But what story?

Something that shows my mother at her very best, I think: lively and beautiful and fun, the things Samjeeza most loves about her. It has to be good.

I close my eyes. I think about the home movies we watched in the days before she died, all those moments strung together like a patchwork of memories: Mom wearing a Santa hat on Christmas morning, Mom whooping in the stands at Jeffrey’s first football game, Mom bending to find a round, perfect sand dollar on the beach at Santa Cruz, or that time we went to the Winchester Mystery House on Halloween night and she ended up more creeped out than we were, and we teased her—oh, man, did we tease her—and she laughed and clutched at our arms, Jeffrey on one side and me on the other, and she said, Let’s go home. I want to get in bed and pull the covers up over my head and pretend like there’s nothing scary in the world.

A million memories. Countless smiles and laughs and kisses, the way she told me she loved me all the time, every night before she tucked me into bed. The way she always believed in me, be it for a math test or a ballet recital or figuring out my purpose on this earth.

But that’s not the kind of story Samjeeza will want, is it? Maybe what I give him won’t be good enough. Maybe I’ll tell him, and he’ll laugh the way he does, all mocking, and then he won’t take me to hell after all.

I could fail at this before I even start.

I feel dizzy and open my eyes, wobble unsteadily at the edge of the rock. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m too high up. I could fall.

I scramble back away from the edge, my heart hammering in my chest.

Whoa. This is too much pressure, I think. I rub my eyes. It’s too much.

A gust of wind hits me, warm and insistent against my face, and my hair picks this moment to slide out of my ponytail and swirl around me, into my eyes. I cough and swipe at it. For all of two seconds I wish I had a pair of scissors. I would hack it all off. Maybe I will, if and when I get back from hell. The new me will need a radical makeover.

I gaze wistfully out at the sky, then catch my breath as I truly look at it. The clouds are all but gone, only a few wisps of white hanging in the distance. The sky is clear. The sun is dropping slowly toward the ocean, glancing off the treetops in a golden blaze.

What happened? I think dazedly. Did I do that? Did I dissipate the storm, somehow? I know that Billy can control the weather, and sometimes things get wonky when she’s feeling emotional, but I never thought that I might be able to do it myself.

I stand up. Whatever the reason, it’s good. I can fly now, even if it’s only for a few minutes. It feels like a gift. I take off my hoodie, stretch my arms up over my head, and prepare to summon my wings.

Just then I hear a rustling below me, then the unmistakable sound of sneakers on rock, the small grunts of exertion as somebody climbs the rock wall. Somebody is coming up.

Bummer. I’ve never seen anyone else here before. It’s a public trail, and anyone can hike it, I suppose, but it’s typically deserted. It’s a difficult climb. I’ve always counted on it being a place I could go to be alone.

Well, I guess flying is out.

Stupid somebody, I think. Find your own thinking spot.

But then the stupid somebody’s hands appear at the edge of the rock, followed by her arms, her face, and it’s not a stupid somebody after all.

It’s my mother.

“Oh, hi,” she says. “I didn’t know there was anybody here.”

She doesn’t know me. Her blue eyes widen when she sees me, but it’s not in recognition. It’s in surprise. She’s never come across anybody else up here, either.

She is beautiful, is my first thought, and younger than I’ve ever seen her. Her hair is curled in a fluffy way that I would have teased her about if I’d seen it in a photograph. She’s wearing light-colored jeans and a blue sweatshirt that slouches off the shoulder in a way that reminds me of this one time when she made me watch Flashdance on cable. She’s a poster girl for the eighties, and she looks so healthy, so flushed with life. It makes an achy lump rise in my throat. I want to throw my arms around her and never let her go.

She glances away uncomfortably. I’m staring.

I close my mouth. “Hi,” I choke out. “How are you? It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

She’s looking at my clothes now, my skinny jeans and black tank top, my loose, blowing hair. Her eyes are wary but curious, and she turns and gazes out at the valley with me. “Yes. Beautiful weather.”

I hold out my hand.

“I’m Clara,” I say, the picture of friendliness.

“Maggie,” she replies, taking my hand, shaking without squeezing, and I get a glimpse of what’s going on inside her. She’s irritated. This is her spot. She wanted to be alone.

I smile. “Do you come up here often?”

“This is my thinking spot,” she says, in a tone that subtly informs me that it’s her turn now, and I should be on my way.

I’m not going anywhere.

“Mine, too.” I sit back down on my boulder, which is so not what she wants to happen that I almost laugh aloud.

She decides to wait me out. She takes a seat on the other side of the outcropping and stretches her legs in front of her, reaches into her bag for a pair of police-officer-style mirrored sunglasses and puts them on, leans her head back like she’s taking in the sun. She stays that way for several moments, her eyes closed, until I can’t stand it anymore. I have to talk to her.

“So do you live around here?” I ask.

She frowns. Her eyes open, and I can feel her irritation giving way to a more general wariness. She doesn’t like people who ask too many questions, who show up out of the blue in unexpected places, who are too friendly. She’s had experiences with that kind of thing before, and none of them ended well.

“I’m just finishing my freshman year at Stanford,” I ramble on. “I’m still kind of new to the area, so I’m always hounding the locals with questions about the best places to eat and go out and that kind of stuff.”

Her expression lightens. “I graduated from Stanford,” she says. “What’s your major?”

“Biology,” I say, nervous to see what she’ll think of that. “Premed.”

“I have a degree in nursing,” she says. “It’s a hard path, sometimes, making people better, fixing them up, but rewarding, too.”

I had almost forgotten that about her. A nurse.

We talk for a while, about the Stanford-Berkeley rivalry, about California and which beaches are best for surfing, about the premed program. Before five minutes are up she’s acting a whole lot friendlier, still kind of wanting me to leave so she can buckle down and make whatever decision it is that she came up here to make, but also amused by my jokes, curious about me, charmed. She likes me, I can tell. My mom likes me, even if she doesn’t know that she’s supposed to love me. I’m relieved.

“Have you ever been inside Memorial Church?” I ask her when there’s a lull in the conversation.

She shakes her head. “I don’t go to church, as a rule.”

Interesting. Not that Mom was ever fanatical about church or anything, but I always got the impression growing up that she liked church. We only stopped going when I got to be a teenager, maybe because she thought that I’d do something in church that would give away that there was more to our family than met the eye. “Why not?” I ask. “What’s wrong with church?”

“They’re always telling you what to do,” she says. “And I don’t like to take orders.”

“Even from God?”

She glances at me, one corner of her mouth hooking up into a quiet smile. “Especially from God.”

Very interesting. Maybe I’m having a little too much fun with this conversation. Maybe I should tell her who I am, point-blank, stop messing around, but how do you break it to someone that you’re actually their as-yet-not-even-conceived child, come to visit them from the future? I don’t want to freak her out.