Chapter Forty-Four
W hen we returned to Mum’s room, Lina looked like she’d seen a ghost. Which probably was the case, considering her line of work. I stiffly moved toward the blue couch that had become an integral part of my life. Alix and Sadie muttered their quick goodbyes and scurried along, giving me privacy.
Lina took the recliner opposite me, and Tate sat beside me.
“I’ve spoken with your mother, Gia. Not with her spirit guide but directly with her .”
I blinked, not really sure what that meant.
“This is rare,” she explained. “I didn’t expect it.”
“How come?” I tucked my hands under my bum.
“I can usually make a connection directly with people only after they are deceased. This means your mother’s soul is almost fully detached from her body. The two are barely integrated anymore. Because her soul is no longer trapped inside her body, I was able to speak directly to it.”
“Does this mean she’s dead?”
“Almost.” Lina glanced over her shoulder at Mum as if contemplating something. “Our line of connection was very strong. Probably the strongest I’ve had in my entire career.”
“Mum has always been chatty.”
“We spoke in Spanish,” Lina said. “I told her I speak it. I spent a few summers in Spain. She missed speaking Spanish.”
I smiled softly. Mum spoke Spanish whenever she could. Elliott and I spoke it with her.
“She told me you lost your father and your brother a few years ago. It was why she struggled with letting go and leaving Earth. She was very worried about you.”
My gaze snapped to Tate in shock. Did he tell her the details of my family’s tragedy? He shook his head, understanding my unspoken question.
If he didn’t tell her, how did she know? This information wasn’t readily available. Still, I was skeptical. She must’ve found out somehow. Maybe Alix and Sadie said something while I was gone.
“She said you’ve always taken care of everyone around you,” Lina continued. “That you stayed in this job so you could take care of her and send money to her sister, who is struggling financially.”
“Yes. My aunt has a chronic illness.”
Dread made way for panic. If this was legitimate, what else did this Lina woman find out?
“Gia, your mother has been ready to leave for months now,” Lina said quietly. “She stayed because of you.”
“What made her change her mind?” I sniffled. “To disconnect her soul from her body?”
“She said things are different now.” Lina’s eyes darted to Tate. “One of the things she mentioned was that she found out you had a husband. She approves of him. She said he takes care of you. She trusts him to pick up the pieces she’ll leave behind.”
My face heated. I still didn’t know what to believe. This could all be a setup by Tate.
“You think I’m a fraud, don’t you?” Lina studied me with a small, knowing smile. She didn’t seem upset by her own observation.
“I’m more of a science girl.” I smiled apologetically. “Numbers. Physics. That sort of thing. Mum was the spiritual one.”
“Ah yes.” Lina smiled. “She mentioned that. In fact, she told me you would probably be very skeptical. Which was why she told me to tell you…” She looked down at her hands. “ Al mal tiempo, buena cara.”
To bad weather, a good face.
An expression my mother often used when life was difficult. The general meaning was to stay positive. To have hope.
Just survive this, and all will be well.
My heart flapped in my chest like a fish out of water.
I believed Lina. I didn’t know who she was talking to really. Maybe her own intuition. But I found my mother in that conversation.
Scooting forward on the couch, I gasped. “Why is she still clinging to life then? Obviously, she saw that I’m married and taken care of.”
“Well, of course, she doesn’t want to die in this drab robe!” Lina threw a hand in Mum’s general direction, her expression scandalized. “She wants to go fashionably. To die the way she lived. She gave me instructions. Write this down.”
She snapped her fingers, and I sprang into action, taking out my phone and opening my notepad.
“She wants to go a certain way. And by the way, she is horrified that you’ve let so many strangers see her looking like this.
” Lina clucked her tongue disapprovingly.
“She wants you to put her in the asymmetric Zimmermann organza silk dress, the one with the Havana, and the buckled silk Manolo Blahniks.”
I typed her instructions fast. I was now 100 percent sure this wasn’t a setup. Mum loved pairing the two together. They were the same shade of rose gold.
