You're Not Alone

  ***

  After speaking to Andjela and Chaz, the rest of the day was quiet. I spent time going through more of Matthew’s belongings. I opened a box of cards he gave to me over the years. I felt a knot take the shape of in my stomach. It felt like a knot called Monkey’s Fist I learned during my years as a girl scout—a ball of rope all twisted and congested. It made me stop.

  My emotions started to get the best of me so I watched some of my favorite movies the rest of the day, snacking on my some of my favorite foods. I kept the locket on the end table, and it stayed there until the next morning when I found it once again on the dresser. This time the picture was the original picture of Matthew and me on the Saint Lawrence River. But there were no voices throughout the night so I got another good, solid night’s sleep. David would be proud.

  I’d never met with a medium/psychic before. I didn’t know if I should prepare some coffee or tea. Danish? Bagels? Or fruit? So I prepared it all. A little overkill, I knew, but I was so nervous about meeting Andjela and more so about what would happen in the meeting, I needed something to occupy my mind. Preparing food might help.

  In the kitchen, my purpose was to take charge of my mind and focus my attention to preparing for my visitor. I was cutting bagels in half when I felt a draft pass by my right ear. I turned half expecting to see I left the kitchen window open. It was closed. After that, my body was on high alert. I opened the kitchen window to make an excuse for the puff of air that kissed my right ear hoping it might calm me but the slightest noise, the faintest breeze inside or outside had me looking around. For what, I wasn’t sure.

  Ten a.m. didn’t come fast enough.

  At nine fifty-nine a.m., there was a knock on my door. I was relieved knowing Chaz was finally here. I surveyed the dining room table set with plates, silverware, an array of breakfast treats, coffee, hot water for tea, and started laughing. I was definitely displaying possible off-balance, psychological tendencies even if I did know Chaz could eat a large amount of food and I wanted some left for Andjela.

  I shook my head as I opened the door, took a deep breath and I looked up. I actually gulped. Standing in front of me was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her skin was smooth and fair, an alluring shade of off-white. Long, straight, and silky, jet-black hair fell past her shoulders framing her slender face. Deep, dazzling, green eyes bore through me as if she was studying my insides which only had me curious, not uncomfortable. She was dressed in a tight, molded pair of jeans and a mid-length black leather coat tied at the waist. A hint of a dark green shirt underneath offset the color of her eyes.

  It was the first time since Matthew that I felt something pleasurable inside at the sight of another human being. For all of my adult life, Matthew was the only one who ever produced that feeling in me. She was truly enigmatic. I sharply stepped back by the awareness of this feeling, but confused because I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. I just knew it wasn’t fear. I sheepishly looked down.

  “Hi. I’m Andjela. It’s okay. Don’t be nervous.”

  Was that it? Nerves?

  “Um, Quinn. Nice to meet you.” I reluctantly looked at her again. Now I was uncomfortable. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she was a fake who would case the joint so she could rob me later on when I wasn’t home. But instead of sending her off, I asked, “Would you like to come in?”

  Andjela stepped by me. “You’re not being disloyal to him. It’s only natural to appreciate another woman.” I was aghast at the blatancy of her comment. I shut the door and turned to see Andjela walking slowly around my living room touching things. “Wow, it’s very strong.”

  “What is?” I watched intently while Andjela probed the room. God, she really is casing the joint. I need to call 911. But my body didn’t move for my phone.

  “His presence.”

  Those two words snapped me out of my wild thoughts of thieves in the night and I was presented with something I saw on a television commercial. My “a-ha” moment. I guessed Matthew’s presence was strong because I never really felt he left. Wasn’t that why I kept all his belongings the same as they were when he was alive? Of course, I also knew I wasn’t ready to let him go either.

  “You had a good relationship—lots of love.”

  She smiled at me, and I almost joined her. God, I felt like a horrible person, so I started right out of the gate trying to disprove this woman’s profession.

  “We did, and yes, there was. But you can probably tell that from the pictures around the room.”

