Having completed my tour of garages in the urban area, I continued my search on the west side of the Rio Grande in a rural part of the county known as the Valley. Crossing the bridge that spanned the normally sluggish river, which was now churning white with the runoff from heavy spring rains, I drove along country roads bordered by cottonwoods just beginning to come into leaf. When the children were small, Don and I had driven these roads on numerous weekends, loaded down with picnic lunches and camera equipment. I passed the spot where I had photographed Kait in a pumpkin patch; the farmer’s market where I’d taken a picture of Donnie sorting apples; the field where Kerry had posed, feeding daisies to a horse. The fast-fading covers of magazines documented those memories of the All-American Family having fun in the country. It had never entered our heads that we were dwelling in Camelot and that “happily ever after” existed only in fairy tales.
A building that wasn’t on my list loomed up ahead of me, and I was certain it was a vacated garage. There was no logical reason to think that, but I had abandoned all semblance of sanity and was playing it as it fell, so I slowed the car and pulled off the road into a parking area next to a clump of poplars. I turned the key in the ignition, killing the engine, and the stillness of the countryside dropped over me like a shroud. After a moment, however, small sounds began to rise to infiltrate the silence. Birds twittered and chirped among the pale leaves above me, and somewhere on down the road the high-pitched yap of a dog was as rhythmic as a heartbeat. An unseen rabbit or chipmunk rustled the bushes next to the front fender of my car, and the drone of an airplane came faintly from a distant cloud bank.
I sat without moving, my full attention on the building. It was obviously empty, but it could not have been that way for long, because the panes of the windows were clean, and there were tire tracks next to mine in the damp earth of the parking lot. Getting out of the car, I walked around to the front and experimentally twisted the doorknob. As I had expected, the door was locked, as was a second door that faced to the east. I slowly circled the building, peering in through the windows, trying to make out the rectangular hollow of a grease pit, but the interior was so dark that I couldn’t see anything.
When I reached the back of the building, I was surprised to discover that one of the windows had been left open a couple of inches as if to let in air. Sliding my fingers into the crack, I jerked up on the window, but wasn’t able to move it. Bracing myself, I yanked harder, giving my neck a painful jolt in the process, but I still couldn’t budge it.
I put my mouth to the opening and called, “Juve, are you in there?” I was certain that he was. When I pressed my ear to the crack, I was almost sure I could hear his breathing like the hyperventilation of a great big animal in a trap. The man who was accused of chasing down my daughter was right here in this building, only yards away from me, trussed and gagged, but alive and aware I was calling to him. Perhaps he had already identified me as Kait’s mother and decided he would rather put up with his present discomfort than respond with a groan or a thump that would bring me in there.
“To hell with you!” I shouted. “You can’t fool me!” I hadn’t come all this way to turn around and go home, just because I wasn’t strong enough to force open a window.
I went back to the station wagon and returned with the tire iron. Gripping the bar with both hands, I swung it back like a baseball bat and aimed it at the windowpane. I stood there for a good thirty seconds, posing for the majors, and then lowered my arms and let the bar drop to the ground. What would I do with Juve if I went in and found him? Dead, he might have been manageable, but alive, he would be impossible. From the picture I’d seen in the paper, the man was a Neanderthal. There was no way I could haul him out of a grease pit. I would have to untie him and let him climb out on his own, and if I did that, he would probably kill me.
I carried the iron back to the car and stuffed it into the compartment with the spare tire. Then I climbed into the front seat and began to pound my fists on the dashboard like a woman gone crazy. Actually, I was such a woman, I could no longer deny that. Who did I think I was, a female version of Mike Gallagher? Jessica Fletcher? Miss Marple? The whole idea was ludicrous. I shouldn’t be out driving around, I belonged in a hospital where I could have my nervous breakdown without bothering anybody.
I ceased my attack on the dashboard and burst into tears, weeping for what I had lost and for the person I’d become because of that loss, a person with no identity and no reason for living.
After the flood was over, I looked for some Kleenex, but of course, I couldn’t find any; it was one of those things I’d been planning to buy at the grocery store. Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I started the car and drove slowly and carefully home, resisting a sudden urge to drive off the bridge. When I entered the house, the answering machine was blinking to indicate two messages. One was from the wife of the chiropractor, saying he was sick and would not be back in his office for the rest of the week. The second was an obscene phone call. I listened twice to the moaning and heavy breathing, because it was the most diverting thing I had heard for a while.
Was this what my life had become? Was this going to be it for me—an unreliable chiropractor and a masturbating pervert on my answering machine?
I’ve got to do something, I told myself, or I’m not going to make it.
Switching off the machine, I picked up the telephone receiver. The number I dialed was getting to be a familiar one.
“Betty?” I said. “This is Lois. I want to make an appointment for a personal reading. I need to find out if I still have a purpose in this lifetime.”
