Page 65 of The Psychic

There was no one currently at the reception counter so Ronnie walked down a wide hall that opened into a dining hall, also currently empty.

She could smell cinnamon and realized there was a tray of sugar cookies on a platter left on the nearest table. A sign with a happy face read: Happy Monday! She assumed they were for anyone, but her stomach was too tense to feel hunger.

A woman hunched over a walker was working her way down the hall. She shot Ronnie a sideways look out of bright, beady dark eyes. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” said Ronnie.

“They’ll be back at the desk soon,” she revealed.

As she passed by, Ronnie blurted out, “Do you know … where I could find Wynona Quick?”

The woman stopped, cocked her head, birdlike, and cackled, “How fast do you need her?”

Ronnie choked on a laugh. She’d heard that one enough in her life to get the joke. “No, Quick’s her name. Sorry.”

“I figured, dear. Just having a little fun. But there’s no one here by that name.”

“No one?” Ronnie was crestfallen. Had she been wrong?

“We do have a Winnie DuBois, if that helps,” the woman said.

Her mother’s maiden name.

Ronnie shivered. “Which one is her room?”

“Down the end of the hall, but she’s … not all there in the head, I’m afraid. Been here a long time …”

One of the younger women of Symons’s flock, a blond whose name was Heaven— figured —raced back with Harley, both of them carrying blankets and towels. The others were rounding up their children, excited but staying back.

The loud squall Harley heard as they appeared back in the church, brought her to a skidding stop at the end of the aisle. Cooper was holding a wet, purple baby with a thick umbilical cord coiling from its stomach that reached beneath Mary Jo’s now blood-stained skirt.

“It’s a boy,” Cooper said with a grin, handing the child to Heaven as she reached him and wrapped the child in a blanket before settling him back in Cooper’s arms.

Ronnie’s throat felt like it was closing in on itself. She said to the birdlike woman, “I just want to … meet her.”

The woman lifted one arm to point with a bony finger. “Last door next to the exit.”

Ronnie looked down the long hallway. At its end was a door with a window in its upper half where she could see the sun shining through the rain, creating a faint double rainbow across a side parking lot.

“Well look at that,” the hunched woman said. “You must bring good luck.” She turned back around and said, “Those cookies are a menace,” as she thumped her way toward them.

Ronnie walked down the hallway toward the rainbow, which was swallowed up by a gray cloud before she reached the door. She felt the buzz and tingle of an oncoming vision and placed her hand flat on the panel of the door.

“… All for one and one for all,” the young and vibrant woman said, smiling down on a girl’s light brown head. “And that’s all for us tonight,” she added, closing the book.

“Noooo,” the girl moaned, but was half asleep as her mother slid her beneath the bed covers and kissed her on her forehead.

She opened her eyes to see her mother standing in the doorway, switching off the light. Silhouetted in the illumination from the hall, a dark, somewhat scary figure, she said fiercely, “I love you, Veronica. Remember that when I’m gone.”

Ronnie came to with a gasp, her limbs trembling, her hand still on the door panel. It felt like she’d been shouted at. Was that really Mom? Had she really said that to her? Had she known she would be leaving … or falling prey to her disease?

“Excuse me!”

Ronnie looked back down the hall from where she’d come. A woman stood there, and something about the way she was standing, something officious and stern, fist on one hip, assured Ronnie that she wasn’t welcome to just drop in.

Ronnie didn’t wait. She let herself into the room, closing the door behind her.

A slim, shrunken woman with wild gray hair nearly swallowed up in an armchair, turned to look at her, through blue eyes a mirror of Ronnie’s own.

“Mom?” Ronnie choked out, feeling lightheaded.

The woman stared at her for a long minute, several long minutes, as a matter of fact, long enough for the stern hallway-woman’s footsteps to come striding toward the door. She knocked loudly as soon as she was there and called imperiously, “Winnie? I’m coming in.”

