Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“I needed to get away.” I slip off my shoes and set my suitcase by the stairs.
“Away from what?” She eyes me suspiciously.
“Colten.”
“Trouble in paradise?” She heads into the kitchen to get food. That’s how she has always greeted guests. A drink and something sweet like cookies, brownies, or lemon bars if she’s feeling generous toward my dad.
I get two steps into the kitchen and stop. A six-hour drive in silence, my phone shut off to keep from hearing the chime of his texts and calls, no recollection of anything specific that I saw, heard, or thought for those six hours … and now it hits me.
It. Hits. Me.
Tears sting my eyes while everything from my throat to the pit of my stomach seizes up into a tight knot of despair. I turn away from her and swallow hard, pinching the corners of my eyes to keep control.
I lost him … I lost the boy next door.
“Are you still having visions and dreams?”
I clear my throat and take a deep breath while finding my way to the kitchen table before my knees give out on me. I haven’t felt this hopeless and devastated since … well, forever. “I am.”
“How did your trip to California go?”
I clear my throat, fighting for every last morsel of composure. “How do you know about that?”
Mom sets a tray of brownies next to me along with a cherry-lime sparkling water. “Well, it would have been nice to have heard it from you.” She gives me a little scowl. “But I had to hear it from Becca. We’ve been keeping in touch, and Colten told her. I guess he shares stuff with his mom.”
Some stuff. Mom’s not lecturing me on not telling her that I accepted his proposal a while back, so he must not have told his mom either. Smart. He sensed the wedding might not happen.
“Remember that time you and dad were in New Orleans right before you got married? You told me you had your palm read by a psychic. Dad thought it was ridiculous, but you believed her, and since then, everything has come to fruition?”
She nods, cupping her tea in her hands. “The good and the bad,” she whispers.
“The good and the bad,” I echo. Bad … there was something so very bad.
There still is.
“I found a psychic of sorts who specializes in interpreting near-death experiences. She’s a parapsychologist. Colten thinks I saw a ‘specialist’ at the university. This woman is…” I shake my head “…a very different breed.”
“What did she tell you? Did she confirm that you were one of the victims?”
My head eases side to side while I pick at the brownie.
“Then what did she say?”
Again, my emotions rush to the surface, desperate to release.
I lost him.
“Will you tell me the truth?” The words squeak past my throat.
“About what, Josie?”
“I know I’m your daughter, and you’re a good mom.” I glance up with a shaky smile. “If I wanted to be a mom, I’d want to be you. Not grandma, even though she said I’m like her. Not Vera. Not anyone I’ve known or can even imagine. I’d want to be you.”
Her eyes gloss over with tears, and she smiles. “Thank you, Josie. That’s…” she wipes the corners of her eyes “…that’s the kindest, most loving thing anyone has ever said to me.”
For a breath, for the briefest of moments, I feel human. I feel something that’s truly of this lifetime. “My point is I know you’re hardwired to love me unconditionally. I know you’re hardwired to see the best in me. To see nothing ‘wrong’ with me. But I know I’ve never fit into the range of normal in so many ways. Have you…” I force my gaze from my brownie back to hers “…have you ever wondered if my soul is not a good one because of my biological father?”
She winces. “No. Not once. Your soul? Are you kidding me? Josie, you are one of the kindest souls I know. You are the kindest soul I know. That’s what makes you special, or as you have said for years, … different.”
“You’ve never wondered why I don’t want to be a wife or a mom? You’ve never wondered why I brought home every dead thing I happened upon? You never wondered why I spent so much time with Roland Tompkins? You never wondered why I spent an unhealthy amount of time studying mass shootings starting with Columbine? Does my choice of profession not give you pause for a tiny second? Did you know that I’m really good at what I do? Does that all seem like something a kind person with a good soul would do?”
More tears collect in her eyes. “What did she say to you?” she whispers. “What did she do to my baby?”
I open my mouth to speak, but the thick and suffocating words lodge in my throat. All I hear is the truth. All I see is the pain in my mom’s eyes. I don’t want to bring it all back to her, but I am. I’m unearthing her past like I unearthed those bodies, and I can’t undo it.