I kept my windows down for fresh air, the mountain road curving here and there, tight, one lane, my mind back on Marco, then on Johnny and Betsy and the dinner tonight. I was excited to see them. I was worried. I was a tad-bit anxious. I was feeling tearful already, and emotional, and all fizzled up inside. Like an almost-exploding can of pop that had not been opened yet.

Betsy. Johnny. Kayla. My aunt Tilly. All of them. New family. What would they be like? Would they like me? Would I like them? What role would they have in my life going forward? What did they want? What did I want?

Tonight we would meet at a restaurant in town.

I took the curve, mountain on my right, the cliff to my left. Orange poppies. So pretty. My mother and aunts love them, and not only because of my mother’s name. They love the delicacy of that flower, how it grows without help, how it flows into the meadows here on the island, around ponds and lakes, like an orange shawl . . . and yet those flowers had haunted me my whole life because . . . because . . .

“Oh, God,” I whispered, shocked, scared. “Oh no. Not now, please, not now.”

I took the turn, and there it was.

My premonition. My oldest premonition. The one in which one of us died.

Probably.

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Betsy Baturra
San Orcanita Island
2012

Betsy glanced at the cliff below her to the right as she drove around the curve, her windows halfway down, the wind warm. San Orcanita Island was the most serene, peaceful place she’d ever been, but she knew it was because her daughter was here, her daughter Rose. She smiled, then she laughed, the notes dancing through the open window and out around the blue-green island. She could not wait for dinner tonight with her daughter. Her daughter!

She and Johnny, Tilly, and Kayla had come to the island on an early ferry and had breakfast in town. They took a drive to the bucolic blue lake at the campground and hiked the two-mile loop. Then Johnny wanted to go back to their bed-and-breakfast “for a nap, to rest my bones.” Kayla and Tilly wanted to shop in town. Betsy had wanted to take a drive, to explore this exquisite place where her Rose lived. She drove up the mountain, away from the lake, the road curving, the view of the ocean sparkling, the sailboats white dots between the other green islands.

She saw the orange poppies growing on the side of the road. She had always loved poppies, but they had haunted her all these years because she knew they were in the premonition that she’d had her whole life, knowing that it meant death. Probably.

Her hands suddenly gripped the steering wheel. She felt as if she was choking.

“Oh no,” she said out loud, realizing what was happening. “Oh, God, no. Not now, please.”