Blinded by all the lives playing out in my mind’s eye, I feel Lucio take my hand and squeeze. “One at a time,” he repeats. “One at a time.” He says it over and over again like a chant. Finally he adds, “Play to your strengths. Use your empathy.”
I take a deep breath and seek out the woman with the white hair, training my gaze on her hair, the way it’s swept away from her face into a tight bun. Her name is Estella. She died in her sleep a few months after her ninety-eighth birthday. She had two children and two grandchildren. Her eldest daughter died when Estella was in her seventies, and she has been waiting to see her again ever since. She loved her life, but she did not fear death because she believed her daughter was waiting.
I gasp as another life flashes before my eyes. A man who died in a horrible accident with a chain saw, the half of his face he still has left stares at me, trying to get my attention.
No. Think about Estella. Only Estella. I reach out my arms and draw her toward me.
Estella. I touch her, and her spirit washes over me like water, and then through me. Suddenly I am at peace.
And just as suddenly, all is turmoil again.
“You’re not supposed to do that,” Aidan snaps. But I can’t concentrate on anything—not Lucio’s voice saying one at a time or Aidan’s voice, so clearly displeased. The spirits are all over me again, begging me to help them like I just helped Estella.
The cold is overwhelming, and the spirit whirlwind is only getting stronger, pulling one direction and then another. I manage to make my way out into the hallway. Lucio and Aidan follow, Aidan slamming the lab’s door shut behind him.
Almost immediately the peaceful sensation comes back.
“You helped that woman move on,” Aidan says sourly.
“I know!” I can’t help it. I’m grinning.
“That’s not our goal here!” Aidan looks furious.
“But I’ve never done that before! Never been able to concentrate on just one spirit when there were a dozen more asking for my attention.”
“What were you two talking about, use your empathy?” Aidan asks finally.
Lucio answers, “We thought that perhaps you’d—we’d—been thinking about it backward. Sunshine can use her sensitivity to her advantage.”
“What advantage can there possibly be in being unable to focus?”
“But maybe this time it was what allowed her to focus,” Lucio counters. I nod vigorously.
Aidan raises a single eyebrow, just like I do when I’m feeling skeptical. I bet this is the first time Lucio has ever come up against Aidan when it comes to his research. Aidan cracks his knuckles out of frustration. “We already know that helping multiple spirits move on isn’t Sunshine’s strong suit. That’s not what we’re working on anymore!”
“Maybe not,” Lucio agrees, still not backing down. “But you have to let us celebrate the fact that she did it. I mean, at the very least, it shows how much stronger she’s gotten since she arrived here, right?”
Aidan looks like one of the doctors Mom’s always complaining about, the ones who are too distracted by the facts and figures written on the chart in their hands to notice the progress the patient in front of them is making. They’re the doctors who give up hope too soon, she always said. The ones who don’t take the human spirit into account.
For the first time I realize that Mom—my scientific, rational, skeptical mom—has been talking about the human spirit for years! I just never noticed it before. Maybe believing in me—in all of this—wasn’t as hard for her as I thought it would be. Maybe some part of her believed in it all along, even if she didn’t know what to call it or that her own daughter had anything to do with it.
“You two don’t understand,” Aidan sighs finally, waving us away and sticking his hands in his pockets. “We’ll talk later.”
“Her name was Estella,” I explain as we emerge into the sunlight. Lucio takes off his sweatshirt immediately, tying it around his waist. He’s wearing a bright blue sleeveless T-shirt and the same cargo shorts he pretty much always wears. He’s the first person I’ve ever met who dresses as colorfully as I do. Luiseach thing, I guess.
“What happens to you after you help a spirit move on?” I ask. “Are you able to remember anything about their lives?”
Lucio shrugs. “They all kind of blend together. I definitely don’t remember details like when they were born or—”
“December sixth.” I interrupt.
“What?”
“December sixth was Estella’s birthday.” Lucio looks at me incredulously, and I shrug. “I can’t help it,” I say finally. “Much as Aidan might want me to.”
Lucio shakes his head, then runs his fingers over his scalp, his parents’ names dancing on his finger.
“About last night . . .” he begins.
“You’re not going to use that old line, are you?” I say, but my joke falls flat.
“I just wanted you to know that I don’t mind waiting.”
“Waiting?”