are the other avenues?"
"Ignoring your abilities. Going on with your life in a regular manner. There are medications we can prescribe that might possibly curb the visions and headaches, but you will also have to make a concerted effort to bury your gift."
I think of the parable in the Bible about someone taking a talent and turning it into many and someone else who buried his and always regretted it. I don't want to not do what I'm apparently destined to do. Wouldn't that be scoffing at what's been given to me?
"I want to keep helping people," I say. "My ghost-hunting group has already done a lot of good for folks. I've crossed several spirits into the light; we helped find a missing person; and we even debunked six or seven episodes of what homeowners thought were hauntings but which turned out to be things like bad wiring in the basement or leaky pipes or their teenager smoking in the attic."
He smiles at me. "It sounds like you've already made up your mind then."
With great confidence, I agree. "Yeah, Doc. I have."
"Good, Kendall. Let's get you over to the hospital for those tests so you can get on with your calling."
"Thanks for believing in me, Dr. Kindberg."
He winks. "That's what I'm here for."
"Are you okay, Mom?" I ask in the waiting room of the St. Joseph's radiology department. Mom fiddles with the crinkled pages of a two-year-old Good Housekeeping, which is a red flag for me that something's bothering her.
"I'm fine," she says softly.
"You're not fine. You're worried about me. You don't have to."
Her eyes darken. "I ... but ... how—"
I give her a wide smile. "I'm psychic, Mom."
"So you tell me." Her eyes drop to the magazine again.
I reach over and snag the hand closest to me and hold on tightly. "I know we've talked about this before and I understand that it's, like, your duty as a mom to worry about me twenty-four/seven. I'm okay. I promise."
She shakes her head. "I keep telling myself that. It's just so hard for me to reconcile the beliefs and teachings of a lifetime, from my parents and priests and the church, with your ability to communicate with the dead. It goes against my religion, and I'm struggling with that."
"I know. Even Father Massimo is trying to help us get through this."
"He is, Kendall. I appreciate his spiritual guidance. What scares me the most is knowing that I can't protect you if you're out there trying to contact the dead through all sorts of means that I find to be against the Holy Scriptures."
I do get where she's coming from. I pull my purse up next to me and rummage through the mess of pens, packs of gum, and loose change to find the sheet of paper my priest gave me on Sunday. I pass it over to Mom.
"Check this out. Father Mass did this. There are Bible verses that refer to what I'm going through. So maybe I am doing what God intended for me."
Mom reads the paper. "Matthew chapter fourteen, verse twenty-six: the disciples see Jesus as a ghost."
"Right! So if Jesus was a ghost, maybe they are real?"
She pulls her lips tight. "I just don't know, Kendall."
"Keep reading. There's the one in First Corinthians that talks about how the Bible is largely based on spiritualism with God. Then in Psalm Ninety-one and Luke, chapter four, verse ten, there are references to angel and spirit guides." I point at the last notation on Father Mass's list. "In John, chapter sixteen, verses twelve through twenty-three, Jesus talks of future truths that will be revealed to the world through mediums. Like me! Don't you see?"
Mom's eyes are filled with dewy tears, and I feel like a major shit for making her cry ... again. She's just trying to protect me. But I want her to see that I am protected. That I was chosen to have this gift.
"I appreciate that you have all of this research, Kendall. It means a lot to me," Mom says, squeezing my hand. "We'll see what the CT scan shows. You know I only want to keep you safe and never let anything hurt you."
"I get that, Mom. But I'm growing up. I can't wear a bicycle helmet forever. Loreen says that the only way we mature physically, mentally, and spiritually is experiencing the good with the bad. That it makes us well-rounded and sympathetic. I want to be like that."
Mom's voice raises some in the waiting