THE AFFAIR (37 page)

“You’re kidding,” I said to him, glancing toward Chance to see what he thought. “Are you saying if we chose to go back in time we could relive the life we didn’t get a chance to finish before?”

“It’s conceivable, but this lifetime would be altered. Your entire family would cease to exist. Besides, I think it would break the laws of nature to try and change things. We’ll just have to wait for our next incarnation.”

Blaine was confusing the heck out of me. “I don’t understand. You said the stones can take us back and forth in time. How will it help us find each other?”

Blaine smiled at me. “The stones will emit a signal, an energy, ours. That is, after they’ve been charged with our energy. Over a period of time I’m told they become magnetized, each pulling toward the other, leading us to each other. When the three of us are reunited, our full memories will be restored.

“All three of these have been psychically charged by a powerful mystic friend of mine. Wear these always and when the time comes, we’ll be led to each other.”

“Are you serious?” I couldn’t help asking. His face was awash with hope and love. Still, this was stranger than anything we’d done thus far.

“I’m serious. My friend has great powers. I’ve witnessed it myself or I wouldn’t have consulted him. He swears he’s lived many incarnations and that each time he knows who he was and who he had to look for by having an amulet.”

“Did he ever find anyone?”

“Not for the past few lifetimes.”

Blaine looked apologetic. I couldn’t help smiling at him. “Then how in the world is this supposed to help us if he couldn’t even help himself?”

“He believes that since you and Chance have managed to find each other several times in the past and to find me this time, that you have the psychic ability necessary to make this work. He believes the special preparation he’s done will help make it easier for us, if we always wear them. We each have matching stones and a diamond for love and purity.”

He stopped to smile at me. “Yours just happens to be a lot bigger.”

“That’s all we have to do?”

“Well,” he said, “it would help if one at a time we wear all three for seven weeks for the final, sealing, then pass them on to the next person, so that our vibrations would be in them all.”

“You’re talking twenty-one weeks?” I inquired of Blaine. “I don’t think so.”

“I know. I told him so. But when I told him we were spending the next twenty-four hours together. He said if we could spend it in a place that already contained strong vibrations, it would intensify the powers. He suggested we each wear them for seven hours. Though he couldn’t guarantee it would work, it couldn’t hurt.”

Famous last words
, I thought.

“So, who wants to be first?” Blaine looked from one of us to the other.

Chance took the locket from Blaine. “This will help us find each other again?” He looked directly into my eyes. “This will enable us to be born remembering the ones we love?”

“Yes,” Blaine answered. Over time the properties in the stones will be transmuted to our cells. By the end of this incarnation the stones themselves will no longer be necessary.”

“What if one of us changes our mind, decides our destinies lie in different paths?”

“That’s why the taking and wearing of these symbolize a pact, an agreement. We will all meet again and it will be our destiny to live and love together as a family.”

“Are we casting a spell, an incantation? I mean, is this some form of witchcraft? Blaine, we don’t want to damn our souls to hell.”

Chance looked at me. “I don’t care what it means. If it will give us a chance at a life together I’ll take it.”

Blaine looked first at Chance, then back toward me “Michelle, you don’t have to worry. It’s nothing that drastic. It’s barely more than the promise you made Jeremy give.”

“Okay, let’s hear it,” I said suspiciously.

“We hold hands and say, ‘I pledge here and now, always and forever, my love to the two souls gathered here with me. My soul will know your souls from the moment of rebirth and will seek out no other. My soul will wait and only your souls will make me whole. This I vow through all eternity.’”

“I can do that,” I said to Blaine. He repeated the words. Chance and I repeated them with him. Chance’s hand tightened on mine.

When we were done the three of us embraced until Blaine’s arms fell away. Chance and I stood alone embracing and vowing in a whisper once again to each other that we would wait for our time.

“Blaine, I thought…”

“Yeah, I know what you thought.” He grinned at me. “I may be a psychic, but I’m also human. I wanted you to remain with Chance, but I saw that there was a strong possibility that you wouldn’t.”

He touched Chance’s arm where he had the bracelets, then touched the locket around Chance’s neck. “I took out a little insurance, just in case.” This time he laughed out loud. “So Michelle, am I now a great psychic?”

“You’re the best.” I reached my arms out to him to bring him back into our circle. “Blaine, I’m so glad we found you.”

“So am I, Mother,” I heard him whisper into my hair as he embraced me. “So am I.”

