City of the Sun

FIVE

Carol answered the door late on a Thursday afternoon and found a heavyset woman in her forties with dyed black hair standing outside.

“Hello, Mrs. Gabriel?” she said through the screen door.

“Yes?” Carol caught an almost magenta hue coming off the woman ’ s hair.

“I understand you have a missing boy.”

Carol ’ s heart instantly pounded and she felt herself go weak. “Yes. Do you know something about him?”

“I might be able to help. My name is Ms. Raven. I ’ m a spiritualist. I ’ ve worked on these cases before.”

Carol ’ s heart began to slow. If this had been last week even, she would have probably said No, thank you. Instead she swung open the screen door. “Umm…Why don ’ t you come in? My husband will be home soon.”

When Paul arrived, he found them sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Ms. Raven held Jamie ’ s Colts cap. Paul joined them and learned how she had come to them.

“I have a friend down at the station who I confer with on certain cases. He told me about yours and I thought I would try.”

“Well, we appreciate it, but…” said Paul.

“Do you believe?” the woman asked.

“In what?” Carol said aloud. Paul gave her a look.

“Psychic powers. It helps if you believe. I get stronger sensations that way.”

“Oh, well. We don ’ t not believe. We don ’ t really think about it, I guess.”

“We want to believe.” Paul gave it a try. “Is there anything we can do?”

Ms. Raven closed her eyes and sat back, feeling the baseball cap.

Tater, curled up across the kitchen, looked up from time to time.

The kitchen had fallen silent, and just when the quiet threatened to go on forever, Ms. Raven spoke. “I see a van,” she said with conviction.

“We have a van.”

Carol glanced at Paul, not wanting his talk to mess the woman up.

“And a bicycle. A blue bicycle.”

“Yes. Jamie ’ s bike was blue.” Paul spoke again. Carol ’ s stomach turned over at the possibility that this woman ’ s vision was real.

“You ’ re on a trip. Down south. Jamie has gone for a bike ride.” Ms. Raven became agitated, her breathing short and sharp.

Paul and Carol grew confused.

“The bike has fallen and Jamie seems hurt,” she went on. “He ’ s not dead, but hurt.”

Carol moaned involuntarily and her face squeezed the way it did before her tears came.

Seeing this, Paul was prompted to speak. “Look, Ms. Raven. I think you ’ ve got it wrong. We weren ’ t on a trip. We were right here. We ’ ve checked around. The police, the hospitals. It was no bicycle accident. Thank you for trying, but maybe we should, you know, stop.”

Ms. Raven sat there for a minute, then two, breathing through her mouth, before she answered. “This is not an exact science.”

“I understand that. Look, we appreciate your help, but I think this is upsetting my wife.” Carol didn ’ t dispute him. “What do we owe you for this?”

Ms. Raven put down the cap and gathered her coat and bag. “You don ’ t have to pay me. It ’ s quite all right,” she said, slight offense in her voice. “If we schedule a time for me to come back, I can look at his room. Try further…” She shrugged on her coat.

Paul showed her to the door and held it for her. “Please, let me give you something. For your time,” he offered again.

“Well, I ’ m normally thirty dollars an hour,” she said.

Paul handed her some bills. “Here you go. Thanks a lot.”

She gave him a flyer from a store where she worked reading palms and tarot cards. “Here ’ s my number if you want to consult further.”

“Thanks again.” Paul closed the door and returned to the kitchen.

Carol was still sitting there. Tater had left the room.

“Do you think we should have listened to her more?”

Paul said nothing and tried to keep the cynicism off his face, knowing that if he spoke he could not keep it out of his voice.

“She was right about the van. And the bike.”

“She ’ s got a friend at the station. She probably read the file.”

“We should have her back and try — ”

“She took money,” he said with finality, “at the door.” He crumpled the flyer and fired it in the general direction of the trash can.

Carol began to tremble. A sob started and died within her. Paul moved to hug her. She drew away and into herself and left him standing there, unable to put his arms around her. It was always that way now, the turning away from each other. They didn ’ t touch intentionally anymore. There was a gulf between them in bed at night, and when an arm or a foot crossed the divide and contacted the other, it was quickly retracted in near apology. Their lovemaking was completely frozen over. The day Jamie disappeared was the first of its extinction. They were hardly friends anymore but lived as mere housemates. They were scrupulously polite to each other as they moved about the place.