Chapter Five
Rita Paxwood was amazed at the change in her husband when he came home from the hospital. She had heard people say that confronting death changed people. But she would have never believed such a wild turnaround for her husband was possible. At first it was like a dream come true. He was more confident, more positive, more take action. She liked that. Before he had too often let life happen to him and then was only left with a chance to complain about it later. After exiting the hospital, though, he was a different man. He had purpose. That was the only way she could describe it.
Others noticed it too. Her girlfriends commented that Paul walked and spoke with an air of authority they had never seen in him before. Rita always replied that she knew it was there all along but if she was truthful, she would have had to admit that it surprised her, too. Paul had always been a follower. That was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. She knew too many would-be leaders and shakers of the world growing up in her father's house. Her parents were always trying to marry her off to one of them or the other.
It was a small rebellion but it was hers, to insist that the man she would marry would not be a corporate ladder climber like her dad. Her dad was a good man but too busy to spend much time with the children. She wanted her husband to have time to spend with the children and wanted the man to want to do it. Even if that meant having less in the bank and struggling at times to make ends meet.
Paul had met that criteria and then some. He was one of the most gentle men she had ever met. He did not have an ambitious bone in his body. Being a psyche major she had many times tried to determine if his gentleness was a meekness caused by early failures in life that forced him to accept less and less for himself, or if he truly did not want anything except a simple life with a family. Paul had convinced her he was a simple man wanting a simple life in the final year at college. She had consented to marry him even though neither of them had good jobs yet. Paul seemed content to remain at the job he had since high school. That was part of the charm, she had told herself.
Although she had consented to marry Paul, he had not been her first choice. Her first choice was a far more elusive yet just as gentle man who seemed to be always trying to outrun the shadow of his father, like she was. They had talked about the loneliness they both had endured growing up. Surrounded by people but feeling as though they were abandoned nonetheless because of the absentee father business. His name was John Corwin and she had chased him for three semesters until she met Paul. Actually, John had introduced her to Paul. Sometimes she wondered if he did that to get her off his back.
The way things had turned out with John, it had left her with a feeling that business with John was not concluded. He never denied her affections or said he had none of his own. It was more like he had been afraid to release himself to love her. His unattainableness had made her even more curious and desirous of his attention. In the end, he had found a way to distract her from her goal of searching out his suitability as a future husband. He brought Paul along on a lunch date she had planned. In the confusion of her plans, she and Paul had hit it off and soon they were dating. But she could never completely get John out of her mind. He was the one that got away without a good look. She hadn't thrown him back. She had never landed him.
A few months living with Paul after the wedding and she was not as sure as she was at the beginning that a gentle man with no ambition was the best formula for a marriage. She loved Paul. There was no doubt there. He was a marvelous man. But a husband also needs to be a provider and Paul's ambition, or lack thereof, was a problem she saw too late. Too much ambition might have been a bad thing, but none at all was turning out just as bad. He would have time to spend with the family but the family would be living so poorly that they could not do anything except watch TV together. She had begun to fear that maybe she had gone too far away from the model her dad set when she chose Paul, but there was no way she would ever admit that to her parents, or Paul. Her parents already didn't like Paul because he was not “corporate material” as her dad put it.
Now, Paul seemed to have taken a shock to his system with the attack in their bedroom. She certainly had. Where she was inclined to worry more about enjoying every moment now, Paul seemed more desirous of creating the moments that would count.
In less than a month, Paul was back at work at the hardware store. They had given his counter job to someone else while he was out so, he had to take a job in the back room stocking shelves again like he had when he first started there as a high school kid. She had expected Paul to take it in stride like he always did and mouth platitudes about how it would hopefully work out someday. Instead, after only two days back at work, Paul had quit. That shocked her but not as much as what he did next.
He went down to the bank, borrowed the money to start his own hardware store and then rented the old building materials property that had gone out of business three years before. People all over town were saying that the quiet boy from the hardware store had lost his mind. The owner of the store had come to him twice and offered to put him back on the counter before he did something he would really regret. No one expected Paul to succeed. If there had been a category in his high school yearbook for least likely to succeed, it seems everyone would have voted Paul the winner.
