again?"

Her: "Not that I can ever recall."

Psychic: "And then he announced his engagement to someone else."

Her: "Yes."

Psychic: "And how did you feel about that?"

Her: "Don't you know?"

Psychic: "I know. I want to be sure that you know as well."

Her: "I was very surprised."

Psychic: "Only surprised?"

Her: "That's all I'll admit to."

Psychic: "Why?"

Her: "He was 47. I felt certain that he was never going to get married."

Psychic: "You were 44 by then. Were you thinking you weren't going to get married again either?"

Her: "I had a beau myself back then. I sort of still do."

Psychic: "You told him that at that lunch?"

Her: "He knew."

Psychic: "And yet eleven years later you're still single."

Her: "It's complicated."

Psychic: "Only when we make it that way, dear."

Her: "So why is this person so different than anybody else I know? I can't quite ever get him out of my mind."

Psychic: "You're upset with him?"

Her: "I don't understand him!"

Psychic: "That's another way to say we're upset with somebody. When we don't understand why they do what they do. That's why people eventually come to psychics. So what don't you understand about him?"

Her: "Why he left our friendship."

Psychic: "Is he really gone?"

Her: "He's gone. I can feel it."

Psychic: "Did you think that he wasn't going to get married?"

Her: "I told myself I'd believe it when it happened."

Psychic: "I see that you've only seen him once since his marriage."

Her: "Yes, although he called me fairly regularly for awhile. Some years ago we had a great conversation just before Christmas, and suddenly nothing after that. Now all we do is trade e-mails on birthdays and Christmas — and I don't even know if that's going to happen this year."

Psychic: "You've cried?"

Her: "All women cry."

Psychic: "Given that you never wanted to be close with him, I'd think you'd find this ideal. No more pushing him away when he wanted to be closer than you wanted to allow him. Or did you only miss him once he really left? That would be fickle, dear."

No reply — just a sharp glance.

Psychic: "I know women, dear. I'm one of us."

Her: "I don't even know why he left. We had a very nice telephone call that Christmas three years after he'd sent me his usual type of gift."

Psychic: "And what type is that, dear?"

Her: "Inexpensive. Surprising. Completely appropriate. And something no one else would think of, or be able to, give me."

Psychic: "A thoughtful gift. And you feel that call ended it?"

Her: "Yes, but I don't know why. I knew afterwards that he was gone, but I can't think of a single reason that anything we said in that call triggered it."

Psychic: "You were close at that moment?"

Her: "I felt so. As close as we'd been in years."

Psychic (concentrating on something): "You've had people leave you suddenly before."

Her: "Yes."

Psychic: "And under poor circumstances."

Her (a bit defiantly): "Yes."

Psychic: "And you've always blamed it on some defect in their character."

Long pause.

Psychic: "We don't have to talk about any of this. There's much else that we can discuss."

Her: "Yes, I've always said it was their fault when anybody left me. They wanted too much. They obviously had hidden problems. It wasn't anything I'd ever done. I didn't understand what was wrong with them."

Psychic: "And the one thing that all of these breakups had in common was... ?"

Long pause.

Her: "I don't know what you're getting at."

Psychic: "The one thing that all these breakups have had in common is that they involved you."

Her: "Oh."

Long pause.

Her: "Of course I've had breakups. Everyone does. It was just that he'd been around so long, and he's just ... different ... than the rest."