  “Maybe. But pictures don’t always tell the truth. Most of us do smile and say cheese when the shutter clicks.” She smiled again.

  Confusion and offense circled around in my mind. Still, I asked, “Why don’t you come in to the dining room? I’ve got coffee, tea, and some Danish. Maybe you would like something while we talk.”

  “Thank you. I will.” Andjela walked by me into the dining room. She sat down, took a mug and poured herself some hot water. After choosing a pomegranate green tea, she put a cheese Danish on a plate and settled herself in to dunking her tea bag and taking a bite of Danish.

  I couldn’t figure out this intriguing woman, so I sat quietly at the table and prepared tea for myself, waiting.

  “You don’t want a Danish? They’re pretty good.” She said in between bites.

  I knew they were good. I bought them. Oh God, maybe this was a mistake. “No thanks, I’m not really hungry.” She’s probably wondering why I put them out if I’m not even having one. This is crazy. But despite my feelings, I asked her, “So exactly what is it that you do? Mr. Princeton said you can help me, but I don’t know how since you don’t even know what the problem is.” Andjela took another bite of Danish. “Unless Mr. Princeton told you.”

  “He did not. We haven’t talked in weeks, maybe even months.” She took a slow sip of tea and closed her eyes for a moment, appearing to be contemplating her next sentence. “You have spirits here that are trying to communicate with you—definitely through voices, and I believe through the locket you were holding last night. They’re very strong so you might even begin to hear noises or find things moving. Mr. Princeton must have felt the same thing. That is why he gave you my card. Communicating with spirits is what I do.

  “I don’t believe in labels, so you can call my profession whatever you’d like. Psychic. Medium. Sixth Sense, Poltergeist, Ghostbusters.” She winked at me. “But I just like to call myself a communicator.”

  I wanted to burst out laughing. For as tormented as I’d been over the last couple of months, she hit the nail on the head. This whole thing seemed like a bad re-make of one of those movies.

  “I will help you, and if we can discover what they are trying to convey to you, then the voices and,” Andjela met my gaze and held it, “the moving of the objects should all stop.”

  “If I hadn’t been experiencing all of this myself, I believe I would be laughing at you. I never believed in ghosts or spirits. In fact, I’ve never had to entertain that thought…” I looked around the room, “until now.”

  “You and just about everyone else I meet,” she said with a sparkle in her eyes. “Except for Mr. Princeton. He actually sought me out as research for his Egyptian studies course that he

  teaches at the university.”

  “Matthew.” I smiled. “That was his name. He knew Mr. Princeton better than I, but Mr. Princeton’s been looking out for me ever since. He's been one of the few sources of comfort since all this started.”

  Andjela sat back in her chair and took another long sip of tea. “So tell me about the voices and the locket.”

  For the next hour, I told her about the voices: when they started, what they sounded like, words I could make out, the whisper parties, the breath brushing by my ear. She interjected with questions such as—could I tell how many voices, did I have a sense of female and or male voices, did the voices scare me?

  “They did at first. For a while, I only heard them at night, while I was sleeping, or
so I thought. I would wake up thinking I had a bad nightmare but I started hearing them during the day and, well, that was when I got scared. I was only afraid for a day or two because for some reason I became comfortable with them.” I looked at Andjela for an answer. “Does that make sense?”

  “When it comes to this kind of paranormal, it’s not so much making sense out of it because a lot of time you can’t, so it becomes more of understanding why it’s happening.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I said because I really didn’t.

  “Tell me about the locket. When you called me yesterday, I felt you had something in your hand that produced a strong sense of connection between you and the voices. I believe it was a locket.”

  I nodded yes, speechless that the more Andjela talked to me about this, the more astonished I was at the possibility this woman actually was telling the truth—no gimmicks. She didn’t look me up on Facebook, or in the phonebook, or in any book. From what I could tell, she didn’t even have a cell phone. She was going on gut and the un-believability of that was quickly fading.

  “Could you bring me the locket?”

  Again, I nodded and went to the bedroom where I last saw it. It was still on the dresser where I put it the night before. I tentatively picked it up and took it to Andjela.

