Medium Well (9781101599648) (9 page)

Chapter 9

Danny waited until he was fairly certain his dad would have left for work. His mom was a guidance counselor at the neighborhood middle school, currently on summer break, so catching her at home was no problem. But somehow he didn't feel up to Ray Senior this morning, particularly the questions he'd be likely to ask once he got a look at his older son.

His mother sat at the kitchen table as he walked in, the newspaper spread out in front of her. She turned when she heard his step, and then she froze, staring at him. It occurred to Danny that he must look a lot worse than he'd thought when he'd glanced at himself in the mirror that morning. After a moment, she leaped to her feet and hugged him tight.

“Danielo, you look like someone who's had either a fantastic time or a disaster last night. I'm guessing it's the latter.”

Danny's shoulders tensed as he stared down at his wild Irish mother, with her honey-colored hair, now with a few silver threads, and her emerald eyes, just like his own. His father always said her face looked like she'd just stepped off the boat from Killarney. Granny Ramos, on the other hand, always claimed she was an enchantress, bewitching away her good Mexican boy. Danny had assumed Granny was kidding. Now he wasn't so sure.

“You said something about chilaquiles, Ma,” he murmured.

His mother studied him for a moment longer, then patted his shoulder. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

Danny watched her cut up the onions, the peppers, the tomatoes, the cilantro, then tear the tortillas into strips. He rested his chin on his hands, the scent of hot oil filling his nostrils, hearing the reassuring sizzle of the vegetables and the tortillas. The essence of the Ramos kitchen. A few minutes later, she slid a plate in front of him filled with hot chilaquiles and cheese spread across scrambled eggs.

She pulled out the chair across from him. “I'll give you five minutes to eat some of this. Then we talk.”

He should have known she'd time him. He managed to shovel in about half of his food before his mother's gaze met his again. “Now, my dear, tell me why you look like death very slightly warmed over.”

He winced.
Not a great choice of words, Ma.

“Danny?” She sounded worried. “You're frightening me. Please tell me what's going on.”

He took a deep breath. “It all started with this carriage house . . .”

His mother listened without interrupting, although a couple of times she looked like she wanted to. When he'd finished, they sat in silence, Danny chewing on his now-lukewarm chilaquiles. He glanced at his mother's face and stopped in mid-chew. If he hadn't known better by now, he'd have said she'd seen a ghost.

He readied himself for what he knew she'd say, chewing on chilaquiles that suddenly tasted like sawdust.
You need help, Danny. You've been working far too hard, Danny. You should take some time off in a nice rehab facility, Danny.
His shoulders tensed, waiting.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, shaking her head. “This wasn't supposed to happen. Not to you boys.”

The fork dropped from Danny's fingers, clattering against his plate. With considerable effort, he managed to swallow. “What wasn't supposed to happen, Ma?”

She didn't look at him, staring down at her hands clasped on the table in front of her. After a moment, she sighed and looked up again. “You probably don't remember your Grandmother Carrie.”

He shook his head. “I never met her, Ma. None of us did.”

“Well, you did and you didn't.” His mother frowned, thinking. “She came over one day when you were still very small. Before Rosie or Ray was born. She just wanted to check you out.”

“Check me out?” His eyes widened.

His mother nodded. “You were the first Riordan boy in several generations. My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my great-great-grandmother—all of them had daughters.”

“Well, you had Rosie.” He prodded a strip of tortilla with his fork.

“But not first. You were the firstborn. All the others had a daughter and then . . . stopped.” Her lips were a thin line. “Riordan women haven't had much luck with husbands, but they had better luck with daughters.”

“What do you mean ‘luck with husbands,' Ma?”

She shrugged. “Mom and Grandma both got divorced after their daughters were born. Great-grandma and Great-great-grandma just walked out since there was no divorce in Ireland then. Or no easy divorce. That's the Riordan way. No husbands. No sons. Just women.”

