By Erika Erhart
Phil is an engineer with gray hair, big blue eyes, and long, black eyelashes. When I first met him I thought he looked like Chuck E. Cheese, because of his cartoonish wide smile and because those eyes seemed to click when he blinked. Phil is Theresa’s second husband. Her son Tim says she’s changed a lot since she was married to his father, Bob, and living in Glenview 25 years ago.
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She learned macrame, befriended a channeler and a psychic, took up meditation, and left Bob.
She met Phil a few years later on a spiritual retreat in Hawaii, where she ate a lot of dried fruits and nuts and attended intensive yoga workshops with dead swamis. Theresa communes with them regularly through Summer, a former client who once suffered from a multiple personality disorder but whom she swears is cured.
On their first full day in Chicago, we take Theresa and Phil to the Art Institute. We want to show them the extensive collection of impressionist paintings, since they’ve traveled through France en route to various workshops and retreats.
“Mirababa told Theresa she was the subject matter of many artists in her past lives. It’s quite possible we’ll run into her a few more times while we’re here today,” Phil explains.
“But that’s the beheading of Saint John the Baptist.”
