Tapestry of the Past Read Online Free PDF Page A

I didn’t know where else to turn.” Kalesia reached across the table and gripped her mother’s hand. “I know you don’t like it when I talk about my visions but this time I had to try to make someone listen.”
    “Remember what happened last time? You almost ruined your business reputation, not to mention running that nice Christopher Hiser away. You’d be married by now, maybe with children, if you hadn’t insisted on telling him.”
    Yeah and if I hadn’t told him my business reputation would never have been in jeopardy, she almost told her mother. At the last minute, she bit back the words. No one knew the full story behind her breakup with Christopher.
    They’d met when the corporation where he was a top-level manager had hired her to improve their image in the South. He’d been funny, kind and gentle. And, unlike the others in the firm, he had seemed to want to listen to her ideas and suggestions. He had also made her feel that she could tell him anything. Within a week, they were going out on a regular basis.
    Kalesia drew circles on the tabletop with the tip of her nail. By the end of the second month, she was retreating to save her dignity and career while he became vice president.
    “I agree, Mom. It was a mistake to tell him but not for the reasons you think. I don’t want a man who looks at me as if I have suddenly grown two heads. I want one who will believe me.”
    Her mother’s gaze slid away and she looked uneasy. “You know your father and I love you.”
    Kalesia tried to stop the conversation before they got into the same old argument. “I know, Mom. You guys love me but you just can’t bring yourselves to believe me.”
    “For crying out loud, visions of murder? They’re not real. They can’t be. It’s impossible to know what happened to someone else miles away. Your father and I have told you over and over they are dreams. Even as a child you had a vivid imagination. It’s Grandmother Brannigan’s fault. She encouraged you.”
    “Leave Grandma out of this.” Kalesia pinned her mother with a determined gaze. “She was the only one who would listen to me when I was a child. She didn’t try to convince me I was having nightmares, or send me to a child psychologist, or pretend to the neighbors that I had an overactive fantasy life. She listened. Made me understand that what I saw wasn’t my fault.”
    “Of course it wasn’t your fault! No one can control their dreams.”
    “And I can’t control my visions.” Kalesia held up a hand, weary to the bone. “Mom, I truly didn’t come here to argue with you.”
    “Then why did you come?”
    “I don’t know. Just forget it.” Shoving her chair back and rising, she leaned over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek before she could respond. “Tell Dad I’ll try to come over next weekend and help him with his garden.” She straightened.
    “ Kalesia ?”
    “What?”
    “I do love you, you know.”
    Kalesia gave a sad smile. “I know. I love you too.” She walked out of the restaurant, her throat too tight to say anything else.
    Two hours later, juggling a large sack of groceries and her purse, she kicked shut the front door of her house with a relieved sigh. Turning the kitchen light on with her elbow, she placed the bag on the counter in the kitchen as she mulled over the conversation with her mother. Nothing ever seemed to change. Her parents could not accept she had visions of murder and she couldn’t seem to stop trying to make them.
    Her mother may have been right about one thing, however. If word ever got out why she had gone to the authorities, she could lose everything. For good, this time.
    She’d known she was taking a chance, of course. But she’d been so shaken by the vision of her own death she’d thought it her only recourse. If she had been thinking more clearly, she would have realized the authorities wouldn’t believe her. They never had.
    She was putting the last can of cat food on the shelf when she