  She put the locket in both hands and closed her eyes. After a few moments, she said, “It’s so strong. I’ve never felt anything this potent from an object before.” She set the locket on the table.

  I started to say something, but she stopped me. She nodded to the locket. “This has been, let’s say, moving about the apartment,” she stated matter-of-factly. I hesitantly nodded yes. “I know this must be difficult, but I need you to tell me what about the locket is special to you. The first time you first saw it and where it has moved.” She peered at me over the rim of her teacup. She smiled at the surprised look I knew was more than visible on my face. “Yes, I can see your doubt. That’s okay. I always get it. It will be up to you whether to believe and accept my help or not.” Andjela reached up and tucked her smooth, black hair behind her ear. She set her teacup down and waited for me to answer.

  “Matthew gave the locket to me on our anniversary.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which one what?”

  “Which anniversary?”

  “Our last one together. Before he got sick.” I waited for another question, but she didn’t ask, so I continued. “He gave it to me when we were at our cottage. It had a picture of him and me on the dock with the sunset behind us.”

  “Where is your cottage?”

  “In Canada, on the Saint Lawrence River.” I didn’t know why Andjela needed to know these details, but I decided to just go with the flow and see where it went.

  Andjela took another sip of tea and a bite of her Danish. “This is delicious. What bakery did you get it from?”

  “Wegmans.”

  “I am not familiar with that bakery.”

  “It’s a grocery store. Pretty popular around here.”

  “I’ll have to remember that. It’s really good.” After another bite, she wiped her full, pink lips with her napkin. She folded the napkin and set it next to her plate. “This cottage. It was a special place, yes?”

  I stammered with mixed emotions. First I was dumbfounded. I mean who lived in Rochester and didn’t know about Wegmans, the largest local and extremely popular grocery store chain that was stretching its business out to other states in the northeast? And here was this stranger delving into my world with Matthew, causing me to revisit difficult memories. “Yes, yes it was. I mean it is. I mean it was to both of us and it still is, but….”

  “But you haven’t been there since he passed.”

  I stared incredulously at Andjela. “No, I have not.” Of course anyone could guess that. Why would a grief-stricken person go somewhere that would only make them feel worse? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  “So when did you first notice it missing?”

  “That’s just it. I didn’t. I put the locket in his coffin.”

  “I understand. When did you first see it appear in the apartment?” she asked without an ounce of surprise. No emotion. Zilch.

  “The other day, Chaz barged through my door…” Andjela’s eyes widened at my statement. “Long story, another time.” She smiled so I continued. “I wanted him to hear a message on my answering machine. I got mad because the message was gone so I threw it out the door. That’s when I noticed it was on the end table next to the couch behind where the answering machine is, or was, although I don’t remember seeing it there when I first sat down. I put it on my dresser before we went to dinner at Mr. Princeton’s and when I came back, it wasn’t there. The voices led me back to the end table where I found it again only with a different picture. I put it back on my dresser and it moved back to the end table two more times, each time with a different picture.”

  “These pictures, tell me is there anything that is similar between them?”

  I thought hard about the pictures I saw in the locket. It only took a moment for me to realize the similarity in them and after that, the significance of the pictures hit me like a lead balloon. I found myself taking short breaths; I was beginning to hyperventilate. Andjela got up from her chair and walked over to me. She put a hand on my shoulder. I immediately felt a calm go through my body to my lungs. My breathing grew quiet. I felt my body relax. She went back to her chair, sat down and took a drink of tea.

  “I can see how hard this is for you, but if you can, tell me the meaning of the pictures that just revealed itself to you.”

  My head was spinning for many reasons, but mostly because of the inconceivable production that was taking place in my dining room, even more so in my life. I swallowed and replied to her request. “The pictures that appeared in the locket were of Matthew and me and all the things that were very special to us: our cottage, our apartment, my business.”

  “Do you have any idea why these pictures appeared to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let me help you. If it is Matthew trying to get a message to you, why would he choose these pictures?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, they were special to him…and to me.”

