Page 139 of The Final Cut

My mother is alive.

Deacon steps closer to my side. “We need to go.”

I want to argue but he’s right. And I have yet to visit Cal.

My mother looks toward the chapel door. “Just…is Delia safe?”

Her voice catches on Delia’s name. The answer comes from me before Deacon can take it.

“She’s with us.”

Marisol closes her eyes, both hands going to the pew. For the first time, she looks close to falling.

My hand twitches, but I don’t reach for her. I can’t. Deacon does, though. Just enough to steady her elbow.

She looks at me. “Can I see her?”

“No.”

The word comes out fast, and her face goes still.

I hear myself breathe and try again, because Delia deserves to answer for Delia. “I don’t know. Not tonight. We can’t risk you leading Isabel to her.”

“Okay.”

I turn toward the chapel door before I do something reckless like ask her to hug me or slap her or demand fifteen years of answers in a hospital where cameras blink red over every hallway.

At the door, I stop. I don’t look back at her.

“Cal loves you?”

Silence.

Then her voice, thin and broken. “And I love him.”

I grip the door handle until my fingers ache.

“He’s not dead yet.”

“No,” she whispers. “He isn’t.”

Deacon opens the door and checks the hallway before motioning me through. The hospital air hits colder after the chapel, all disinfectant and fluorescent light. I start toward Cal’s room because I came here to see him, because that purpose is the only thing holding the rest of me together.

Deacon falls into step beside me.

I do not look at him.

“We are going to talk,” I say.

“I never assumed otherwise, Little Ghost.”

“But not now.”

“I know.”

“If you knew my mother was alive and kept it from me because you thought I couldn’t handle it⁠—”

“No.”