His throat felt tight. “So I sort of messed things up for you? Broke the Riordan tradition? Sorry about that.”

“Danielo Ramos! Don't you ever say that! I love you all like I love my life. I would never leave your father—or any of you. I left the Riordans instead.” His mother's eyes flashed emerald green.

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “Ma, I've had a really rough week. I'm not following you here. Why is this important? What does it have to do with me?”

She looked down at her hands again. “I'm trying, Danny, but it's hard to know where to start. It's just that Riordan women have always had certain . . . powers. We can do things.”

Her voice trailed off, and Danny stared at her. His mother bit her lip.

“‘Do things'?” he prompted.

“We talk to the dead.” The words came out in a rush. Her gaze was still fixed on her hands, deliberately not meeting his eyes.

“You talk . . .” He rubbed his forehead, feeling slightly dizzy. “How do you do that?”

“We're mediums.” His mother sighed. “We usually work with a spirit guide who tells us what the dead want to say and to whom. The family spirit guide, as a matter of fact. We've had the same one for generations.”

Danny glanced around the kitchen, fighting the impulse to duck. “Is it here now? Watching us?”

“Oh, Danny, for pity's sake,” she snapped. “Of course not. Do you think you could have grown up here with a ghost in the house and not known it? I told you I left the Riordans when I met your father. That meant leaving behind all the Riordan family traditions as well.”

“So where's this family spirit guide?”

“I imagine he's still at the Riordan house.” His mother's mouth tightened again. “Where he's always been.”

“With Rosie?” He pushed his chair back. “You mean Rosie's a medium?”

“I'm not sure. We've never talked about it—I didn't want to bring it up until she did. But she must have encountered him by now. The question is, has she let him draw her into the family business?”

He sat still, willing the world to slide back into its usual order—the one where his sister wasn't a medium and where his mother didn't come from a long line of spook chasers. The one where he didn't see ghosts. That one.

“So that's why you didn't want her to move in there. Not burglars.”

His mother gave him a dry smile. “No, not burglars. But I didn't want her to be involved in this. I didn't want that for any of you.”

He sighed, moving his fork through the eggs again. Suddenly, he'd lost his appetite.

“Danny?” Her voice was soft. “Sweetheart? I didn't tell any of you about this, because I thought you were all immune. I hoped so, anyway. I hoped once I'd left that house my children wouldn't have to deal with the same abilities. And boys.” She shook her head. “I'd never heard of any Riordan boys who had the power. After all, there were no boys to inherit it. I thought you and Ray were safe.”

“So you can see ghosts? When you go into houses, can you see what happened?”

She shook her head impatiently. “No, Danny, no. I told you—we're mediums, not psychics.”

“There's a difference?” He rubbed his aching forehead.

“Of course there's a difference.” She frowned, spreading her hands on the table. “Mediums are intermediaries. We get messages from the dead and we pass them on, but we really only work with spirits that come to us. We don't find them. Psychics are like those people on TV—the ones who go to haunted houses and tell you who's haunting the place.”

“Are they phonies?” He tried to remember the last time he'd seen a medium on TV—except it was apparently a psychic.

His mother shrugged. “Some of them are. So are some mediums. I don't know any psychics, so I can't tell you how many are authentic and how many are fakes. But I'd bet some of them are real, given our family history. Still, the number of real mediums is quite small.”

Danny took a deep breath. “Do you think that's what's happening to me? That I'm some kind of psychic who can sense ghosts in houses?”

“I don't know.” Her eyes were troubled. “Maybe. But last night, your dream—that's the kind of contact a medium would have. The spirit came to you.”

“It sort of came to me.” He prodded at the tortilla strip again. “But I went to him, too. It was like I was at the carriage house with him, but not exactly.”

His mother nodded. “Astral projection probably.”

The headache spiked again. He closed his eyes. “And that would be . . .”

