In Sickness and in Death (11 page)

Brian, feeling confident that all was well, gave all his concentration to his spiritual studies. He spent much of his time in the Temple of Wisdom learning from the Masters how to develop that depth of perception that crossed the huge divide between conventional knowledge and true wisdom. He was an apt pupil. One day as he sat beneath the Tree of Knowledge meditating on all he had learned, he felt the sudden urge to see his mother. Instantly arousing from his light trance, he was at once by her side.

She was wiping down the kitchen counters and he smiled as he saw her. Her hair had been recently done and she wore a light trace of makeup. Glancing around the kitchen, he was pleased to find it neat with everything in its place. The ringing of the phone interrupted his observations.

Vivian Forrester tossed her cloth into the sink and picked up the receiver of the wallphone next to the doorway. “Hello?”

“Mrs. F? This is Adrienne.”

A puzzled frown creased Vivian’s brow. “Adrienne? Brian’s Adrienne?”

Brian could hear the light laugh that came through the receiver. “One and the same. Listen, Mrs. F, we haven’t seen each other in a long time and I was wondering if you’d agree to have lunch with me.”

Brian noted the look of confusion in his mother’s eyes. “Me? Lunch? Well, I . . . I . . .”

“Please! It would mean so much to me . . . considering . . .”

“Where did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . There’s a little Soup and Salad Bar not too far from your place, maybe you could meet me there?”

Brian could almost see the wheels of thought turning in his mother’s mind. “Okay,”

she said tentatively. “When do you want to meet?”

“I was wondering if you might make it today, say about eleven? I know it’s short notice, but we have a full staff today, so I wouldn’t have to rush back to work. We would have time to really talk.”

“Eleven? Okay, I’ll see you then.” She hung up the phone. “And talk we shall,” she muttered. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

While Brian waited for the appointed time, he again went to his favorite stand of forest. He meandered through the magnificent old trees and beheld in wonderment the perfection of the wild flowers he chanced upon.
How could anyone ever doubt the
existence of a powerful Creator when all of nature provided evidence every day, if only
they took the time to notice?

Knowing his mother’s punctuality, at exactly eleven o’clock he popped into her presence. As he’d expected, she was already seated at a small table, impatiently tapping her manicured nails on the tabletop. Within a few minutes, Adrienne came rushing in and took the chair opposite her.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Mrs. F.,” she said breathlessly, picking up the waiting menu. “I didn’t realize that traffic would be so heavy in the middle of the day. That’s quite unusual.”

Vivian nodded with a tight smile. “I learned to plan for things like that.”

Adrienne returned her smile, but Brian thought her eyes looked a little too bright. “I’m still learning,” she said demurely.

A waiter appeared at Vivian’s elbow. “What can I get you ladies to drink?”

“Iced tea,” Vivian said absently.

“Iced tea is fine,” Adrienne agreed with a smile.

As soon as he left the table, Vivian looked sharply at Adrienne. “I want to
know
,” she said forcefully, “what happened to Brian?”

Adrienne’s gaze dropped to where her hands rested on the table, fingers twisting together. “You don’t really want to know,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. Brian was amazed to see tears well in her eyes and her lips begin to quiver.
Is she
really going to confess to what she’s done?

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Vivian said firmly. “I certainly
do
want to know.” She glanced up as the waiter approached the table with their drinks. He set their teas on the table. “Are you ladies ready to order?”

Adrienne took a moment to glance over the menu. “I believe I’ll have a tuna sandwich and the broccoli cheese soup.” He turned to Vivian.

“Club salad,” Vivian stated, her demanding gaze never leaving Adrienne’s face. The waiter hurried away and she said, “You were saying?”

“It was just terrible,” Adrienne whispered, with a pleading look in her eyes. Vivian just stared at her silently, her foot tapping impatiently. After a moment passed she said, “Go on.”

“If you insist,” Adrienne acquiesced. “You see, he was on his way into the office.”

