Free Cheated By Death by L.L. Bartlett Page A

into his second decade of good health.
    Still, as I raised my empty glass in salute,
I looked forward to later when I could go back to my own place, and
get blissfully drunk, and not feel so damned responsible for the
coming disaster. Because I couldn’t get over the feeling that
whatever happened to Brenda’s baby would somehow be my fault.

    Sophie Levin wasn’t always home. Late
at night I’d drive by the apartment where she lived above a bakery,
and the place would be dark. If it wasn’t, I’d drop in on my way
home from work and share a cup of coffee or hot chocolate and shoot
the shit with the elderly woman who’d come to be my friend. Much as
I hated the word, I thought of Sophie as my “psychic” mentor. She
saw colors—auras the new-age gurus call them. I tapped into others’
emotions. But we were kindred spirits.
    A quick look at my watch confirmed it was
after three. I’d left a sleeping Maggie back at my place and walked
the two miles to Sophie’s place. As anticipated, the light was on
in the shop’s back room. I jogged across Main Street and moments
later rang the bell. Sophie appeared within seconds.
    “I’ve been waiting for hours,” she scolded
me. “An old lady like me needs her rest.”
    I followed her through the retail shop and
into the back room where she held court. Two cups of steaming cocoa
sat on the scared little card table, along with a plate of
macaroons and a sheaf of paper napkins.
    “I just put the marshmallows in. See, they’re
hardly melted.”
    I pulled off my jacket. “How’d you know I’d
come by?”
    She smiled. “It’s a gift.” She sat down and I
took the seat opposite. “So. Talk,” she said.
    I took a sip of cocoa—wishing it was bourbon.
“What do you do when you know something bad will happen to someone
you care about?”
    She met my gaze, her smile fading. “You
couldn’t ask an easy question?”
    “I’m serious.”
    Her gaze was grave. “What is it you
know?”
    I told her about my premonition of death for
Brenda’s baby, and the bad feelings I had about the Williamsville
Women’s Health Center.
    “Losing a child is probably the worst thing a
woman can experience,” she agreed.
    I thought about my mother. Losing Richard had
just about destroyed her. But he’d been a living child.
    “You could tell your brother,” Sophie said,
“but it won’t do any good.” She shook her head sadly. “People don’t
like hearing bad news. They blame you, when you have no control of
the future. I tried so many times to warn people—to help. They
resent you. Some hate you for it.”
    “I was hoping you’d tell me something
positive.”
    “You know what you know. All you can do is be
there and be strong for her—and your brother. Because they will be
devastated.”
    I got up, paused at the doorway, and looked
through the shop to the bakery’s empty parking lot beyond. “I don’t
know how or when it’ll happen. She could trip over a stair, have a
miscarriage—it could be stillborn for all I know. I just know there
isn’t going to be a baby.”
    “Then you must keep her safe, and be there
for her when she needs you. You can give her hope.”
    I let out a sigh. “There’s a danger at that
health center. But I’m not sure what.”
    “Then perhaps your brother is right. She
should just stop working there.”
    “She won’t.”
    “She’d believe you if you told her what’s to
come. She knows about these things.”
    “Even if she knows, nothing she or I can do
will change the outcome. There will be no baby.” I let out a
breath. “Maybe that’s what I really came here to talk about—fate.”
I turned back to face her. “There’s nothing I can do to stop what’s
going to happen. It’s not my fault. Why do I have to suffer with
it? Why do I even have to know?”
    Sophie toyed with the paper napkin by her
cup. “You must believe that you can make a difference. And
sometimes you have to try to change the world, even when you know
you will