We are both stuck, he and I, hanging by a thread. Perhaps everyone is, they just don’t see it. “Did you know my great-great-grandmother Madora Charles? Are you why we are the way we are?”

I have included myself in our family lineup of troubled women: Madora, Helen…Moony may not have been hospitalized, but she certainly had some deep-seated issues as it turns out. My mother is more obvious. And me. I don’t know what I am yet—gifted, deranged, normal. But I am beginning not to care. Moony tried so hard not to be like her own mother that she broke herself and her daughter. I don’t want to make Moony’s same mistakes as much as I don’t want to make Mary’s. I want to make my own. I want to surrender to my fate.

He stares at me, eyes like hard candies. “I don’t really have that kind of power.”

“I know.” It feels good to walk away.

That night, I sit by the fountain after a day of futile searching. I text Daniel. I don’t ask him over again, but I blush when I remember. His text back echoes my feelings. Dreaming of you…

I text Gary. He hasn’t heard from her. I decide to take a chance. It’s the last card I know to play.

A soft voice answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Dr. Angela? Is this Angela Murray?”

“Speaking. Who’s calling?”

“You don’t know me, but I think my mom may be a patient of yours. Her name is Mary Rush. I’m her daughter, Cat.”

There is a long pause and then she says, “Mary Rush?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re her daughter?”

I don’t have time to repeat myself. My frustration mounts. “Yes. Her daughter, Catia. You’re her doctor, right? Her psychiatrist?”

“I am,” she admits. “But Mary never told me she had a daughter.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that. I suck air for a moment. “My grandmother raised me. I only just came to live with her a few months ago after my grandmother died.”

“I see.”

“I think something is wrong,” I tell her. “I don’t know who else to call.”

“How so?”

“My mom didn’t come home last night. It’s been twenty-four hours now. I don’t know where she is. She isn’t answering her phone,” I push it out all in a jumble.

There is a pause, and then a soft, deciding breath. “Cat, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I haven’t seen your mother in some time. Several months, in fact. She missed her appointment in April and didn’t reschedule. I left her a voice mail—many.”