“What else?” I looked up from my phone.
“She wants you to color her hair. She doesn’t want any grays when she passes on to the next life, and for heaven’s sake, style it. Her hair is frizzy from all the times you brushed it!”
Laughter burst out of me, and my eyes brimmed with tears. “Okay. Got that down. No more brushing. What else?”
“Full face of makeup, of course.”
“What shade of lipstick?” I asked. Mum had about twenty of them, all a different hue of red.
“Gucci’s ruby.”
I nodded. “Good choice. Anything else?”
“That’s mostly it.” Lina tapped her lower lip with a French-manicured fingernail.
“She wants this to happen sooner rather than later. She’s ready, Gia.
I think she’s been ready for longer than you can imagine.
She pushed through for you. But you are okay now.
You have someone to take care of you.” Her eyes crinkled, sweeping to Tate.
“Someone who would go to great lengths for you.”
Tate’s expression was impenetrable. He stared forward rigidly, like a queen’s guard.
The weight of her words pressed like a boot against my solar plexus.
Could someone broken put another person together?
I guessed we had to wait and see.
Five hours later, my mother was clad in her favorite attire. Her makeup was flawlessly done the way she liked it—applied meticulously by yours truly—and her shiny coal hair was swept and pinned into elegant perfection, still oozing the pungent scent of ammonia hydroxide.
She looked beautiful, and I was glad she asked for this. It gave me a chance to take one last look at her as the woman I adored. Since she was already made up fully as per her instructions, I had time to ask Filippo to go to Walgreens and get me clear nail polish.
I didn’t miss Enzo’s gaze or the way he played with that knife so expertly, reminding me he could make a Birkin out of my skin without batting an eyelash. “Dude, you knocked it outta the park. She’s beautiful.”
Tate did not leave my side. We operated in silence, him watching my every move and me clasping Mum’s cold hand in mine, painting her nails, which were thin, overgrown, and stacked with vertical ridges.
My back was to my husband when he said, “When was the last time you saw her chest move?”
I lifted my head from the third coat of nail polish I was applying. “Pardon?”
“Her chest.” He swung his gaze from his phone, perched on the incliner. “She hasn’t inhaled in over a minute.”
“You’ve been…monitoring?”
“My marriage kind of depends on it.”
I placed two fingers to Mum’s cold throat, where her pulse should thrum. I waited, the silence in the room thumping between my ears.
“I feel nothing,” I swallowed.
“Welcome to my world,” he murmured.
“No, Tate, I think she’s…” I couldn’t utter the rest. “Come look.”
He placed his phone on the arm of the recliner and stood. His fingers gently brushed mine as he checked my mother’s pulse grimly. I stared up at him, tears clinging to my lower lashes.
One second chased the other. I knew he wasn’t feeling any pulse. Finally, he removed his fingers from her neck. Closed her eyes with a gentleness I didn’t think he possessed. Produced his pocket watch to check the time. “I’m sorry, Gia.”
I buried my face in the rich layers of organza in her lap, heaving a panicked yelp. She was well and truly gone.
I wept in Mum’s lap while Tate stood quietly behind me.
Every now and again, I thought about how, not too long ago, he’d lost a parent too and didn’t have the privilege of hugging him one last time.
I’d played a big part in him losing the only human who ever loved him, and he graciously forgave me for that.
Dr. Fields peered through the crack in the door, accompanied by a nurse. He rapped gently. “I promised you a checkup…”
He didn’t complete the sentence.
Tate invited them in, relaying the last few hours’ events with Lina. They spoke about the arrangements ahead, and I was glad my husband was there, because I couldn’t produce one word.
Mum was wheeled out of the room looking like an old-school movie star. A grand finale worthy of the dazzling woman she was.
Tate made some calls but kept one eye on me.
The drive back home was a blur as I came to terms with my new reality.
I was alone, my entire family was gone, and the only person whose destiny was tied with mine was a coldhearted murderer.
Till death do us part.