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I leaned against the table as defeat washed over me in a gray sea. Could I have done it any differently? If I had used another combination of words, a better one, then could I have stopped her? Because I could tell that she had made her decision now; it had been written all over her. She was heading straight for her angel.
What was that thing, anyway? I thought back over the reading, trying to get a handle on it. But as far as I could tell, it was exactly what it had felt like: some sort of powerful being, which had somehow set Beth on a path to disaster.
But that couldn’t be true . . . could it? What had I actually seen?
Sinking back into the chair, I looked dully at the velvet painting of a sad clown that hung over the sideboard. He was holding a drooping daffodil and had a big glistening tear on one cheek. Aunt Jo had bought it at a garage sale a few years ago. “Can you believe this bargain?” she’d said as she hung it proudly on the wall. “It was only twenty dollars!”
Twenty dollars. My eyes went to the bill under the sugar bowl. I pulled it out and gazed at it, and then I gently slipped it back under the bowl and put my head in my hands.
“Look, Miranda, isn’t that pretty?” demanded Aunt Jo, pointing to the TV.
It was later that same night, after dinner — which I had cooked, because I don’t like plastic food, and as far as Aunt Jo’s concerned, if it doesn’t say Hamburger Helper or Chef Boyardee on the label, then it’s not one of the basic food groups. So I had made a big pot of spaghetti for the three of us, because it’s something I can do without really thinking about it. Besides, there’s something very soothing about chopping vegetables and stirring a bubbling sauce, and I really needed to be soothed just then. I couldn’t stop thinking about Beth.
Aunt Jo had gone on and on during dinner, talking about this woman at her office who she doesn’t like. Big surprise; she doesn’t like anyone very much. I kept my head down while we ate, letting the torrent of words wash over me and saying, “Mm-hmm,” at intervals. Mom had just ignored her, of course. She sat stirring the food around dreamily on her plate and occasionally took an absentminded bite. Sometimes I envied her. She didn’t even have to pretend to listen to Aunt Jo.
Now we were all in the living room, and Aunt Jo was trying determinedly to get Mom to “engage with her,” as the therapist puts it. That means actually getting her to pay attention to you, as if she’s still part of the real world instead of off on her own personal planet. To be honest, I’m not really sure why any of us bother. I think Mom’s probably happier where she is.
“Miranda!” said Aunt Jo again, leaning across and tapping Mom sharply on the arm. “Are you listening to me? Look at the TV. Isn’t that tropical beach pretty?”
She spoke a little more loudly and slowly than usual, as if she were talking to a three-year-old. Mom didn’t respond. She was sitting in her favorite easy chair, staring off into the distance. The two of us look a lot alike, I guess. She has the same wavy blond hair that I do, except that hers is cut into a bob so that it’s easy to take care of. And she’s short like me, though she’s not slim anymore. Too many years of sitting lost in her own thoughts have left her pale and doughy, soft around the edges.
She’s still beautiful, though. She always is. I glanced over at Mom’s wide green eyes, so like my own. Peas in a pod, she used to say.
Because she wasn’t always like this; she used to talk — to me, at least. When I was little, we’d play games together and she’d laugh. Yet even back then, she was so strange and shy around other people that by the time I was five or six I felt protective of her, knowing that she couldn’t cope with the world the way I could. And then there was the cloud that would drift over her at times, carrying her far away from me. She’d just sit there, the way she was sitting now, and no amount of crying or yelling would bring her back until she was ready. I had to learn to cook my own meals, brush my own hair — and somehow I knew that I could never, ever tell anyone, or else they might take her away from me altogether.
But then as the years passed, what I’d feared so much had happened anyway. My mother had just sort of . . . slipped away, retreating further and further into her dreams until finally she hardly ever came back from her other world at all.
“Miranda!” pressed Aunt Jo, joggling her arm. “Wouldn’t you like to be on that beach?”
Mom sighed, still looking at something none of us could see. “It’s so pretty,” she murmured. “So many colors . . . rainbows . . . ”
“No, there aren’t any rainbows,” said Aunt Jo firmly. “Look, Miranda. Look! It’s the beach. ”
Mom didn’t answer. Her lips curved upward in a slight smile.
“Miranda —”
“I don’t think she wants to engage with you right now, Aunt Jo,” I said tiredly. I try a lot with Mom when Aunt Jo isn’t around, but I do it my own way, just talking to her — not treating her like she’s mentally deficient.
“Well, we shouldn’t just let her sit there,” grumbled Aunt Jo. Giving up, she sank back against the sofa and we fell into silence. On the TV screen, the perky female detective was ordering a mai tai in a tropical bar. I hugged a cushion to my chest, barely taking it in. All I could see was the angel, holding Beth’s head in its hands. Though I wanted so much to believe that Beth had only imagined it, I knew she hadn’t. Whatever that thing was, it was real, and it might have already ruined her entire life. I had to do something, but I didn’t even know where to begin.
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” I said, standing up. “It’s probably Nina, seeing if I want to go out or something. ” Nina was always forgetting her phone or running out of minutes. I sort of hoped it wasn’t her, though. I didn’t really feel up to dealing with Nina’s own special brand of cynicism right then.
Glancing at Mom to see if she’d notice, Aunt Jo switched over to the Home Shopping Network — her spiritual home, needless to say. Settling back against the cushions, she nodded without taking her eyes from the screen. “If you go out, get some milk,” she said.
But it wasn’t Nina; I could tell that immediately from the height of the silhouette that stood on the other side of the front door’s glass panes. Whoever he was, he was tall — over six feet, with broad shoulders.
I opened the door a crack. “Yes?”
The man on our front porch had sandy-brown hair and a strong, attractive face. He was in his mid-twenties or maybe a few years older — it was sort of hard to tell. “Hi,” he said, leaning to one side to peer in at me. “You must be Willow Fields, right? I’ve heard that you give psychic readings. ”
My pulse skittered and went cold: it was the same man I’d seen in my reading for Beth. Oh, my God, it was her angel; he was here. I wanted to slam the door, but I felt frozen by his eyes — they were so intense. Looking into them was like falling into a well you would never find your way out of again.
“I . . . only sometimes,” I stammered.
“I see. Well, would you be able to give me a reading?”
I wondered if I was going crazy and if he was actually a customer — one of the word-of-mouth clients who often turned up on our doorstep. At the thought of touching his hand, I felt a wave of nausea. My voice came out high, panicked.
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