Ronnie had just half a second to move or be hit by the incoming door.

She jumped to one side as her mother winked at her and put her finger to her lips.

Then the Seagull Pointe administrator, Ronnie guessed by the navy blazer, tan slacks and flat line of her mouth, entered the room and fixed her hard gaze on Ronnie.

“Ma’am, you didn’t sign in and you don’t have a visitor’s tag. ”

“There was no one at the desk when I got here.”

“Who are you here to see?”

Ronnie hesitated, afraid if she said something wrong she would be tossed out.

Tell the truth.

She glanced at the woman in the chair. Had that come from her or her own mind?

“Who are you here to see?” the administrator repeated coolly.

“Wynona DuBois Quick,” Ronnie answered. Then turned to the diminutive gray-haired woman in the chair whose eyes were on her.

“Hi … Mom,” Ronnie said with a tentative smile.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered back.

Harley felt slightly woozy and sat down hard on one of the wooden pews. “I see that it’s a boy,” she told Cooper.

“I’ll go get scissors,” said Heaven.

“Should I call for an ambulance?” Harley felt overwhelmed. She had a brother. A brother!

Mary Jo was lying flat out on the floor now. But she tilted her head back and looked at Harley from the tops of her eyes. “Could you call my husband, too?” she asked.

“Sure,” Harley told her and Mary Jo gave her the number. It was surreal.

She placed both calls and told Stephen Kirshner that his wife had just given birth. His voice thick with emotion, he asked if he could speak with Mary Jo, and Harley handed the cell to her.

Harley was unabashedly listening in to their call when Heaven came back with scissors.

Some of the other women hovered by the hallway door.

She could hear them whispering how they wanted to be with Rebekkah.

She wanted to argue that Mary Jo was not Rebekkah, but didn’t really have the energy.

And Mary Jo seemed to have stabilized some, which was an unexpected plus.

At least that’s what it sounded like for the moment.

She was almost moved by the tenderness in Mary Jo’s voice as she spoke with her husband.

Which made her think of her boyfriend, who she’d been shunting aside lately, not because she didn’t love him, but because …

She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Because she felt unsettled, uncertain, uncomfortable in her place in the family?

She shook her head and texted Greer: Just got a new baby brother! Wanna celebrate?

The text came back immediately. Yes! Congrats! What’s his name?

Not a clue.

When can I meet Not a Clue?

She smiled. Everybody’s a comedian, she thought, but the smile stayed on her face as the doors to the vestibule opened wide and the EMTs arrived.

“She is not your mother,” Myrna Gerling stated firmly. “Winnie has no living relatives. She was placed under the care of Seagull Pointe over twenty-five years ago with a trust fund that pays for her care.”

“Who’s in charge of the trust fund?” demanded Ronnie. She’d been practically marched down to the reception area and Myrna, the apparent boss-lady of all boss-ladies, didn’t appreciate Ronnie’s “sneaking” into the facility and approaching one of their residents.

“ We are in charge of it,” Myrna made clear. “And our accountant has been very wise in his approach to keeping the trust funded and solvent.”

“Who put in the seed money? Jonas Quick? Katarina DuBois? Both of them?”

“Winnie doesn’t do well with visitors,” she responded evenly.

They were both standing in the building foyer, squared off. “She seems to be doing okay,” said Ronnie. “You heard her say she’s been waiting for me.”

“She says that to everyone.” Gerling had traded annoyance for long suffering. “Now she’ll be upset and walking the halls.”

“I’m going to talk to her,” Ronnie told her firmly.

“Don’t make me call security. Please.”

“Then let me see her.”

Myrna Gerling looked pained. “I see you really believe you’re her daughter. If you care what happens to her, you’ll listen to me. She has dementia and she wanders. And she sees things.”

Ronnie could have guessed that one. She saw things, too. “My DNA’s on file,” she said dryly. “If you need a test, we can do that.”

