“What’s a medium?” Sarah asked with a confused frown.

“That’s what you call the spiritualist who conducts the séance. Kathy heard about this medium who is able to speak to the dead-”

“Mother!” Sarah cried in dismay. “No one can speak to the dead.”

“I knew you’d be judgmental. I asked you specifically-”

“All right, all right,” Sarah said, lifting her hands in surrender. “Go on. She heard about this… this medium person.”

“So she went to see her. Madame Serafina, that’s her name. She was able to contact Kathy’s sister.”

This was all so ridiculous that Sarah didn’t even know where to begin. She drew a fortifying breath and tried not to be uncharitable on top of being judgmental. “Are you saying that this… this medium person-”

“Madame Serafina,” her mother supplied.

“Madame Serafina,” Sarah repeated dutifully. “That she was able to speak to Mrs. Burke’s dead sister?”

“Well, not directly, you understand. She apparently has a spirit guide who speaks to those who have passed to the other side.”

Sarah rubbed her forehead where a knifelike pain was pulsing. How she wished her mother had chosen to have this conversation on a day when Sarah had had a full night’s sleep beforehand. “Mother,” she tried patiently, “this isn’t possible. We can’t speak to the dead.”

“Of course we can’t,” her mother readily agreed. “That’s why you need a spirit guide to do it for you.”

Sarah stared at her mother in disbelief. Had she lost her senses? “Why on earth would you want to talk to the dead in any case?”

“Because,” her mother said, and to Sarah’s horror, Mrs. Decker’s eyes filled with tears. “I want to talk to Maggie.”

At the mention of her sister’s name, Sarah’s own eyes stung as a pain so great she could hardly bear it filled her chest. Of course. Why hadn’t she realized it immediately? “Oh, Mother,” Sarah said, reaching across the table to take her mother’s hand.

“No,” Mrs. Decker said, snatching her hand away and blinking fiercely at her tears. “Don’t give me sympathy. I don’t deserve sympathy. I don’t deserve forgiveness either, but I want to ask for it anyway.”

“Maggie forgave you long ago,” Sarah assured her.

“No, she didn’t,” her mother insisted. “How could she? She died before she even knew I was sorry for what I did to her.”

“Mother, listen to me-”

“Kathy spoke to her sister,” Mrs. Decker insisted, the pain like a flame burning in her eyes. “She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep for months, and then she spoke to her sister and apologized, and her sister forgave her.”

Sarah’s heart was breaking over her mother’s anguish. “Mother, these people who do this, they’re charlatans. They trick gullible people just to get their money.”

“I know many of them are,” Mrs. Decker agreed too easily. “But not this one. Kathy said she knew things about her and her sister that no one else could have known. She’s done this for other people, too. She’s amazing, and she’s developing quite a following.”

Sarah asked the only other question she could think of that might discourage her mother. “What does Father think of all this?”

Mrs. Decker stiffened defensively. “He knows nothing about it, and there’s no reason he should.”

“He would never allow you to go to a spiritualist,” Sarah reminded her.

“He will never find out. Unless you tell him, of course,” she added.

Sarah couldn’t imagine doing any such thing, and she was sure her mother knew it. She’d have to try a different tack. “Why have you started thinking about all this now?”

“You mean why have I suddenly started thinking about Maggie?” she asked with a trace of sarcasm that Sarah hadn’t expected.

“Well, yes,” Sarah admitted.

Her mother’s lovely face twisted with the pain of loss that Sarah would have sworn she no longer felt. “I never stopped thinking about her, Sarah. She’s my daughter. I think about her every morning, when I wake up, in that one blissful moment when I emerge from the sweet oblivion of sleep, and for one second, one single second, I don’t remember that she’s dead. For that one second, there’s the possibility that she’s still in the world and I might see her happy for one more day. And then I remember. I remember that she’s dead and that I’ll never see her again, not in this life at least. And I feel that pain all over again, the pain of losing her and knowing it was my fault that she died.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Sarah cried, tears streaming down her cheeks now.

“Whom should we blame then?” her mother asked bitterly. “Your father?”

Sarah had always blamed him the most, but she wasn’t going to say that now. “Mother, Maggie made her own choices-”

“The only choices we left her,” Mrs. Decker reminded her. “And don’t think for one moment your father made any decisions without my approval. We are equally damned for what we did to her.”

“Mother, please!” Sarah reached out again, alarmed to see that all the color had drained from her mother’s face. She looked as if she might faint.

This time Mrs. Decker let Sarah take her hand, and she clasped it tightly, nearly bruising Sarah’s fingers. “I know it’s not possible to talk to the dead,” she said, shocking Sarah. “At least I’ve always believed it is, but suppose I’m wrong? Suppose we’re both wrong? Suppose someone can reach Maggie? Suppose it’s possible to make my peace with her here and now instead of waiting for some fragile hope of eternal forgiveness? I have to find out, Sarah. I have to at least try!”

Sarah stared at her mother, reading the desperate hope and the anguished need. She’d suffered this guilt for years and suffered far more than Sarah could have imagined. How could she deny her mother this one chance to end it? “All right,” Sarah said, defeated. “If it’s so important to you, I won’t try to talk you out of it.”

“And you’ll come with me?” she asked, her eyes lighting with renewed hope.

“I can’t do that,” Sarah said without apology. “I don’t suppose they allow nonbelievers to attend in any case.”

“But you have to go, Sarah. You must!”

“Why?”

“Because…” Mrs. Decker had to swallow the tears from her voice. “Because Maggie may not want to speak to me at all, but she’d speak to you. If she’ll come back for anyone, it will be you.”

Sarah stared at her mother in wide-eyed astonishment, having no idea how to respond. Fortunately, Maeve appeared at that moment, saving her from having to decide.

“Catherine is ready for bed and… Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, sensing the tension in the room. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“That’s all right, Maeve,” Sarah said, jumping up in her desperate need to escape. “I suppose she wants me to tuck her in.”

“Yes, she always misses you when you’ve been gone awhile.” Maeve’s shrewd glance was flicking back and forth between Sarah and her mother, trying to gauge the situation. Were they quarreling? Disagreeing about something? Sarah wasn’t about to explain.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Sarah said, not daring to meet her mother’s eye.

Catherine was more demanding than usual, begging Sarah for just one more good-night kiss and asking question after question. She knew Sarah’s attention was focused elsewhere and tried every trick she knew to draw it back. Hating herself for giving the child less than her due, Sarah finally managed to break away. She found her mother still sitting at the kitchen table. Maeve had made herself scarce.

“I’m sure this was a shock to you,” her mother said before Sarah could open her mouth. “I shouldn’t have asked you so soon. I should have given you time to get used to the idea. It’s just…”

“How long will Father be out of town?” Sarah asked, having figured out the rush.

“Only three more days. It’s not really necessary that he be out of town, of course, but I thought-”

“You thought it would be easier if he were,” Sarah supplied for her. “I just don’t know…”