But Paul was determined. Even if Rita had been sure what he was doing was wrong, she would not have tried to dissuade him from trying. She had never seen him like he was currently. Driven. Purposeful. Focused and making plans. He was more like the man her parents had wanted her to marry and she was only slightly irked at the thought that maybe they were right. Maybe they did know what was best for her. Still, in her heart, she held back a little piece that wanted a man who would get down on the floor and roll around with his children. She hoped Paul had not changed too much for that.
Only two months after renting the space for his new hardware business, Paul opened the doors. There were representatives from every major distributor there offering every kind of deal imaginable. The store was twice the size as the old hardware store in town and carried all the latest equipment and hardware items from the largest distributors around the world. Rita was amazed at the variety she saw as she walked the aisles with her beaming husband. She could not help but keep telling him he had done good. She was a little surprised that he seemed to like the adulation. She had never known him to want the attention before. But there he was, giving interviews with local newspapers and radio, drawing the contractor's business with better deals and opportunity as well as in stock availability of product. Paul was a success and everyone was recognizing it. That shy boy was making good.
Two months after the grand opening, Paul got a visit by the owner of the other hardware store. They could not compete. They wanted to sell out. Paul declined.
That was when Rita started getting worried. Paul had always been a compassionate man. Since the attack and his hospital stay, he had become ruthless and hard with people who opposed him. Now, when she would have normally expected him to give the man he used to work for a way out gracefully, he turned hard and cold and demanded the man leave his store and stop bothering him with his petty problems. He said he didn't care if the man filed for bankruptcy or committed suicide or whatever. It was not his problem. He had done what he set out to do, put the man who held him down out of business.
It was a side of Paul, Rita had never even seen a glimmer of before. Paul had always been so sensitive to others that she felt it was a fault. He usually cared more about how others felt than how he felt. He had been selfless. Now he was selfish. And she saw a streak of vindictiveness in there too. Something had really changed inside Paul during that attack.
Paul refused to hire any of the employees that were let go by the closing hardware store he had bankrupted. He sited that they had not treated him well when he worked there, plotted against him while he was in the hospital through no fault of his own and then laughed at him when he had to go work in the back stocking shelves a
gain. He took great delight in interviewing each perspective employee and asking them who was laughing now.
At home, Paul was still the same loving husband he had always been. He did not spend excessive time at the store and let his employees run it for the most part. He said he provided the brains and the money so they could make him more money and let him use his brains to do more things. She had laughed the first time he had said it, but lately it had become almost a mantra with him. Use others to get what he wanted.
Rita's parents took a new liking to Paul since he had found his way to becoming prosperous. The way they extolled the virtues of her choice of husbands now made Rita mad. Not only were they being hypocritical, but they were also just plain lying through their teeth. She had never heard the end of how much her mother disliked Paul before the attack. Even in the hospital, when her mother heard how bad the attack had damaged Paul's body, her mother had thought Paul would die and told Rita it was probably for the best. Now, with Paul's new found success, her parents visited more often and liked going around town and telling the townsfolk that he was their son in law.
Rita kept track of the changes in Paul and everyone around him. It was amazing. People who never gave Paul the time of day before were suddenly his best buddies. Success. It was true. Everyone loves a winner. But Rita was having second thoughts.
Paul had grown up there. He was one of theirs and he had made good. The whole town applauded that and claimed him as their own. That was the hometown formula everywhere. Paul ate it up. He confessed to her that he had never expected anyone in that town to ever think good things of him. Now it seemed, they could think no bad thoughts of him.
That was when he shared his plan with her. He was going to take over every business in town that had ever done him wrong and put the people who owned it out of business as punishment for their ill treatment of him or his family. Rita had tried to talk him out of it but he told her she did not understand what it was to grow up in a place where everyone put him down and refused to give him a chance. Now he was going to help make understand what they had put him through. He was going to put them down and not give them a chance. He said he still had some work to do. He wanted to be able to make sure that the people didn't just up and move their businesses to the next town. He wanted to have long arms.
Rita was scared. The man she had known was no more. He was still Paul Paxwood, but not the same, sweet man she had married only a little over a year before. Rita had money now and friends and things to do in town. She even had the respect of her parents, as sketchy as that honor was. But what she really wanted was her old Paul back. That sweet guy who liked to cuddle on the couch.
