It wasn’t my fault.
For the first time I really felt that, really believed it.
Gwen moved the tissue box to where I could reach it but remained silent, letting me release the torrent of painful emotions. I’d blamed myself for so long—allowed my mother to blame me. These wounds never healed; the pain was raw, always just beneath the surface. Now I saw everything differently, but the adjustment was agonizing.
It took a fair amount of time, and most of the box of tissues, for me to pull myself together. Eventually, however, I blew my nose noisily a couple of times and began to get my breathing back to normal. As I regained control of myself, I felt the temperature in the room start to drop, a sure sign of a ghostly presence.
“Ivy, is that you?” I whispered. The light flickered once. It was a code we’d worked out the first time she’d manifested after death: once for yes, twice for no. Since ghosts cannot lie, it was Ivy.
I spoke to the air, to the ghost of the baby sister I love and had failed to save. “I tried. I tried so hard. I just couldn’t stop them.” I’d swear I felt small arms holding me, hugging me close.
“I did everything I could. But it wasn’t enough.” I turned to Gwen then, barely seeing her through the blur of the tears that were threatening to start again. “It wasn’t my fault.”
She looked at me, her expression gentle and compassionate, but said nothing.
“Mom blames me. I always blamed myself. But it really wasn’t my fault.” I was repeating myself. Over and over. I had to. It was the only way I could wrap my mind around a concept that was so huge and so fundamental to who I was.
The air swirled around me, making my hair float away from my face, drying cheeks still wet with tears.
I felt a surge of power—not magic, something different, more pure, strong enough to steal my breath. A slit opened, becoming a doorway hovering in the empty air six inches off the floor in the middle of the office. It was filled with light so bright I couldn’t look at it directly. I felt the ghostly arms of my sister tighten around me again and somehow knew it would be the last time I felt her touch. Then she released me. In my mind, I heard the echo of laughter. I saw the shape of my sister outlined against that brilliant white light. She turned back, her familiar features beaming. She waved once, then turned away, extending her hand upward as if taking the hand of some being of light. She walked into the opening and it closed behind her, leaving no evidence that it had ever existed.
My sister was gone. I knew that this time it was forever.
Gwen and I sat together in silence for a very long time, well after the bell had rung to end the session. I didn’t know if she had seen what I had. Awestruck, I was not coherent enough to ask. It was too much for me to process—the personal revelation that it really hadn’t been my fault combined with the certain knowledge that Ivy was gone. Ivy, who hadn’t wanted me to forgive our mom but had needed me to forgive myself.
Finally I pulled myself together. “Did you see that?”
Gwen nodded. “Yes. It’s not common, but I’m not surprised. After what you told me you experienced in the circle with Okalani, it seemed likely you’d be given the chance to tell Ivy good-bye.”
My “experience” with Okalani had included an actual angel, a spirit of light, fighting a demon who had taken the shape of a dragon. “Do you mean I can see angels now?”
“Only when they let you, I suspect,” Gwen said. “But you needed to see this, to know that Ivy would be well and happy, that she was moving on to a better place. To heaven, as it were.”
She said the word “heaven” as if it were in quotes. Obviously, despite what she’d just seen, Gwen was not a true believer. Then again, neither am I. Although, I have to admit, having been party to quite a lot of religious-based supernatural shit, I was beginning to wonder if my gran had it right.
“You’ve had a real breakthrough today. There’s a lot for you to assimilate. But there’s one more thing I want you to consider before the family therapy session.”
I resented that a little. I mean, something else? Seriously? Didn’t I have enough to digest? I didn’t answer, so she continued, her voice firm.
“Ghosts must leave this realm when their purpose is fulfilled. I know that Ivy had left you to care for your mother. But that wasn’t her purpose. Her purpose was to see you healed. Your healing was as necessary for her as it was for you. Ivy was not here for your mother. She was here for you.”
I pulled myself together. Gwen had a big budget meeting scheduled, and I needed to go. I was exhausted when I left Gwen’s office—physically, mentally, and emotionally wrung out. Still, I managed to drag my butt to my car. I tried to call Gran before I headed home, but she didn’t answer the landline or her cell. I left a message asking her to call me, then drove back to my house. Once there, I went straight to bed. And even though it was the middle of the day, I slept soundly and dreamlessly for the first time in ages.
I woke up at midnight physically refreshed. I could literally feel that a huge emotional burden had been lifted from my shoulders. At the same time I was sad. Ivy’s ghost had been with me for more years than Ivy had lived. She’d helped me through all sorts of trials and crises. She’d protected our mother from the other inmates in prison. Whenever I needed her most, she’d come.
I’d miss her.
I knew it was best for her. But that didn’t change the fact that I felt well and truly alone. Even when she’d been with our mom, these last eighteen months, I’d known she was still around. She’d visited me often and every time I’d really needed her. But now, knowing that she was truly gone, her absence was different, a permanent void.
On the one hand, it was an odd, sad feeling, and I knew it was one that would take a lot of getting used to. On the other, a load of terrible guilt that I had been carrying for so long that I didn’t really even think about it anymore was just … gone. I felt so light, like I might float away. I knew it was silly, but that didn’t change how it felt. I’d miss Ivy and grieve for her. But this time, when the grieving was over, I’d finally be able to heal.
4
I went out on the beach for a while and stared at the waves. I felt very alone. Late as it was, I could’ve called Bruno or any of my friends, and they would’ve come. But I didn’t want company, wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened, not even to the people closest to me. Besides, it just seemed wrong telling someone else before I told Gran. Eventually, I went back inside and back to bed.
When morning came, I checked to see if Gran had called. She hadn’t, so I tried to call her again. I wasn’t going to call Mom. First off, I wasn’t positive the prison hierarchy would let me talk to her. If I pulled rank and used the whole “princess” thing and said it was a family crisis, they might. Though I wasn’t sure that what had happened qualified as a crisis. Ivy had, after all, been dead for years. Mostly, I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with Mom and the inevitable fallout. I hadn’t willingly spoken to my mom in a very, very long time, not since the day she’d tried to exorcise me as if I were a demon. She’d let loose with the kind of invective I wasn’t capable of forgiving. I’d tell Gran about Ivy. Gran could tell Mom.
Of course to do that I needed to actually talk to Gran. I’d tried the telephone without success, maybe I should try telepathy.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on an image of my grandmother’s face—and tried to contact her. No luck. My thoughts hit a shield that was solid enough that I couldn’t get through. That was … odd … and a little worrying. In the end I decided to call my great-aunt Lopaka’s assistant and ask if she could get in touch with Gran and have her call me. It was a roundabout way of doing things and I really didn’t have the authority to ask for that kind of favor. But Hiwahiwa didn’t seem to mind, telling me cheerfully that she’d “get right on it.”