Brian stared at her incredulously. “Tell her the
truth
!” He shouted. Adrienne sighed and slowly continued. “He was crossing the street when, without warning, this car came barreling around the corner and hit him. He was thrown up into the air and when he landed in the cross street, he was hit by several others cars before they could get stopped.” A single tear traced a path down her cheek.

“And why wasn’t I notified? He always had me listed as the person to be notified in case of emergency.”

“They didn’t know who he was. You see, he carried all of his identification in his briefcase, since he always had it with him anyway. But when he was hit, the case went flying and they never did find it. They figured someone had stolen it.”

“So how did
you
find out about all of this?”

“I know this emergency room nurse who works at the hospital where they took him. She was telling me about it.”

“And all of the details about how it had supposedly happened?”

Adrienne shrugged. “The EMTs told her they’d talked to an eyewitness who had seen it.”

“And why wasn’t it reported?”

“Because it was the
cops
!” Adrienne almost shouted, and then, lowering, her voice she continued. “It was a cop car that hit him. They said that the cops were in the middle of a high-speed chase and they certainly weren’t going to admit that they’d actually
killed
a pedestrian, especially while doing something they shouldn’t have been doing anyway on a downtown street.”

Vivian’s eyes clouded with pain and misery. Adrienne reached across the table and gently patted her hand. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to hurt you like this.”

Brian noted the look of shock in his mother’s eyes and glared at Adrienne.
How could
you? How could you tell her such a tale?

The waiter brought their food and set it down before them. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Adrienne looked up at him with a dazzling smile. “No, thank you. We’re fine.” She picked up her spoon and glanced at Vivian who still sat staring into space. “You’d better eat, Mrs. F.”

Brian fumed as he watched his mother pick up her fork and begin to mechanically eat.
Why would she make up a story like that? What was she trying to gain, other than not
going to jail, of course?
He watched his mother pick at her food, while Adrienne ate heartily.

Suddenly, Adrienne laid down her soupspoon. “Mrs. F, you know that Brian wanted to look out after you, don’t you?”

Vivian looked up at her with a blank stare. “I . . . I guess so.”

“And I know that, with him gone, he’d want me to do the same. You know that don’t you?”

“I. . . I never really thought about it. This isn’t the way things are supposed to happen.”

“I know,” Adrienne said, soothingly. “But you do understand that I feel it is my
duty
to do what he would have wanted.” Vivian said nothing, so she continued. “I’ve recently found a really good investment counselor and, well, Brian said that you had several CDs.”

“So?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking. They really aren’t earning you much income right now and I thought how much better off you would be if you were to put that money in an investment account. You’d make lots more return than you’re making now and you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. I’d be more than happy to take care of all the paperwork for you.”

“No, Mom!” Brian shouted, suddenly understanding that Adrienne hadn’t really changed at all. “She's just trying to take your money like she did mine! Don’t listen to her!”

Vivian, still seeming dazed, asked, “What do you mean?”

Adrienne smiled her most reassuring smile. “What I’m saying is that if you sign the CDs over to me, I’ll have my broker invest them in one of their high-return funds and your future will be much more secure than it is now.”

“I. . . I don’t know.”

“Come on, Mrs. F, you
know
Brian would want this for you.”

“No, Mom! Don’t do it!”

“Are you sure that’s what Brian wanted me to do?”

“I
know
it! I know he’d want me to take care of you, just like he would – if he could.”

“Well . . . I suppose . . . if that’s what Brian wanted.”

“Good!” said Adrienne, signaling the waiter for the check. “We can go to the bank right now.”

Brian followed them to the bank and watched his mother listlessly return the bank officer’s enthusiastic greeting. He watched as he retrieved the paperwork for $250,000 in Certificates of Deposit and noted the glazed expression in her eyes as she signed where she was instructed.
My God, she’s in shock!

“Dad, we gotta help Mom!” Brian exclaimed as soon as he reached his father’s side.

“Slow down, son. Your mom seems to be doing quite well.”

“Not anymore. Not since Adrienne got her claws into her!”