With Paul's new focus on his plans for revenge on the town that held him down, her nights became lonely. Paul was staying away a couple nights a week on business. He was traveling and making deals and buying up things that affected the businesses that he wanted to do damage to. She was on strict orders to speak of it to no one. She would not have done it even if he had not told her to keep quiet. She would never admit that her husband was such a ruthless man.
In her lonely hours at night, she began to despair of her decision to marry Paul. It was not working out the way she had envisioned it. She started wondering what life would have been like if only she had managed to get inside John Corwin. He had been her first choice for husband material. Paul was a close runner up and available. John was not available. Something filled John up with things that only John could understand. She consoled herself through the nights and told herself that the whole reason John had been the better choice was because she had sensed somewhere deep down that this extreme existed in Paul.
She felt that now she had an answer to her enigmatic question about Paul's meekness. It was a response to being beaten down as a kid and now that he was up, he was wanting to return the beating. She wished she had answered that question before they had gotten married. Now it was too late. She was stuck with the man her parents wanted her to have. And she had chosen him.
John Corwin's mind was determined to move on but his heart was still pining for the past. He felt better physically and emotionally. He had even picked up his book and started reading again. It had been a long time since he felt like indulging in anything except self pity. He was not worried about his heart. His mind was strong and his heart was passionate. The two would find their way to travel together again soon.
Months had passed since his two day stay in the Mist with Marcie. She had come home with him and become his constant companion since that day. Each night he shared fluids with her and she comforted him in the knowledge of his spiritual growth and trained him to understand all the things he sensed around him. She had become a mentor as well as a friend.
Marcie had finally been able to put off the little girl image that invaded her manifestation for so long. John had taken her into his life and loved her for her. It took several days of sharing their love over and over until she could hold her adult image in strength. Now she came to him as a beautiful, dirty blond woman with sensuous curves and a strikingly smooth skin tone. He didn't see how it was possible but Marcie was happier too, now that she could shed the little girl aura that had plagued her since her death. But it had taken love to make the break with her horrific past. John had provided that. Mutual love. Hers and his. An energy revitalization that spanned the planes.
John saw the pages of his book but was really concentrating on something building on the horizon. It was far off and hard to read. It was dark and foreboding, as it had been that day he had lost Kathy. Something bad was headed his way.
John was not worried. Marcie had told him that the Creator of Life would not let anything happen that he was not ready to handle. Therefore, if something bad was headed his way, he must be healing up nicely enough to be ready for it. Usually not someone to seek out hardship or any kind of confrontation, John saw this as a positive thing. He had been dormant too long. The Spring season was gearing up and he was itching to be doing something besides preparing.
Marcie had been great. She had been there every step of the way. She knew when to step out of the way and let him solo and when to grab on and hold him up. She was fabulous. It struck him as very strange how far his attitude toward her had changed since their first meeting. Then she had been a guard he had to get through. Now she was an ally in making it through every day.
Over the top of his book he could look out at the campground and survey what he and Enrico and Juan had built. He had made them each ten percent owners for their hard work and to reward them for what they had put into the place. Enrico had proven to be a fantastic manager who needed little help making the place run. Juan was the ever present aide that always knew the next thing to be done and did it. Between the three of them they were not only ready for a new season but more than ready. They had opened up more than a hundred new camping spaces and built a large playground with a larger swimming pool at the other end of the property. In the next week or so, the new pavilion would be complete and the two new bathhouses would be opened. Yes, they were more than ready.
As John stared through what was only trees now but would soon be parked campers of every size and sort, he saw again the dark cloud amassing just outside of his view. Not clear. Not really fuzzy. Like looking at something so far away that he could not make out any detail. There, but unidentifiable.
He could sense what it was. It was new. Something he had never seen before. Familiar things were identifiable from any distance. For instance, he could sense Marcie coming from a long way off. This was new. It was also big. Not big like Gol was big. More like it covered a large section of the plane. He could not describe it even with Marcie's help. He felt that the size of it was what was making it unidentifiable somehow. Like it was too big to comprehend. Or he was too close inside it and it was surrounding him making identification difficult. Something like that.
