Protector of One. Rachel Lee
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to discover a gloomy description of the decreasing number of birds in the U.S.
Maybe she’d assign an essay on conservation or the environment next week. Or maybe not. Reaching for the remote, she began flipping through channels seeking anything that would shake the cloud of murk that seemed to have descended.
In the end, though, she quit trying to distract herself. The vision may have loosened its grip, but the fact that it had occurred remained a problem. Instead of looking at this morning’s experience directly, though, she chose instead to move back in time, to the moment when she had, as they said, “touched the light.”
She’d read all the explanations of the experience, from both the scientific and religious sides. But none of it could erase or in any way diminish her experience. As much as she had loved in her life, she had never known a love like that. Just remembering it still had the power to leave her feeling homesick, the only word she could think of that even approached the yearning she felt for that moment out of time.
Nor could anyone or anything convince her that that love wasn’t waiting for her when she died the final time.
She had managed to fit that life-altering experience into herself and her being, and used it as a touchstone, a constant reminder of what she owed her fellow humans, the world as a whole.
But now this. What the hell had happened this morning? Now that she was free of its stranglehold, she needed to explain it somehow. Deal with it. Find a way to slip it into the defined realm of possibilities in her life. Most people weren’t comfortable with loose ends and she certainly wasn’t.
Apparently, from the reaction she had received—unless Gage and Adrian had been indulging her—she had said something that got their attention. But what did it mean?
The sound of the front doorbell replaced silence with cheerful promise. She and her friends observed an “open-door” policy. Nobody needed an invitation or to make a phone call before dropping in.
But when she opened the door, she found not one of her friends, but instead Adrian Goddard. The sight so startled her that she didn’t greet him immediately.
“Sorry to drop by like this,” he said. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Sure,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. Stepping back, she allowed him to come inside, along with a gust of cold air.
“Winter’s not far away,” he remarked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“No, but this is my favorite time of year. Autumn is special. Would you like coffee or something?”
“No thanks. I don’t want to impose. Just a brief chat.”
She nodded and led him to the living room, wincing as she saw her solitary, hardly touched meal still sitting on the coffee table. Talk about revealing!
He settled on one end of the couch at her invitation, and she took the rocking chair that faced him kitty-corner. She reached for the remote and then shut off the TV.
“This isn’t official or anything,” he told her. In fact, she thought he looked awkward. “I was thinking as I was getting ready to drive home. How hard this must have been for you. What you saw, and having to tell us, then our reaction to it. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
“All right?” She looked at the table with the microwave tray on it, at the glass of milk beside it, at the TV remote she had reached for because tonight she needed some kind of companionship. She could have called a friend, but that would have meant discussing this morning, the last thing she felt like doing. Then the conversation she wanted to avoid had walked through her door anyway. “I guess.”
“You guess? That doesn’t sound good.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just found myself wondering what all right is. I mean…I’ve been coming home to this house for eight years, every night. I make myself a dinner, something usually better than this. Friends drop by. Sometimes I cook for all of us or go over to their places. But tonight nothing feels the same. I’m not sure anything is all right anymore.”
He nodded slowly. “Life does things like that. Without warning, everything’s off-center. It’s like you have to reinvent yourself.”
“That’s a good description.” She looked at him, taking in his attractive features. A little flutter reminded her she was a woman. “Tonight I feel like a stranger to myself.”
“I know that feeling. That’s why I stopped by. I could tell earlier you were having as much trouble with having had the vision as you were with what was in it.”
She nodded, leaning back. “I sure wouldn’t tell anyone else about it.”
“That’s what I wanted to suggest. Keep it quiet.”
She didn’t know if she liked that. Frowning, she asked, “Why? Because everyone will think I’m crazy? Because you think I’m crazy?”
He shook his head quickly, leaning forward. “I don’t think you’re crazy at all. Which is not to say I believe in psychics, but I’ve got an open mind and you obviously picked up on something. But you’re certainly not crazy.”
“Then why?”
“Because, if word gets around, it might put you in jeopardy with the killers.”
Gut-punched. She couldn’t even breathe. Stunned, she tried to absorb his words. Wings of panic started fluttering around the dark edges of her mind. Finally she said, “But I didn’t identify anyone! I couldn’t!”
“Do they know that?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? “Are you trying to scare me?”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
She couldn’t doubt his sincerity. She’d heard that he’d been with the Department of Criminal Investigation before coming here to ranch. Gage apparently trusted him enough to ask for his help in the murder case. But even without that, something in his gaze seemed to reach out reassuringly. “I wasn’t planning to tell anyone. Not even my friends. I keep these things to myself when they happen. Although it’s usually nothing like this. Usually it’s just a quick glimpse of something right before it happens.”
He nodded and appeared to relax.
“I only told Emma because I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I trust her. She never gossips. Ever. But I couldn’t bring myself to come in alone and tell Gage.”
“Yet you felt you should.”
She nodded. “It was like a pressure. Like something was pushing me, and it wouldn’t leave me alone. Almost like someone was right at my shoulder, refusing to go away until I told you.” She shuddered even now at the memory of that psychic push.
That caught his attention. “I take it you believe in the afterlife?”
Where did that come from? she wondered. “Most people do.”
“I’m more of an agnostic. I don’t know. But…you experienced it?”
She hesitated. Unlike some people, she didn’t tell the story often, but rather hugged it to herself. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “How could I? It’s called a near-death experience, or NDE for short, because those of us who have it come back. The debate is about whether we experienced death at all, or just oxygen deprivation. There are widely separated camps on this.”
“I would imagine so. But you must have made your own decision.”
She bit her lower lip, searching his face, deciding she saw only genuine interest there. “Whatever I experienced, I have no doubt it was real, maybe more real than this chair I’m sitting in right now. I have no doubt that I had a glimpse of something so beautiful that there’s no way I could describe it to you. It changed me. It certainly rid me of any fear of death.”