Lynn Osterkamp - Cleo Sims 03 - Too Many Secrets (2 page)

Back at my office for the afternoon, I was busy with
grief-therapy clients until 5:00. Exhausted, I grabbed a ginger ale and flopped
down on my couch to try to get some perspective on my miserable morning with my
boyfriend, Pablo.

The morning’s squabble had started at my kitchen table. I was
focusing on the sunlight streaming through my kitchen window as I took deep
breaths and tried to ignore the nausea the smell of Pablo’s coffee brought on.
I didn’t want to turn into a whiny pregnant lady, so I didn’t mention the
nausea even though my stomach was rising into my throat. Then out of the blue
he said, “Cleo, living in two places makes our lives so complicated. I feel
like we’re always negotiating about where we’ll spend the night. I want to get
this settled.”

I gagged. I couldn’t summon the energy for yet another
Longmont vs. Boulder debate. I thought he might drop it if I didn’t respond, so
I just sipped my herbal tea and said nothing.

He spread some blackberry jam on his English muffin and
waited, his intense brown eyes boring a hole in my forehead. I ignored his
gaze, focused inward and stayed quiet. He continued staring as he finished his
food and coffee, then got up and headed for the bathroom. “Fine,” he said in a
quiet strained voice, “I’m going for a shower. We can talk about it while
you’re taking me to the airport.”

Not if I can help it, I thought. But of course I couldn’t
stop it.

Don’t get me wrong, I give Pablo credit for trying to be
supportive. We didn’t plan this baby, but when I told him, he was as excited
about it as I was, and wanted us to get married and live happily ever after in
Longmont. But I wasn’t ready to do that. I was ready to be a mom, but I had
well-founded reservations about how happy Pablo and I would be as a married
couple, and I definitely didn’t want to move to Longmont. Fighting about our
future got so intense, we agreed to a moratorium on the marriage discussion
until after the holidays. But we continued to haggle about where to hang out.

I love living in my grandparents’ cozy old historic house
nestled against the Boulder foothills. Its sloping hardwood floors, small
closets and noisy plumbing are more charming than annoying, and memories of my
grandparents and the happy childhood summers I spent with them fill every room.
When I need comforting, I snuggle into this house. It hugs me and holds me safe
like Grampa used to do before he died.

But Pablo doesn’t really get my attachment. For him a house
is just a place to live. He rents a generic two-bedroom ranch in Longmont. Only
his artwork makes it interesting and he can easily move that to another place.

We’d compromised on spending some nights
together—either in Boulder or Longmont—and some nights apart. That
worked for me. I love him and I especially love spending nights together. Now
Pablo was leaving for a weeklong training session in California and suddenly he
wanted to settle our living arrangements.

§ § §

We took my car, but I let him drive hoping that would
distract him from the conversation. It didn’t. Once we were on the highway, the
argument picked up for real.

“Cleo, we can’t keep putting off making decisions. You don’t
even want to talk about it.”

“True. But that’s because every time we talk about it, we end
up at the same place. I want to stay in Boulder in my grandparents’ house. You
want us to live together in Longmont.”

Pablo sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look Cleo, I want to live
with you. But not in Boulder, because I’m a detective with the Longmont Police
Department. I’ve told you over and over that a huge part of what our department
does involves working with the community. It’s important that I live there. You
know the surrounding communities think Boulderites are new-agey tofu eaters who
are too rich and flakey to understand real life. Longmont residents won’t take
me seriously as part of their community if I live in Boulder.”

Pablo pulled out to pass a long U-Haul truck. As we went by,
I saw the phrase “America’s moving adventure” on the side. No. I
didn’t want that adventure. I didn’t want to move. Tears welled up. “I get that
you want to live in Longmont, Pablo. But I love Boulder and I love my house and
my office is right down the street. Nothing would be convenient for me if I
lived in Longmont. Plus my house is really still Gramma’s house.”

Even though Gramma’s Alzheimer’s is at the point where she
has to live in a sheltered assisted living home, I feel good that I’m keeping
her house safe for her. I don’t want to sell it and I definitely don’t want to
rent it to college students. I was sick of this argument. “Can’t we just
drop it until you get back?” I begged.

“You’ll just have another reason to drop it then.” Anger filled
his voice. “But you’re alone in that old house and it’s winter and you’re
pregnant. I’ll be gone all week.” His voice softened. “What if
something happens? What if you get snowed in? If you were in Longmont, all my
family is nearby to help you.”