Chapter Seventeen

Larry packed the small bag he used for overnight trips. He threw the items in haphazardly, not caring that they would be wrinkled when he needed them.

He surveyed the mess in his bag before deciding to dump everything and start all over. Damn, how hard could it be? He’d watched as Mick had packed his bags a thousand times. She’d always made it look so easy.

He felt the now familiar stab of pain run from his heart down his shoulder into his arms as well as an unbearable weight pressing down on his chest.

Larry had mentioned to several of his friends the physical discomfort he was having. They all assured him that it was stress from…from… He couldn’t even think it.

God in heaven, Mick was gone, had left him. Why the hell wouldn’t he be stressed? Even now he could hear her voice prattling around in his head, saying, “
Larry, do any of your friends have a medical degree? Stop being a baby and go see a doctor.

Well, he was through listening to her. Instead, he chose to believe his friends. The only time he ever felt the pain was when he was thinking about Mick, like now.

Just the night before, he’d felt the pain even stronger than now. He’d been arguing with the counselor he’d decided he needed to deal with the stress.

Actually it hadn’t been so much him deciding he needed it as it had been Derrick. When Mick left, he’d refused to allow the kids to come back. He’d packed all their bags and put them out in the drive.

Derrick had called him several times telling him that they were all worried about him, that maybe it would be a good idea if he got some help.

He could clearly remember his son’s words. ‘
Dad, you don’t have to agree with Mom to go for counseling. It’s obvious you’re miserable without her. Think about it. Maybe you can still save your marriage.

Larry had listened to his son, but saving his marriage wasn’t what finally pushed him to get, he hated the word,
help
. He only needed an avenue to vent. He had gone on the slim chance that talking would stop the crushing pain to his chest.

It hadn’t. He was the one paying the money and the therapist was siding with Mick. He couldn’t believe the woman had the gall to tell him that his wife was probably right, that the odds were that he didn’t listen. She’d even had the nerve to tell him that most of the entire male population didn’t listen, that they heard only what they wanted to hear.

The woman had to be an idiot. She knew damn well he was an attorney. He could sue her ass for sexual discrimination. He wondered if she ever gave her female clients the load of bull she was giving him.

That’s when he’d made his decision. He was not going to just lie down and play dead. He was going to that hotel and he was bringing his wife home.

If it wasn’t for the trip he would be headed over there now, but the trip was important. Tomorrow night he would go to the hotel and bring her home.

Her even being in a hotel angered him. He popped several antacids in his mouth. It was taking more and more of them to dull the pain now.

He couldn’t believe Mick had not told him where she was staying. If he’d not checked the caller ID to see if she’d called when he was out, he wouldn’t have known.

There had been only one call from a hotel, the one that came the day after Mick left. He remembered answering the phone and telling Erica to leave him alone.

He hadn’t known it was Mick, but he was glad he’d not talked to her in that moment. He was hurting far too much.

Larry took another look at the jumbled mess on his bed. He wanted to be angry with Mick. God, how he wanted to be angry with her.

But more than that, he wanted to find a way to repair the damage. He wanted to learn how to listen.

Our time together was drawing to a close. I’d fallen asleep for a little while and had awakened to hear Blaine and Chance talking softly in the other room.

I remained still, wondering why they had chosen not to wake me. This time was for the three of us. They knew that when the morning came I would leave.

“You have to let her go
,”
I heard Blaine saying to Chance. “I’ll help you get through this.”

“I don’t think you can
.
I keep having these awful thoughts, wishing that something would happen to Larry.”

“Don’t,” Blaine said,
“
that’s very bad karma.”

“I know. Besides, I don’t mean it. I just don’t want her to leave.”

I wished I had not eavesdropped on their conversation. I made some noise to alert them that I was awake and heard the immediate shift in conversation as I got up from the sofa and went to join them. I would not mention what I’d heard.

That was what I needed to know, that Jeremy had found it in his heart to love the child that he and Dimitra had created. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

“I was loved,” Blaine interrupted us, “but there was a constant sadness that permeated our home. My father talked to me constantly about my mother. He lived only to see me to adulthood so that he could join her.”

Chance and Blaine exchanged glances. “I adored my father and was in almost as much agony as he over the loss of my mother. The moment my father thought I could sufficiently care for myself, he called me calmly to his side, lay down on his bed, told me he loved me and that he was now going to find my mother.