Gerling’s lips pursed. Ronnie knew that she was really irritating the boss-lady, but she had no patience for all the rules that were keeping her from her mother.

“Fine.” Gerling spit out the word as if it tasted bad.

She led Ronnie back down the hall, taking her time on this go-around. No striding footsteps. More like a stroll along the carpeted expanse.

About ten feet from her mother’s door, Ronnie was forced to stop when Gerling did. She had a small set of keys in one hand, car keys, by the look of them, and she fingered them and tossed them around, a habit that she clearly used in order to think.

“I’ll go in with you. Let me do the talking. See if she responds. And we’ll go from there.”

Ronnie nodded. Rebellion lived inside her and she had no intention of complying, but sure. Go ahead, Myrna. If that gets me in the door again.

“Winnie, how are you?” Myrna asked in a saccharine voice as she opened the door, pinning a fake smile on lips that naturally formed a downward curve.

Ronnie slipped in and moved around her so she could be seen.

Mom’s blue eyes looked Ronnie’s way. She blinked several times as Myrna went on to introduce her as a friend who just happened to drop by Seagull Pointe and was checking in with all the residents.

“We already met,” Ronnie cut in to remind her mother. “About half an hour ago. I’m your daughter, Veronica. Remember?”

“Excuse me!” Gerling glared at her.

“She doesn’t want me to tell you,” Ronnie went on, hooking a thumb toward Myrna. When there was no reaction, she added a bit desperately, “She thinks it might upset you. I didn’t know you were even here till today, or I would have been here much, much sooner!”

“Winnie, are you all right?” Gerling moved to block eye contact between Ronnie and her mother.

“Tell her you want to talk to me!” Ronnie practically yelled, grasping at straws.

“I want to talk to her,” came the clear response.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea—” began Gerling.

“I WANT TO TALK TO HER.”

Gerling drew a disapproving breath and straightened to her full height, turning baleful eyes on Ronnie. “Ten minutes,” she ordered, and moved toward the door but didn’t leave.

Mom tracked Gerling’s movements with slightly unfocused eyes, but said clearly, “ALONE.”

Gerling looked nonplused. Clearly this had never happened to her before. “I’ll be right outside the door.” As soon as there was a click, Ronnie knelt down in front of her mother’s chair.

“I’m your grown daughter. Veronica. Ronnie. Do you remember me as a little girl?”

“Ronnie,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yes, Ronnie. Maybe you called me Veronica. I don’t know. I don’t know enough about you.” When she didn’t respond, she added, “I think I have your ‘gift,’ too. Or, something like it.”

A frown furrowed her brow, deepening the lines across her forehead.

“It’s hard for me to control. I don’t know if it can be,” she admitted. “I’m learning to deal with—”

“It killed me. He said it ‘stole’ me.”

Ronnie drew a startled breath. “Who? Jonas? My father?” A dark frisson ran down her spine.

“You don’t have it.”

“The … gift?”

“You don’t have it!” she repeated, those blue eyes suddenly cutting to Ronnie’s. “You don’t have it like me, but you have to be careful. You fell in the water. DON’T GO IN THE WATER!”

She said it so loudly that Ronnie jerked back, startled. “Are you the one warning me? That’s from you?”

Her mother cocked a head and said, “I can hear the ocean sometimes. If you can hear the ocean, you’re safe.”

“You feel safe here?” That, at least, was something.

Her mother leaned forward and crooked her finger to Ronnie. A little smile hovered around her lips. Ronnie bent toward her, her pulse running light and fast.

“Tell the truth,” her mother said, echoing the words that had pierced Ronnie’s mind earlier, maybe a thought driven by her mother?

Ronnie was literally holding her breath as she waited to hear what she was about to say.

“You’re the one who made the cookies,” she whispered in Ronnie’s ear.

Ronnie leaned back, disappointed. She shook her head sadly.

Her mother’s strange little smile disappeared and she stared at Ronnie blankly. “Who are you?” she asked in a frightened voice.