“Why didn’t you both go?”

“Mom said only one of us could, the other had to help clean up from dinner while we waited for the ice cream delivery. That night ruined her life and took away theirs.”

“You were a kid who wanted dessert,” Sylvie says gently. “What happened next was an accident. You’re not responsible. They don’t blame you.”

Despite everything, this woman is kind. “Deacan didn’t get to live his dream.”

“You can’t live it for him.”

“If not me, then who?”

She shakes her head. “None of them want that.”

She doesn’t understand. I have to ask, “With everything you’ve remembered about your childhood, how can you still believe you’re a psychic-medium?”

“There will always be people like you. Doubters. And I will always wonder at times if I’m an impostor. It’s true,” Sylvie admits, “I do. But there are moments of clarity, unexplainable and pure, when I’m certain.”

Residual anger from growing up with my mother sparks within me. “So what you do is entirely selfless?”

Sylvie nibbles her lower lip, considers. “You’re right, what I do isn’t entirely selfless. It fills me in a way I can’t really explain.” Her eyes shine. “But I do help people. And I’m willing to face critics who don’t have faith, who despise me, want to humiliate and ruin me, for the opportunity to help the ones that do believe and need me.”

“I don’t want to humiliate you.”

“But you can’t believe.”

“No.”

Sylvie is quiet for a bit, and when she finally speaks, her voice is resigned. “Still, we actually are on the same side.”

“How so?”

“We both want the truth.”

“What if it destroys you?”

She presses her palm to my cheek. “What if it doesn’t?”

Maybe it’s Sylvie’s honesty or the fact that I’m raw from the past forty-eight hours, her childhood story, Chris’s diagnosis . . . I bring her hand to my mouth and press the soft skin inside her wrist to my lips. She watches me, preternaturally still, a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

I find my voice and say, “This can’t be about my article.”

Sylvie half smiles. “Thomas, are you trying to make another deal with me?”

I hold her wrist, where the pulse beats a steady tap beneath my fingertips. I’m the one that’s afraid. I should sleep on the couch. Instead I throw the pillow between us to the floor. She moves closer, until our bodies are inches apart, lips close enough to share breath. “This shouldn’t happen.”

“Why not?” Sylvie asks.

I snort. “Should I list the reasons?”

“Give me your number one.”

“It’s not fair,” I say.

“To whom?”

“You.”

She laughs, musical as wind chimes, and the skin around her eyes crinkles with genuine mirth. “I could say the same thing.”

“What’s your number one reason?” I ask.

“You might fall in love with me.”

I chuckle. “And that would be a bad thing.”

One corner of her mouth crooks up. “Very bad.”