“Tell me what happened.”

Brian took a moment to calm his spirit. “Well, Adrienne called Mom and invited her to lunch and then she told her this God-awful story how I was killed in a car accident and my body was mangled beyond recognition. Mom couldn’t take it – at least that’s the way it looked.”

“She believed her?”

“She sure seemed to, but that’s not the worst of it.”

His father sighed. “There’s more?”

Grimly, Brian nodded. “She convinced Mom that she should sign her CDs over to her so she could ‘invest’ the money for her,
and
she told her that was what
I
wanted. Can you believe it?”

“And your mom believed her?”

“She believed it enough to sign over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of CDs.”

“That must be most of her life’s savings.”

“Probably, and now it’s gone. She’ll never see a penny’s return on any of it. Adrienne will use
her
money to carry on her own lavish lifestyle and Mom will be broke.”

“We have to do something.”

“But what? It’s already done. Wonder if we could get Mom to go to the police? That’s certainly grand larceny.”

“Your mom would have to prove that she signed those papers under duress, and she didn’t have a gun to her head.”

“What about psychological duress? She used that horrible vision of my mangled body to put her into shock. Maybe she should see her doctor and document it.”

“Maybe. We can try that. We’ll just have to convince her that Adrienne is stealing her money and get her to contact our lawyer, Bob Price. He’ll know what to do and he’ll watch out for Vivian’s best interests.”

“But how can we convince her?”

His dad shrugged. “We’ll have to try more dreams. It seemed to work before, maybe it’ll work again.”

Brian nodded his agreement. “And I’m going to give Adrienne one last shot. She thought she was having nightmares before, I’ll have to see what I can conjure up for her now.”

At 3:00am Brian appeared at his mother’s bedside and invoked a vision. When it had become strong enough, he projected it into the mind of the sleeping woman. Vivian was walking down a darkened street. Suddenly, from an alleyway on her left a masked figure, dressed in black from head to toe, leaped out and pointed a gun in her face.

“Give me your money!” it demanded.

Vivian stared. The mask fell away, revealing the contorted face of Adrienne topped by the distinctive mass of auburn hair.

“I said, give me your money!” The figure again demanded, grabbing Vivian’s purse, yanking it from her grasp and darting back down the alley.

Heart pounding, Vivian turned and ran down the sidewalk and straight into the arms of Bob Price.

“Help me! I’ve been robbed!”

Brian watched the frown crease his mother’s brow.
Please, Mom, understand what I’m
trying to tell you.
He struggled to intensify the feelings of a crime being committed and the need to seek help. After a few minutes, he turned away and began concentrating on Adrienne.

At her bedside he projected an entirely different image.

Adrienne was walking through a very dark forest. The wind shook the skeletal branches and moaned through the treetops. A feeling of some evil terror permeated the very air that she breathed. Her watchful eyes swept back and forth around the area she traversed and she frequently glanced fearfully over her shoulder. All at once she became aware that a dark, vicious entity was stalking her, intending her unknown, yet terrifying, harm. She increased her pace, but it still crept closer and closer.

Faster and faster she moved, finally breaking into a full-out run. It seemed as if she were trying to run through a lake of molasses, with the sticky ooze sucking at her feet, slowing her down, every time she tried to take a step. She fought to run faster. Still the frightful creature kept gaining on her, until she could feel it’s hot breathe on her back. Brian watched Adrienne’s muscles strain, the pulse pounding in her neck and her breath coming in raspy gasps, while a look of sheer terror contorted her face. His lips curved into a slight, sad smile.
Maybe now she’ll get the message of just how wrong she
had been.

Night after night he projected the same dreams, over and over again.
They always said
that people pay more attention to recurring dreams,
he thought;
maybe these will get
their attention.

Over the weeks that followed, Brian was disappointed to note that Adrienne seemed to be reverting to her old ways. She spent more and more time pursuing her interests in attractive young men and the pleasurable adventures they offered and less and less energies on fulfilling her job duties.