Page 110 of The New Couple in 5B

I search for feeling. But it’s buried deep, way beneath the chaos of everything else that’s happening to me right now, and, honestly, I resent having this added on. I wish she hadn’t come.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying not to sound cold. But I know it does—my voice ringing back tight and distant even to my own ears.

She looks down at her sandwich. “You should come home. Just for a visit.”

I don’t answer her, and she doesn’t press.

Sarah finishes her meal. Mine sits mostly untouched, my stomach in knots, my hand reaching reflexively to check my phone over and over. Sarah stares at me a moment, then finally she rifles through her tattered duffel bag, fishing out a deck of tarot cards I recognize as belonging to my mother.

“No,” I say, putting my hand on the purple-and-gold cardboard box. There’s an undeniable energy, but I don’t have time for games.

“It might help us, Rosie.”

“Our fates are not predetermined, Sarah. There’s no roadmap to the future.”

She shakes her head and looks me straight in the eye. “Then why are you so afraid of the cards? You’ve been running from us, from yourself, since we were kids.”

I push back a rise of defensive anger, say nothing. I know there’s no use arguing with them. They are set in their beliefs, have built a universe around them. To unstick from those beliefs now would have their whole world threatened.

She goes on. “Then you come here to this place, and all you do is talk to the dead.”

I shake my head at her. “What does that even mean?”

“Your book, I read it—about the women who died, the man who killed them. And the one you’re writing about this building, its dark history. All youdois hunt for ghosts.”

I bristle at this. “That’s ridiculous. I am a journalist, a writer. I’m telling the stories of people and places. It’s history. And if anything, with this book, I’m trying to prove that there is no such thing as hauntings or ghosts or cursed buildings.”

I push away the images of Miles and Willa. Imaginings; nothing more. Dr. Black would surely agree.

“And you’re so sure?” She starts shuffling the cards. “You’re so sure you know the way of the world and what’s true and what’s real, and what isn’t? You’re that wise, that gifted, that in tune?”

Sarcasm doesn’t suit her and I’m not even going to answer.

“You know what?” she says when I say nothing. “You’re just like Dad. So certain that you’re right that you never see all the shades of it, all the possibilities.”

Just like Dad. If we were kids, I’d pull her hair and scream that she was stupid and to shut her stupid mouth. Instead, I seethe, silent.

“Just a simple past, present and future. What do you have to lose?” she asks, fanning out the cards.

Only everything. My integrity, my grip on reality.

But she’s closed her eyes and the cards are shifting through her delicate fingers. And yes, there’s something soothing, hypnotic about it. The cards are old and worn, edges soft and darkened from years of fortune telling. The whisper of the cardboard, the delicacy of my sister’s hands. It reminds me of my mother, how much comfort she takes in thinking the answers are all there in the deck.

“Your past is represented by The Fool,” says Sarah, laying down the card softly.

The image is of a young man, blithely headed off down a path, eyes to the stars, a knapsack over one shoulder, a white rose representing his purity of spirit. If only he would look down, he’d see he was about to step off a cliff. I touch my finger to the familiar image.

“The Fool heads off on his great adventure,” says Sarah. “He is daring and carefree, ready to walk into new things, new places. That sounds like you, Rosie. You walked away from the only home you knew, to start a new life.”

I think I hear something behind me and turn, but there’s nothing there.

“But The Fool is also reckless, lacking foresight, taking wild risks,” Sarah goes on. “Every card has two meanings—the upright and the reverse. The Fool is joyful, playful, ready to explore. Reversed it might mean you were careless, taking too many chances without wisdom. But we all need a little bit of The Fool in us, or we would just stand still, paralyzed by worry, dread and self-doubt.”

Her voice has gone soft and sad. Then, “I envied you, Rosie. Leaving, going to school. I was never that brave.”

I look at her really for the first time since she’s come. Suddenly, she’s not the girl from my past but the woman she has become. Older, wiser, more like my mother than my father. With the cards in her hand, a calm knowing radiates from her. I see her mettle, her staid reliability. The good daughter.

“I thought youwantedto stay there,” I say.