Happy “all-American family” in 1973: Seated: Don with Donnie, 5; Lois with Kait, 3; Robin, 19. Standing: Kerry, 17; Brett, 14.
15
I HADN’T SEEN BETTY in person since the first reading she did for me, but after so many phone conversations I felt as if she were an old friend. Which was good, because I wouldn’t have wanted a stranger to be with me when I received the message I feared most: “Your only job in this lifetime was to protect your children! You’ve blown it, and there’s nothing left for you now except to vegetate, make your husband miserable, and die.”
Betty took her seat in front of the typewriter and asked me how many questions I was going to want answered.
I had come prepared with just one, but now I decided that I might as well go for broke.
“I’ll take the works,” I said. “How many do I get?”
“Four at a sitting is about my limit,” Betty told me.
“The question that brought me here is ‘What is my purpose in this lifetime, and have I achieved it yet?’ What else do you suggest I ask?”
“I think we can reword that question to get more out of it,” Betty said. “The other thing people usually want to know is what their true relationships are with the people who are important to them.”
“I already know that,” I said. “Robin thinks I’m naive, Kerry thinks I don’t spend enough time with my grandchildren, and my sons think I’m stodgy and uncool. And at this point Don probably thinks he’d be better off without me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Betty. “Your true relationships are the ones that go back to the times you were together before.”
“You mean in previous lifetimes?”
“You’ll probably just get one of them—the lifetime that provides the foundation for the one you’re now living.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” I said. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it, but I knew that I was committed to whatever came out of this. So, we sat as we had before—Betty at the typewriter, and I in a chair across from her—and I asked my questions aloud, and she typed out the answers. Her fingers danced on the keyboard, and page after page leapt out of the typewriter. As I watched the history of my soul pile up on her desk, I knew, before I ever read it, that the story would be true.
QUESTION: WHAT IS MY TRUE PURPOSE IN THIS LIFETIME, AND HOW MAY I BEST FULFILL IT?
ANSWER: There will b
e this energy which will move over into the right side, that of the masculine intellect, and there will be this energy which will move down into the shoulder, and that will have to do with the role playing, and this will have had to do with Lois in another time in which she will have been this one to sit around a fountain and to then teach those others who will have come to her.
There will have been much relaxed energy in that, and it will have been in a very secretive way, and it will have been shared by only a few in that time. There will have been works which will have covered healing and works which will have covered many things which will have had to do with more secret teachings, and none could speak of what they learned, and this will have caused some difficulty in some of them. The swearing to secrecy will have been that which will have been the problem, for it will have been that the teachings in that time would have been considered heretical and that, then, the teacher would have been in danger.
The students were so pleased with their learning that they wanted to share this with many, and this will have been impossible unless they wanted to destroy the very source of their learning, the teacher. There will have been in that, then, that energy which will have had Lois then as a male energy pattern and very strong in the belief of her own knowing, which will have been outside of the normal teaching, and thus meta and very metaphysical.
There will have been for her this energy which will have been on guard, and sometimes there will have been a strong passion in all this, and she will have used much red energy in the enforcing of her secrecy dictum. There will have been an offering by her in this time to return and to make her knowing available to all in the time of the new age when the media will be the major teaching vehicle. There will be in this then some safeguards for her, and there will be in this new age and in this country this freedom which would permit this kind of speaking out and not fearing for the life.
There will be this which will show that Lois will have been a robed teacher and one who will have enjoyed the strong loyalty of a small group, and that was sufficient for her to think through all her teachings and to know that in this time it will be necessary to give them out.
QUESTION: WHAT IS MY TRUE RELATIONSHIP WITH MY DAUGHTERS … ROBIN … KERRY …KAITLYN?
ANSWER: There will have been very strong-willed ones in her group, and she will have encouraged that in this time. The male that she was has to be the female, that she is now, and also in that then, the males who will have been so strong willed in that time will now be the daughters, and there will be this very close affinity, as if Lois will know of what they must address in this time in order to become the balanced beings that can truly understand the teachings of before and apply them to this lifetime, the female in this time, applying the masculine energy, and then seeking to come into this balance.
There will be this energy with these specific daughters:
There is energy which will show that Robin will have been one in that time who will have been chomping at the bit to give out this information. She will have wanted to do this in her own way and go to another country in order to fulfill this, and so she did. She did not suffer for that, and it will be that this will also seem to be the case now. It will be that Robin can say and do certain things, even into this time, without seeming censorship. This will be her way, and she will always be one to find the method.
There will be in this one Kerry this energy which will have been the student who will have been cautious, and this one will have taken on some of the paranoia of this old teacher. In this time, too, there will be fears in Kerry from time to time which are unfounded, and she will fear exploring certain ideas, and she will be the last to try things.
