I’d spent the last year shutting her out. Keeping her away from my secrets. Maybe it was out of some noble idea of protecting her. Maybe I thought she was too fragile to handle it. Or maybe the real reason I’d kept her in the dark was because I worried that she’d be afraid of what I’d become.
But as much as I’d grown and changed recently, no matter how strong my powers made me—I knew now that I still needed her.
But would she still want me?
It took what little strength was left inside of me after the failed power transfer to muster up the courage to do what I did next: I stretched my fingers out to push the Up button, then waited for the ding of the elevator doors. As much as I dreaded what was about to happen, I knew what needed to be done. It was time to tell my mother…well, everything.
Chapter Eight
INSIDE OUT
UP THE ELEVATOR
An old beige phone hung on the wall outside the locked psych-ward door. A sign instructed me to pick it up and dial a number for assistance. “I’m here to see Meredith Divine,” I told the nurse who answered. I hung up the receiver as the door buzzed and swung open on a mechanical arm. I took a few steps into the ward and was greeted by a wide hallway with pale green walls, the smells of stale vending machine candy and ammonia, and another sign that read, high flight risk area. ensure door closes completely.
I did as I was told and watched as the large door closed behind me. I felt a sudden impulse to pull it open again—and make a run for the parking lot.
I can’t do this.
The handleless door locked with a heavy click. It was too late to turn back now. I’d have to visit the nurses’ desk to get the door opened again. I might as well ask about my mother.
I made my way down the hallway, passing a young woman perched on a bench that looked like it should have been replaced sometime in the 1980s. She braided a long lock of her hair in front of her face, rocking back and forth. I entered the main area of the ward and signed in at the desk. I could see a glassed-in room where a group of people sat in a circle of chairs. A man dressed in khakis and a button-up shirt seemed to be leading some sort of discussion. Everyone else was dressed in plain gray sweats, like the woman I’d passed in the hallway. Patients, I assumed.
“You said you’re here for Meredith Divine?” asked the woman behind the desk. Her name tag said latisha. Her eyes held a look of recognition in them when she said my mother’s name.
Before Mom started to lose it, she’d been a nurse at an outpatient psych clinic in Apple Valley, but sometimes she’d filled in here at the main treatment center, whenever Dr. Connors needed substitute staff. I’m sure there had been a lot of talk among the ward nurses about one of their own being a patient now. That kind of gossip would have killed my mother if she were fully with it. Reputation had meant everything to her.
I nodded. “I don’t have to see her, though … if this is a bad time. It looks like there’s a group meeting going on.”
“Nonsense, girl,” Latisha said. “Meredith isn’t in group, and a visitor is just what the doctor ordered.”
“Indeed it is,” Dr. Connors said as he came up to me. He held a clipboard in his hands and wore a long white coat over a sweater and slacks—the same sweater he’d worn to our family’s ill-fated Thanksgiving dinner last year. He smiled warmly down at me, but his eyes told a much graver story. “How’s your father doing? I called down to check on him earlier, but I’ve been unable to make it down there personally.”
“Same as earlier.”
“I see.” He cleared his throat.
“Has she asked to go down to see him?”
“No. I was hoping that…” He cleared his throat again and tucked a pen into the top of his clipboard. “Walk with me, Grace.”
I took a few strides in the direction he led me, until I realized we were headed toward the patient rooms rather than the visiting area. I still wasn’t sure I was ready for this. Dr. Connors glanced back at me expectantly. I swallowed my apprehension and fell into step with him.