“The Empress and the World in one reading? Come on. You can’t pay to have the deck shuffle out like that. This one’s gonna stick.”

“It’s not velcro, Mary. It’s a baby,” I can’t help but snap.

“I know that, Cat. It’s my job to read the cards. That’s what I do.”

I take a deep breath and force my face to relax. “You told her to tell him. Did you mean her doctor?”

“No, her husband. She was afraid he’d freak when he found out. Probably because she’ll have to get off her medication now. Well, she already is technically.” She grabs a dish towel to dry her hands.

I nearly bite my tongue in half trying not to react to the fact that my mom is counseling people to get off their medication and never once, in her entire reading, did she mention seeing a doctor. I comfort myself with the thought that Nan is probably on her way to the nearest ob-gyn office as we speak. “So, you had one too?”

“One what?” She looks alarmed by my question. The color drains from her face.

“A miscarriage.” Did she think I meant a sexual assault?

Mom drops her dishcloth. She didn’t realize I’d heard. “Once.” Her voice is pinched, like air slowly escaping a balloon where the end is being pressed together.

I think of the picture. Sure didn’t look like a miscarriage to me. “How far along were you?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Far. It was a long time ago.”

“Before me.”

“That’s right,” she says quietly. “Before you.”

If I’d wanted confirmation the baby in the picture was hers, I think I just got it. “Was it…I mean, did we have the same father?” I venture.

Her eyes cloud over. “No.” Her lips pinch around the word, clipping it off.

There’s something about this baby that pains her above and beyond its loss. Something she is not saying. “It’s just, I don’t really know anything about my dad.”

She looks at me with a serious expression. “Neither do I. I remember him—how tall he was and how good he smelled and the way he spun me around the dance floor of the honky-tonk where I met him. We had a glorious night together. And that was it. And then came you. I never knew how to find him. Never even knew his last name. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Her face lights up on the word “glorious.” She smiles in spite of herself. I like knowing he is a good memory at least. “Was it the same with the other baby—the one you lost?”