I keep reading. Her name is Madora Charles. She was working as a medium and spiritualist in St. Louis at the time and had quite a following, even gaining admittance into the upper echelons of society. She was known for her card readings and table tipping, and the grand seances she held in the private homes of wealthy clients. But she was also known for being a little unhinged. The article calls her eccentric and hysterical. After a multitude of public outbursts, she attacked her husband outside a Woolworths and had to be dragged away by local police. At the end of his rope, Mr. Charles agreed to have her committed to a nearby psychiatric hospital, though it’s clear he profited from the connections she established in her trade before she became unmanageable. The final sentence is on the tragic child left behind—a baby girl born only eighteen months before.

I read the article three more times, drinking it in. Finally, I look back up to study her picture, and that’s when I see the important detail I’d missed earlier. She is sitting, turned at an angle toward the camera, her smart black suit forming an armor of elegance around her. It is against the dark fabric of her skirt that I can just make out a fan of cards, peeking from one darkly gloved hand. Even though I can only see the corners, they are unmistakable. I know it’s my deck because apparently there’s only one like it in the world.

XXVII.

THERE IS A SCRATCH AT THE DOOR AND THE KNOB TURNS. I scramble instinctively to shove all the stuff back in the bin, but the door swings open before I can get everything in. The newspaper clipping is still clutched in my right hand. My mother stumbles inside, laughing, a bevy of multicolored shopping bags dangling off her arms, Gary at her heels. I freeze.

Mary takes one look at me, and the smile drops from her face like the last autumn leaf from a tree. She releases the bags. They thud against the floor. “Cat.”

I look around the chaos of the room. Wasn’t she supposed to be cleaning out? Instead, she comes home with more. It’s not a point worth making at the moment. I hand the article to her with shaking hands.

She takes it, looks down, and slowly folds it back up. She walks to the kitchen, sets it absently on the counter, and reaches in the fridge for a beer.

Gary looks lost, like a small child who’s just been dropped off at a shopping mall all alone.

My mother takes a long drink of her beer.

“Mom?”

“You shouldn’t be touching my things.” Her voice strikes my heart like a shard, chilling me from within.

“I live here too. And they’re kind of hard to miss.”