“When your body is in one place and your spirit is in another. It's more common with shamans and witches, but mediums have been known to do it, too. It shows a strong essence.”

Danny rubbed his forehead. “I don't believe I'm having this conversation with you, Ma.”

“Trust me, Danielo, I never expected to have it with you. Bad enough when Rosie moved to that house . . .” She pressed her lips together, her eyes suddenly bright with tears.

“Ah, Ma.” He sighed, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “It's not your fault. I'm glad I got this information from you. At least I can trust you to tell me the truth.”

“I'll tell you as much as I know, Danny, but I hated all that mumbo jumbo with my mother. I did my best to ignore everything she tried to teach me about being a medium. After I left home to be with your father, we pretty much stopped speaking.”

“But she knew about the three of us—Ray and Rosie and me?”

His mother nodded. “I owed her that much. I was her only child. She kept track of you all, I think. Particularly Rosie. That's why she left her the house.”

“What did Granny have to say when you had a son instead of a daughter the first time out?”

She shrugged. “She didn't seem happy, but I don't think she was exactly disappointed. She said all Riordan children were special, but the boys wouldn't have her ‘gift.' I thought she meant you'd be like your father. Maybe she meant your gifts would be different.”

“I guess once a Riordan, always a Riordan.” Danny grimaced, but managed to turn it into a yawn.

“Danny, we can't change who we are.” His mother leaned forward, placing her hand on his. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you all of this before because it might have saved you from being so upset, but it's not really such a horrible thing to be. I've lived with it all my life, and it hasn't made me into a freak. At least I don't think it has.”

“No, Ma, definitely not. You were never a freak.” Danny closed his eyes again, remembering. All his friends considered his mother the coolest mom on the block. She made the best brownies and lasagna, could be relied on to help with any homework, and had liberal policies regarding video games after that homework was done. She behaved like June Cleaver, but a lot more fun. Except that, apparently, she was more like Samantha on
Bewitched
.

“So how much sleep did you get last night?” Her voice brought him back to the present.

“I don't know exactly. Maybe a couple of hours.” He rubbed a hand across his face. He hadn't shaved yet—he needed to change and shower before he started meeting his customers.

“That's what I thought. You go upstairs to your old room and take a nap. I'll call your office and tell them you're not feeling well.”

“I can't, Ma. I've got to go to work.” He leaned his elbows on the table, blinking. A nap would really feel good right now.

His mother narrowed her eyes. “Danny, do you really think you're going to be able to sell anything when you're in this kind of shape? You need to rest. It's easier to postpone a showing because you're not feeling well than to lose the sale because you were so tired you couldn't close it.”

It might have been because he was exhausted, but she seemed to be making sense. Danny nodded, his head drooping. “Okay. You'll call them?”

“I'll call them.” She made shooing motions with her hands. “Go on now. Get. Your bed's all made up. Nobody will bother you here.”

Danny almost asked her if she could guarantee the ghost-man dream would give the house a pass, but he didn't have the energy. The vision of cool sheets and drawn blinds pulled him toward the room he'd shared with Ray for the first eighteen years of his life.

But as he dragged up the stairs, he saw his mother standing in the living room, watching him with worried eyes.

***

Biddy couldn't decide whether she should be on time or late. Or maybe early. Part of her really didn't want to see Danny again so soon, and part of her could hardly wait.

What should she say to him? Would he acknowledge the kiss or would he pretend it hadn't happened? If he pretended, should she say anything about it?

Because it
had
happened. Boy had it ever!

Just thinking about the kiss and the dinner and the kiss and the show and the kiss and the conversation but mostly the kiss had Biddy staring into space instead of checking the day's listings.

She glanced at the clock on her computer. Eight forty-five. Danny should have come in by now. He had a meeting with Araceli at nine. Biddy chewed her lip, wondering what excuse she could come up with to give her sister if he was late. Maybe a massive traffic jam on I-35—at least that had the ring of truth.