Marcie had cautioned that he should take his time. She said the rule of the planes was that nothing ever came as a
surprise if one was watching for it. Since he was watching for it, he would see it when it needed to be seen.
John had learned not to argue with Marcie's logic. It never failed and always bore out. He trusted her. After all, she was family, as he liked to remind her so often. She never reminded him that she was the sister of his great, great grandmother deceased by the hand of her uncle. She let that part of her existence go when she said good bye to the image of the battered little girl. She liked when he called her family. She had been killed so young that she never really got to experience family in the human plane. A few Christmases and parties she could remember, but mostly it was the last hours of her life that rushed through her memory. With John she felt like she was capturing a small part of her family connection again or at least what she thought it would feel like. In the Mist, meeting other family members was more like coming upon a friend than a real family relationship. John, being still a part of the human plane, had helped her experience love on the human level and put away the little girl image and move on. It was he who had given her back any sense of family so she allowed him to invoke the word any time he wanted.
John sensed a presence he was not familiar with. Immediately his defenses went up. He swiveled his head to see if someone had crept around behind his camper to approach him from the rear. Nothing.
“John?” The voice was inside his head. Familiar but unfamiliar. He felt he should know it. He concentrated. Nothing.
“John?” The voice again.
“Who is it?” John demanded.
“It's me, John.” The familiarity again but still unknown.
“Who?” John demanded again.
“Have you forgotten me already?” The voice was still unfamiliar but the cutting question left John with no doubt about its origin.
“Kathy?” There was a hopeful edge to his voice. John could not help the tears that formed up in his eyes. The pain of the loss and the desire to rekindle that love they once shared in the human plane took over his every cell. It was like someone released a flood gate on his feelings. A warm, washing sensation swept over his entire being.
“Yes, John. It's me.”
“Where are you, besides in my head?”
“In the Mist, John.”
“I know that. But you've been gone for a long time, no contact. I've been wondering if I would ever see you again.”
“Maybe, John. First we have to renew our relationship on terms of my existing in another plane.”
“Like Marcie and me?”
“Not quite.”
Kathy spoke softly and he knew something was wrong.
“Then what?”
“Marcie is your liaison with the Mist. I can not intrude on her relationship with you. We can be friends but she is your liaison. She has the right to bring all your fluid energy into the Mist before anyone else.”
“I see.” John said and he really did. He had actually wondered about such a scenario before. He also wondered if there were cat fights in the Mist.
“There are no cat fights in the Mist, John.” Kathy's voice said he should stop being silly. “Besides, what makes you think any of us would fight over you?”
“It's good to hear your voice,” John said and meant it. He fought back the tears and wiped at his eyes.
“I'm sorry my presence makes you sad.” she said.
“It's a good sad,” John admitted. “I was hoping to hear from you and learn about what's happening with you now. I miss you something awful but I am dealing with it. Still, it hurts to miss someone I love so much.”
“I miss you, too.” Kathy was not emotional, he noticed. “There is so much wonder inside the Mist I have tried to keep myself distracted with things and others to keep from remembering us. It's hard because I enjoy the memories, which I still have. I have watched you many times while you were healing up and I want you to know I am proud to have been your wife, if even for a short time. There are no marriages in here, so when you get here we'll still be great friends just not married. It's kind of strange to think I will never be married again. That's why I am so happy that while I was, it was to you. You are the best husband anywhere.”
Her words were killing John on the inside. He was losing the fight with his emotions. She was picking at scabs that he thought were healed and discovering they were still festering with a love he could not deny no matter how hard he tried. Tears streamed down his face.
“I have to go, John. I am not allowed to make you cry and dredge up all the old times like that. You need to heal up. Another storm is coming. You can not be sidetracked by our human relationship which is gone forever. I just want to let you know that I still love you with all my heart. I want the best for you, just like Marcie. Please concentrate on getting past this. The time is coming when you can not afford the distraction I present.”
“What's coming?” John asked her. “Tell me.”
“I do not know what it is. I only know it is big.”
“Will you help me?” John called out in his mind.
“Of course, John. We all are here to help you.”
“Emil's there, too?”