There will be that there will have been this rebellious one, which is Kaitlyn in this time, and this one will have come very near in this other time to a fate similar to her fate in this time. There will have been in that time this one who will have been very warriorlike and who will have responded to the passions of this teacher and who will have taken up arms often. It will be that in that time she will have made certain mistakes, and in this time she will have made similar mistakes, and it will have had to do with the inability to know whom to trust. There will have been this lesson for Kaitlyn all this lifetime, and it will show that she will now know how this would be for her. In this other time she will have been the cause of certain harm to her teacher, and in this time it is as if she will not have wanted that and took her lesson on to other dimensions to complete.
There will be in this then still the ability in Lois to teach all in this time and she will seek to know that she will continue to be their teacher in all realms.
QUESTION: WHAT IS MY TRUE RELATIONSHIP WITH MY SONS … BRETT AND DONNIE?
ANSWER: There will be this energy which will soften and fall into the throat center. It will be that there will have been in this other time of Lois as the teacher those who will have wanted to speak her word but knew they could not in that time. They will be stuck in the throat chakra levels, and these men, Brett and Donnie, will have a hard time saying what they will know. They will not often speak up giving deference to this teacher. This will put a burden on Lois in this time and she will be here now to encourage them to speak out and to try to give them both some manner of credence in their thought processes.
There will be this green energy in Brett, and it will have to do with a certain healing ability. This learning from this other time will be very strong in him, and he will have this clear pure green-yellow light all around him which will show that he is indeed a pure healer and would do well in those fields which would have to do with healing. There will be this special ability in this one, and he cannot hide it and keep it back. There is a fear in him to speak up in this time, and this has to be given attention. He must be encouraged to speak out his truth and his knowing of the healing processes will prove to be very valid in this time, but he does not think so. He does not seem to remember, but he will, and it is within him now.
There is in this one Donnie this energy which will hold much pure white light in the head level, and it will be that this one will have been one to have no fears but truly trusted in the teaching. The teacher could learn from this one, and it will be that this one will have a need for trust in this time and not have his life beset with doubts and mistrust of his fellowmen. There will come a situation in which he will need this trust, and this will have to do with certain works that he will do in the manner of speaking out in service. This will seem to take on certain political connotations. It will have to do with the giving out of pure truth facts, but still trust and not facts created out of empirical thinking. He will just know, and it will quickly be validated. This one has a special power that has to be given out, and it is his responsibility to find the forms of application in this time. This one Lois will have withheld in the forms of application in this past life out of fears for their lives in a time that was unkind to new thought. In this time there should be no fear, only the venturing forth in a very strong way.
QUESTION: WHAT IS MY TRUE RELATIONSHIP WITH MY HUSBAND DON?
ANSWER: It will be that in this other time, this very important time to Lois, there will have been this one who will have been intrigued by her thinking processes but who will have nevertheless been more fearful than intrigued, and thus then this Don will have been one who will have seemingly betrayed this one in this time. There will be in this then this energy of someone who will owe Lois and who will be very true to her in this time out of this past life experience, and it is as if he will be resigned in this time to going all the way with this and seeing it through. He will have been one in a position of some trust by Lois in this other time but will have betrayed her to some kind of other outside authority, and this will have caused Lois suffering. In this time Don will seemingly be very solicitous of her feelings and her well-being. He will be almost a nurse to her at times, and he will want to repay her for this seeming difficulty that he will have caused her and will be one to seek to have her be wel
l in order to give out her truths, and thus then he will be someone who will want to be there when she will deliver her fullest knowing, her fullest truth in this time, and he will want this, and so he will have it.
There will be in Don no secret ambitions of his own, then or now, only then there will have been misunderstanding of the truth, and in this time there will be the knowing that he is following his destiny with Lois. They will do much together, and she will share much with him in this time, but he will permit her to know her own rewards.
Betty made no attempt to discuss this reading with me. There was no way she could help me interpret it, because she knew nothing about my relationships with Don and my children.
She allowed me to pay her because it was a “routine reading.”
Although I didn’t like the idea that Don would “be almost a nurse” to me, I drove back to the town house filled with a sense of tranquility that I had not experienced for a very long time. It was comforting to realize that I did still have a purpose in life and to know that I had been in training for centuries to achieve it. It was easy to imagine myself as a robed teacher, since I’d spent so much of my present lifetime teaching writing. I decided my previous experience had probably been in Rome, either in 325 A.D., when Constantine the Great deleted references to reincarnation from the New Testament, or in 553 A.D., when the Second Council of Constantinople declared the concept of reincarnation a heresy because it weakened the power of the Church by allowing people more time to seek salvation. It was also no problem to picture myself as a “male energy figure.” In my autobiography, Chapters: My Growth as a Writer, I had written: “It’s interesting to note that in every story I wrote during my early years, the main character was a boy. I had always wanted to be a boy. I dressed like a boy as often as my mother would let me and almost pulled my arm out of the socket trying to kiss my elbow, which I’d heard was the magic formula for changing sex. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful. What I couldn’t accomplish in real life, I could do on paper. All of my stories were written from a boy’s viewpoint.”