“Are you saying I’ve wasted my life? I think what you’re saying is you don’t want to end up like me. Come on. I’m not like you. I don’t have that gift. But I know things—I see how you look at me. I know you think I ruined your life, okay?”

“I want to find her, Des. My mother.” My voice sounded small, like a little girl making a wish on an eyelash.

She took another swig and some of the wine dribbled down her chin. “She’s gone, okay? Anyone who could have been a mother to you is gone and doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That’s not true. I’ll find her,” I said, knowing that my voice was uncertain, weak.

“You never had a vision about your mother, huh? Limits to your talents, maybe?” There was a dangerous edge to her voice, a mean smile curling the corners of her lips, and I was looking directly at something that I had tried very hard, for a very long time, not to see. “You want to go to your mother? Fine, but there’s something you’ll want to know first.” She reached for a stack of papers that had been behind her on the bed. “Trust me, you’re not going to like what you see.”

I shook my head. “You just want to keep me here with you so you don’t have to be miserable all by yourself. You want me to be unhappy, too.”

“You want to talk unhappy? She’s crazy, Clara! Okay? Your mother. She has been for a long time. She had a gift but it was like she had … too much. It made her head go all wrong. It started before she even left Atlantic City. It got worse around the time you were born. I told her she needed to get help and instead she up and ran away. For a long time she was like you, and then she just went haywire. Or maybe she saw something that made her brain go bad. Either way, I can tell you that she needs more help than you or I do.” She’s wrong, I told myself. She’s just lying again. This is just one more of her tricks.

“Here,” she said. “Have at it.” She pushed the letters against my chest, and I had to clutch at them so they wouldn’t fall. “I’ve been watching you lately, and something’s up with you. You twitch. You hear things that aren’t there. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you are just like her.”

I always knew when Des was lying, so I could tell that she wasn’t just angry. She meant what she said. She had thought it all along, those times I flinched, felt the creep of the flies, and she narrowed her eyes at me. What if she was right?