  Andjela sat quietly for what seemed an eternity. Finally, she spoke slowly and deliberately. “Quinn, I want to help and the things I ask may be hard for you or even seem…anomalous.” She stopped, I’m sure, because of the total confusion that took over my expression. She smiled and clarified. “Unusual, strange."

  “Oh,” I said drawing out the word to emphasize my understanding.

  “I need to know these things. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For being difficult.”

  “You’re not being difficult. This is never easy for anyone.” She held up her mug. “May I have some hot water, please?”

  “Of course.” I jumped up, almost spilling my mug of unfinished tea. I took the empty ceramic teapot with me and went into the kitchen. I filled it with water and put it in the microwave, relieved I was able to walk away for a few minutes. I took a few deep breaths and by that time, the water was hot enough to take back to Andjela. As I placed the teapot in front of her on a hot pad, she was closing the locket. I stiffened as a feeling of trepidation washed over me. I sat down and waited.

  “Would you like me to warm up your tea?” she offered.

  “No, thank, you.” Suddenly I felt the need to ask, “What picture is in the locket?”

  “There is nothing.”

  I didn’t know what to make of her answer. Why now was there no picture? I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. So I waited for the next question.

  “Quinn, tell me if there is anything else that is happening other than the voices, the sounds, or movements of things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anything surrounding Matthew’s passing, or even before he p
assed. Maybe something that was a problem for both of you, or something you argued about. Are you following me?”

  Yes, I was. My doubts of psychics and mediums were beginning to waver because Andjela had brought me something no one else had—a little bit of clarity. “Like the fact that Matthew’s parents never accepted me as his partner. Or the fact that after his death, his parents hired lawyers to force me to either buy out his half of the properties we own together, I mean owned, or I have to sell in order to pay them the estimated worth that, of course, they decided on.

  “Like the fact that I’m delinquent on the bank loan for my business because I now only have one income and I can’t keep up with all the bills.” My voice got a little louder. “Like the fact I don’t think Matthew left a will and if he did, I have no idea where to even begin to look for it.” I felt anger taking over so I stopped, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I opened them to see Andjela smiling at me. It wasn’t a cynical smile or one of pity, but one that made me feel comforted and strangely warm throughout my body. I looked sheepishly at her. “You mean like that?”

  “Yes, Quinn, I mean like that. It explains a lot. I’m pretty sure Matthew is trying to contact you, and I’m pretty sure it has something to do with all of that. Now we need to talk to him.”

  Andjela said that last part so straightforwardly I almost burst out laughing. I wanted to

  shout, Sure let’s just call him up on his cell phone, 1-800-GHOST and ask him why the hell he didn’t take care of me! The last part of my thought was screaming in my head.

  He didn’t take care of me in the end.

  I felt like a condemned, medieval witch who was laid under a pallet and had boulders placed on her until she couldn’t breathe, her lungs collapsing under the weight. My insides were crushed by the realization that Matthew left me in this predicament. There was no marriage. There was no will. He didn’t even name me as a beneficiary on anything.

  In the end, when Matthew was dying, I couldn’t focus on anything other than it was going to be final, the absolute end. How could I have even asked him to consider any of that when we were fighting so hard to beat his cancer? We actually fought with the futile belief he was going to live. A will meant death, so we never addressed it. Now he was dead so him trying to contact me wasn’t going to help anything. There was still no marriage and still no will.

  Andjela leaned forward. “Quinn, I know it’s hard for you to comprehend and believe all of this, but I feel strongly Matthew has something to convey to you and it’s important. Really important.”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to hear what Matthew had to say. I was angry. My mind was racing. What are those stages of mourning? Oh, yeah, denial and isolation. Done that, been there. Next one? Anger…yup, still there. After that? Bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.

  Maybe working with Andjela was bargaining—communicating with Matthew to help me out of this mess. I realized I didn’t believe it was possible, but since I was still really mad and bargaining was the next stage, why not let Andjela do a little bartering for me.

  “Okay,” I relented, “let’s do it.”