Yikes! Now he wants me in Longmont even when he’s not in
town? And he wants his family to take care of me? I’m a thirty-seven year-old
licensed therapist with a doctorate in psychology and a thriving private
practice. Does he see me as weak, friendless, and incompetent? My sadness
morphed into anger. “You don’t need to worry,” I said crossly. “I can take care
of myself. I’m not going to get snowed in. And even if I did, I have friends I
can call.”

“Fine,” he said crisply. “I give up, Cleo. You’re impossible.
I don’t know why I try to have a reasonable discussion with you.” He turned his
full attention to the road without uttering another word until we got to the
airport.

I stayed silent as well and kept my tears inside until I was
back in the car driving away from our awkward goodbye hug. Then I let my tears
flow freely as I drove. I knew I had decisions to make. But I felt stuck. I
wanted all of us to have good lives—Pablo, the baby and me. But I had no
idea how to work that out.

§ § §

While reliving my traumatic morning there on my office couch,
darkness had closed in on me and I had almost dozed off. When my phone rang. I
jolted awake, hoping it was Pablo calling to patch things up now that his plane
had landed. I wanted to do that too. I wanted to hear a sweet loving voice from
him to erase my memory of his anger. But when I grabbed the phone, it wasn’t Pablo
after all. It was Gayle wanting to set a time for a meeting.

“Nothing about Sabrina’s disappearance is what it seems. I
can’t even begin to tell Bruce and I probably shouldn’t be telling you. But I
have to tell someone.” Gayle frowned and bit her lower lip. “This is
all confidential, right?”

She was perched on the edge of the brown sofa in my office,
leaning forward as if about to jump and run. When she called for this
appointment yesterday, she insisted we needed to meet ASAP. Was she having second
thoughts now that she was actually here?

I answered in a calm reassuring tone. “Yes, what we say here
is confidential. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Bruce anything you don’t want me to
tell him.”

Gayle fiddled with her purse and pulled out several crumpled
papers. She glanced down at them, then up at me, then down again. “I brought a
few notes so I’d remember the most important things to tell you,” she said, her
voice breaking. “I’m having some trouble lately keeping my thoughts organized.”

“That’s not surprising,” I said softly. “Grief makes your
thinking confused. It can be hard to concentrate and easy to forget things.”

Tears dripped from Gayle’s dark brown eyes. She grabbed a
tissue from the box on the table and wiped her face. Then she shook her head.
“I’m not here to cry. I’m here to talk.” She took a deep breath and sat up
straight, her shoulders down and back. “Okay. I’m going to jump right in.
There’s no way Sabrina just wandered off into the wilderness. She’s capable and
careful and used to taking care of herself.” Gayle’s voice rose several notches
in intensity and volume and she clenched her fists. “Sabrina’s a nurse for
God’s sake—a hospital nurse. She takes care of other people. She can
certainly take care of herself. I’m sick and tired of hearing the so-called
experts run on about how hikers make careless mistakes.”

Anger at the searchers. Not surprising. Often a bereaved
person looks for someone to blame. It’s a way of displacing anxiety over being
left and guilt over surviving, but it’s not helpful in dealing with the loss. I
diverted her focus to the reality of the situation. “Do you have a theory about
what happened to Sabrina?”

Gayle squirmed around, but her posture was still ramrod
straight. She looked me in the face with an unwavering gaze. “I’ve gone over
and over that day in my mind and I do have some ideas. But I’d rather just go
into your apparition chamber and try to reach her. If her spirit shows up, then
I can ask her what really happened.”

Here was a woman who knew what she wanted and was used to
taking charge. I sighed. This was going to be tricky. People tend to think that
talking to the dead is just a matter of connecting—like finding the phone
number for a friend you’ve lost touch with—and then you can get all your
questions answered. But it’s actually a process that requires preparation. “I
know that sounds like the quickest, easiest way to go,” I said gently. “But the
process is more complicated and less clear than you may think.”

“It didn’t sound very complicated when Bruce told me about
it,” she snapped back.

Uh, oh. That sounds like Bruce. Skip over the details, go
right to the point. I’d have to set her straight. “Did he tell you he’d been
coming for grief therapy for more than a month before he went in the apparition
chamber, or that we’d spent several sessions preparing for his contact session,
or that he didn’t reach Charlene on his first try?”

