“Go back to sleep, Vinnie,” I demanded, before opening the door and leaving, all while ignoring his little boy cries.
I’m a horrible person. I’m a horrible mother.
Yes. Yes, I am. And he’s a horrible husband.
But he’s a wonderful father, when he’s around, and they’re so much better off without me.
I’m doing the right thing, for all of us.
At least I hope so.
CHAPTER ONE
VINNIE
“Someone in this area, has lost someone. A prominent, female figure.” The bottle-blonde swept her hand in a circle, gesturing toward a cluster of tables that included ours. “A mother, a grandmother, a friend, or maybe even a boss.”
I watched in silent scrutiny as residents of neighboring tables eyed each other with questions and accusations. Nobody wanted to own it or speak up. Even though they were all there for the same reason—they all wanted closure and affirmation. Whispered voices hit me from all directions and from the corner of my eye, I saw my brother nudge his husband in the ribs, then heard him whisper, “Your mom, man. Or what about Natalynn?”
“Nobody here has lost a grandmother? Or a close friend, or a, uh, a neighbor, maybe?”
Reluctantly, Greyson, my brother-in-law, raised his hand. “Um … my mom?” he answered timidly, his voice lilting as though he were asking a question.
Regina Miller tapped the tips of her fingers together with satisfaction as she nodded and stepped toward our table. “Is she no longer with us?”
He shook his head. “She died when I was fifteen.”
“Yes.” Regina closed her eyes and outstretched her long, manicured fingers, not quite reaching Greyson's forehead. “Yes, she's showing me a young boy. You were … so sad and … hurt. You were so hurt, weren't you?”
I turned to watch Greyson's throat shift with a deep, hard swallow as he nodded. “Y-Yeah. I was.”
“Of course, you were. No child should lose a parent. She's showing me letters,” Regina went on, touching her fingers to her temple. “She's showing me a B, or … or maybe it's an E, or, um, it could be an S—”
“My dad's name is Sebastian,” Grey chimed in, more eager than before. He shifted forward, to now sit at the edge of his seat.
“Yes! Yes, she's gesturing toward a male, a father figure. He means a lot to you. You relied on him so much after her passing. And he relied on you; they loved each other so—”
“My parents weren’t together,” Greyson cut in, the hope in his eyes dying just a little.
Regina’s eyes widened with panic. “Oh! No, I must be confusing her love for you. Of course. And how much you relied on him. You did, didn’t you?”
I stifled a snort at her quick attempt at a clean-up, as Greyson slowly nodded and replied, “Yeah, I did.”
A look of surprise shrouded her over-done features. “Was she sick?”
Immediately disappointed, he shook his head. “No, she wasn't.”
Pressing her palm to her forehead, Regina said, “Oh! Oh, of course. An accident. There was an accident.”
The charade continued longer than it should've, yet I successfully kept my snickering concealed behind the fist I pressed to my lips. This wasn't my scene, and it wasn't my brother's, either. We weren't strangers to loss. But that loss came with a bitterness we didn't care to face. Greyson, however, was another story entirely, and when tickets to see the infamous psychic medium, Regina Miller, went on sale, he had jumped at the chance to grab them. Unfortunately, he was also too nervous to go alone and had no problems talking my brother and me into tagging along for support.
And it wasn't that I was a skeptic. I was cool with the idea of an afterlife, and I was also willing to believe with reasonable proof. But this woman? Her façade was so transparent I could easily see right through to the fraud that lurked beneath all that caked on makeup.
“Your mother, grandmother, and friend want me to assure you that they are in a good place,” Regina concluded, repeating the information Greyson so easily supplied earlier. “They are so proud of the man you've become, and they wish you the best of luck with your band.”
Greyson nodded, his face paled with shock and disbelief. “Th-thank you so much,” he stammered, and my brother wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
With that, Regina moved on to the next sucker and left us to mull over the experience. I listened to Greyson speculate on whether she was the real deal or not. He