“Yes, John.” Emil answered him. “Marcie, Kathy and I are here for you. But listen to what Kathy has told you. Something big is moving on the horizon. We know you can see it coming. You need to get past this relationship thing and prepare for the coming battle.”
“Why me?”
“Because the battle is coming to you, John.”
“Why? What have I done to anyone?”
“We do not know that.” Marcie jumped into the thoughts in his head. “We can only see that it is big and headed for you. Not towards you or in your general direction but actually coming for you. Whatever it is, the darkness is aiming for you.”
“Thanks a lot,” John sighed. “Just when I start feeling human again, some evil entity from another plain comes knocking at my door.”
Kathy gave a little chuckle in his head.
“Sounds like the old John I know and love,” she quipped.
“If you guys really love me get me more information. Like who is out to get me.”
“Don't worry, John.” Marcie took the lead again. “Whatever we learn we will pass on to you.”
“What should I do in the mean time?”
“Get ready to see what it is and do something about it.” Kathy answered for them all. “Otherwise it will run right over you like a storm wind through a chicken coop.”
“Aren't we the country girl, now?” John teased and wiped the last of the tears from his eyes.
“Beautiful thing about the Mist is we can be whoever we want to be in here. We got all the time in the world to practice it. Fun is the order of the day and pleasure is its engine.”
“Quite the philosopher, too.”
“Emil's been teaching me a few things.” Kathy admitted.
“I'll bet he has,” John drew out the words for affect.
“Jealous?” Kathy asked.
“A little.” John replied.
“Me too.” Kathy answered.
“Huh?”
“You and Marcie make quite a couple lately,” Kathy laughed. “Think I wouldn't notice?”
“Uh...” John was speechless. He had not thought about it like that. Funny, he had thought about having a relationship with Kathy like that but had not considered his relationship with Marcie in that light.
“Wow!” John laughed. “I guess I have been carrying on a bit.”
“A bit?” Kathy sounded incredulous. “Every night.”
“Well … uh … Marcie's insatiable.” John spit out.
John heard laughter in his head.
“I might be insatiable, but you're always horny, too.” Marcie defended herself. “I live in a plane that shares energy that way. You live in a plane that just gets off on the feeling of the sex. So whose the real pervert here, anyway?”
“Okay. Okay.” John gave in. “I guess I'm guilty of monopolizing her time a little lately.”
“A little?” It was Emil's turn. “We could power Denver off the sparks you two are throwing up.”
“Good, huh?” John laughed at their good natured teasing.
“Fantastic!” Marcie admitted, then realized they were talking about the power their coupling produced for the Mist. “I mean … uh … the sex was good, too.”
They were all laughing now.
“It's good to hear you laugh again,” Kathy said. “There were times I wondered if I would ever hear it again.”
“There were times I wondered if I would ever find anything to be happy about again.” John admitted. “I can never remember anything hurting me as badly.”
“I'm sorry.” Kathy said. “I did not want to hurt you.”
“I know. I never thought you did. I had opened up such a big hole for you to climb into my life that when you left it was like having my entire guts pulled out and the hole left gaping.”
“I wish there was some way that I could have absorbed all that pain for you.” She offered.
“It was something I had to go through to grow, I guess. I just wish there was an easier way to get through things than actually having to endure them.”
“Don't we all.” Kathy laughed.
“Are you really okay in there?” John asked the question that burned uppermost in his mind.
“I really am.” Kathy answered. “It's not the same as being there with you but it is still good. Different but good. If I could come back, I would only want to visit. It's really good here. No problems to deal with. Just living every day to its fullest. I can't wait until the day you get to see it all for yourself.”
“Seems there's more for me to do here, so I guess it will be a while before we can go on a picnic there.” John laughed. “Who knows? Maybe this cloud that is tracking in on me will send me to the Mist.”
“Don't say that John.” Kathy admonished him. “You live every day as though it is the best life in the world. You will get to come here soon enough. Don't do anything foolish.”
“Well, I promise not to do anything foolish on purpose,” John gave in.
“That's good enough for me,” Kathy laughed. “Who knows? There may be another wife out there for you. You are still young and handsome and quite a catch now that you own a very lucrative business.”
“Yeah, who knows?” John did not try to sound very enthusiastic about that one. He didn't want another wife. He wanted Kathy.