She shook her head. “He may have. I was so blown away that
he’d ever try something paranormal that I probably didn’t take in all the
details.” Gayle leaned closer, still with the fixed glare. She spoke sharply.
“Are you saying I have to wait months to try out this apparition chamber?
That’s not going to work for me. I need to get some resolution now.”

We sat, eyeball to eyeball, until Gayle’s phone rang. She
grabbed it out of her purse. “Oops, I have to take this,” she said.
“I’ll just be a minute.”

While she talked to her real-estate customer, I considered my
response to her request. Every client who’d gone into my apparition chamber had
spent time dealing with the reality of the loss of the loved one before trying
the contact process. I’d never had someone in the Contact Project trying to
find out whether someone was dead or alive. I wanted to be careful. If Gayle
went in and did contact Sabrina, the sudden realization of the reality of the
death could hit her brutally.

Gayle ended her call and looked inquiringly at me. “So
how soon can I do it?” she asked.

I took a deep breath to calm myself before I spoke. “I’m not
saying you have to wait months, but I am saying you can’t do it today.” Gayle
clenched her jaw and flicked her gaze upward.

I continued determinedly. “I know that’s not what you want to
hear. You want to find out right away whether Sabrina’s alive or dead. But to
have the best chance of the contact process working for you, we need to spend
some time preparing for your session before you start.”

“What kind of preparation?”

“Part of it is getting clear about your expectations. The
main purpose of the contact process is to work through grief and make peace
with the person who died. In your case, you’re thinking she may still be alive.
You said that nothing about her disappearance is what it seems. Can you talk
more about that?”

Gayle sighed and cast her eyes down toward her papers, which
rustled in her shaky hands. “We didn’t go there just to celebrate Sabrina’s
fortieth birthday,” she said. “There was so much more going on. The six of us
had a lot to work out.”

Suddenly she lost it. Burst into tears. “Moxie had turned
into a nightmare,” she sobbed. “Sabrina was determined to change that.”

I didn’t try to stop her crying. Tears are good stress
reducers. She wept deeply for a few seconds, then grabbed a couple of tissues
and mopped her face. “Sorry,” she said, “Everything sets me off these days.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” I said. “Who’s Moxie?”

She looked at her notes again, then launched into what
sounded like a prepared speech. “Moxie is our women’s group—the six of
us. Sabrina and I started it seven years ago. When we first met we were both
single moms in our early thirties. Our kids were almost the same age. Her Ian
was eight and my Nicole was seven-and-a-half. We shared so much, our stories
were so similar that we bonded right away. It was almost like we knew what each
other was thinking and feeling.” She gazed wistfully off into that faraway
time.

I waited silently, giving her time to return to the present.

After a minute or so, she turned back to me and continued.
“We got the idea for Moxie—of course we didn’t call it that
then—at the same instant. Like a bolt of lightning hit us with the
message that we needed to do this. We needed to bring other women like us
together—divorced single moms who were moving forward on our own, getting
no help from our kids’ dads. We were strong, could support each other.” She
stopped, as if waiting for a reaction.

Instead I responded with a prompt to keep her story on track.
“So you’ve all known each other for seven years?”

“Yes.” Now that she was explaining what she apparently came
to talk about, Gayle was much more collected. “Once we got the idea for the
group, we each brought in two others. Sabrina got Lark and Diana. I found Paige
and Hana. So then we were six. We decided six was the perfect number. We had
chosen carefully, found women who were compatible on every level. After
divorce, we all wanted a new start. We wanted strong single friends.”

“And you named your group Moxie. Is there a story behind
that?”

“We called ourselves Moxie because it means grit, gumption,
and guts—contradicts the stereotypical traits of women. We saw ourselves
as bold, determined, audacious, willing to take risks, and as shameless
advocates for single moms.”

Sounded like my kind of women. “You must have had some great
times over the years.”

“It was fun in the beginning. We met weekly for potluck
dinners, and hired teenagers to entertain our kids so we could enjoy dinner in
peace. We made it special for the kids with pizza, games, movies, ice cream,
stuff like that. We all looked forward to Wednesday nights. We talked about
everything, shared it all. Our ex’s, men we dated, our jobs—whatever came
up. And we supported each other as we managed as single moms. We made
agreements about confidentiality. What is said in the group and what happens in
the group stays in the group.

Her face crumpled as she broke down again. “But now I wish
we’d never started Moxie,” she sobbed. “And I can’t keep that confidentiality
agreement anymore. Because I think something Moxie set in motion ended up
killing Sabrina.”