I ran out and alerted the nurses and went back into the room. I was half afraid that she wouldn’t be awake anymore, but she was. When I entered, she turned her head and stared at me. I smiled. The nurses rushed in, followed closely by the doctor. They all hovered around her, checking the monitors, taking her vitals and asking her questions. I stood on the other side of the room a few feet from the foot of the bed and watched quietly as the doctor assessed her. She answered his questions without problem and her eyes returned to me again and again.
Her aura was a little dull and had a few clouds of gray and brown, but not predominately. I figured the presence of those colors were because she wasn’t quite feeling as well as she should. After such a fall, who wouldn’t have a muddy aura?
It seemed like the doctor spent hours checking her out, but finally he turned to me and smiled brilliantly. “Our patient seems to be in wonderful health. She’ll need to stay here a few more days as a precaution, but I think that she’s going to be just fine.”
“That’s great.” I returned his smile.
“Well, I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on,” he said and ushered the nurses out of the room. “Press the call button if you need anything at all.”
“Thank you,” I said, noticing my mother was still watching me.
When the door shut behind them all, I let out a breath. “I thought they’d never leave!”
Mom didn’t say anything. She just sat there, watching me.
“Are you feeling all right? I could call the doctor back to get you some medicine if you need it.” I walked over toward the bed and her eyes widened.
“Don’t come any closer.”
I stopped, but I was confused by her words. “Mom?”
“What happened to your face?”
My hand slid up to the newly forming scar. A heavy feeling began forming in my belly. “I had an accident. It shouldn’t be that bad once it heals.”
“Do you know what happened this time?”
“Yes. I accidently fell out of one of the orchard trees when I was pruning.”
“I knew it. Didn’t I tell you?” I hadn’t heard this tone of her voice in a while.
“I—I don’t know what you mean.” But I was afraid I did. I just didn’t want to believe it.
“Evil wants you.” Her voice dropped lower and she sounded horrified by the thought. “It’s all my fault.”
What was she talking about? “I thought we were past this. You said you didn’t think I was evil.”
She looked momentarily confused, like she couldn’t understand why she would say such a thing. But I knew. She hadn’t really meant any of those things she had said before I went to Italy. She hadn’t really wanted to be close to me again. That was Beelzebub influencing her, making her act that way.
This is the way she really felt.
“Mom, I’m not evil.”
“Don’t call me that!” she yelled.
I jerked like she slapped me.
“You are not my daughter.”
“Of course I am. Who else could I be?” I should have known that things weren’t going to stay good between us. I should have seen this coming.
“You’re the devil taking over my daughter’s body!”
“I’m not evil,” I ground out. I was very tired of telling her that.
“Leave my daughter be!” she yelled at me. “You can’t have her!”
“Mom—really,” I said, but she cut me off.
“You are not my daughter. My daughter is gone. You are just a shell of what she once was.”
“You can’t really believe that.”
“I do.”
“What about this summer? The good times we spent together?”
Her face stayed blank, like those times never even existed, like she didn’t remember. “Leave.”
“What?”
“Leave and don’t ever come back. My daughter is dead and I will not stand by and watch her body be defiled.”
“Mom.” I ran to her side and grabbed her hand. “You don’t mean that. It’s me… Heven.”
She began screaming and pulled away from my touch. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
Her monitors began beeping because her pulse and heart rate were going crazy. I took a step back, helpless, not knowing what to do. A nurse came rushing in and took in the scene: me standing there in panic and Mom still screaming for me to get out.
“She just started screaming,” I told her. “She doesn’t want me here.”
Pity flashed across the nurse’s face before she hurried to silence the monitors. “Mrs. Montgomery, I need you to try to calm down.”
“Get that thing out of here!” she wailed.
The nurse turned to look at me. I was already picking up my bag off the chair. I took a few backward steps toward the door, hoping Mom might calm down. She didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing that my words were lost in the noise.
She was still screaming when I rushed down the hall.
*
I didn’t even think to look for Riley when I stepped off the elevator. My ears were still ringing from the harsh words Mom had said. Colin was at the information desk. When he saw me, his face fell with concern.
He hurried to my side to ask, “Is everything okay?”
“My mom woke up, but she’s not doing so good,” I told him numbly. “She’s confused.”
“Ah, kid. I’m sorry. That happens sometimes. Give her a few days; she’ll straighten out.” He put his arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the exit.
I made a sound of agreement, although I knew Mom wouldn’t change her mind. My relationship with her was over. She wouldn’t accept me ever again.
Outside, I squinted against the sun and looked around for Gran’s car and Riley. Neither was anywhere to be seen. Figured. Colin was standing beside his cruiser, looking at me expectantly, and I figured the place to look for Riley was where I left the car. Maybe he was in it, taking a nap. I ignored the slight worry that maybe he took the car and left me here and he wasn’t coming back.
The interior of the car felt stifling when I climbed in. A moment of panic hit me and I almost climbed back out, but Colin was already shutting my door and hurrying around the front of the car to the driver’s side.
When he slid inside, I noticed that his aura didn’t look as it usually did. The colors were faded and I actually had to look hard to see them and distinguish between them. The colors weren’t different than usual, so maybe they just seemed faded because I felt so numb.