Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(37)

“What do you think?” Ramona asks, coming up behind Calla to survey her own work, palette in hand. “I took some art lessons last winter.”

So, paranormal studies aren’t the only kind offered around here. That’s encouraging, Calla thinks, as she tells Ramona, “I don’t know much about painting, but it’s pretty good.”

“You’re right, you don’t know much about painting . . . it’s awful.” Ramona laughs.

“I don’t think it’s awful.” Not that awful, anyway.

“Sure it is. But I can’t help it. It’s so windy around here, everything keeps moving around all the time. And I can’t get the light right. It’s never consistent. Just when I think I’ve got it, the sun will go behind a cloud, or it will suddenly burst through on a cloudy day. The weather here is just so unpredictable, you know?”

Calla nods vehemently. She can’t seem to get a handle on how to dress. She’ll put on a sweatshirt and jacket only to strip them off layer by layer when it starts to feel muggy. Or she’ll wake up in a warm room and put shorts on, and by afternoon a cold wind covers her bare limbs in goose bumps.

If only the wind were the only thing around here that brings on goose bumps.

“I never should have tried to show the flowers standing straight and tall that way,” Ramona is saying, studying her artwork. “I should have just stuck with them the way they are. Droopy. They don’t look real the way I painted them, do they?”

“Not really,” Calla confesses, sensing that Ramona wants an honest opinion.

“There you go . . . now you’re being straightforward. Just like your mom,” Ramona adds with a laugh, catching Calla completely off guard. “She always shot straight from the hip. That was one of the great things about her.”

“My mom?” she echoes.

Of course! Of course Ramona would have known Mom. Evangeline mentioned that her aunt grew up in this house. Why hadn’t Calla thought of her before?

Because you hadn’t even met her, that’s why. Now that she has . . .

“Were you and my mom friends?” she asks, trying not to come across as if she’s pouncing on Ramona. “When she lived here, I mean. Years ago.”

“Oh, Stephanie was a few years older than I was. I have to say, she was always sweet to me,” Ramona adds with a fond, faraway smile, picking up the paintbrush again, “even though she thought I was a pain in the—well, you know how it is with pesky little kids hanging around.”

Actually, Calla doesn’t know how it is. She’s an only child, and none of her geriatric neighbors back home in Florida have kids. Not kids who are younger than Calla, anyway. Or younger than thirty, for that matter.

“No, I don’t know how it is, but I can imagine,” she murmurs, trying to picture Ramona Taggart as a pesky pain to a teenage Stephanie’s butt.

“My brother Shawn—he was Evangeline’s dad—was a few years older than Steph, and I think he thought of her the same way she thought of me,” Ramona goes on with a sad smile. “I still haven’t gotten used to his being gone, you know . . . and now, there’s no way I can grasp that Stephanie is, too. The last time I saw her, she was about your age—and she looked just like you, by the way. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Lots of people have,” Calla admits as Ramona dabs at the canvas with the brush, “but no one who knew her when she was actually my age.”

“Well, I did. And you could be her at . . . how old are you? Seventeen?”

“Yes. Did she have . . . a boyfriend? Back then?” She tries to keep the question casual, though she holds her breath for the reply.

“She had quite a few, from what I remember. She was beautiful, and fun, and—just the kind of person everyone wanted to be around. You know what I mean?”

Calla nods, suddenly missing her mother. Desperately. She feels a fresh wave of grief coming over her. She turns toward the window, trying not to blink and let the tears spill over.

“Calla . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know what it’s like to lose a mother. I lost mine a few years ago.”

At least you had her until you were grown up.

“Evangeline knows, too,” Ramona adds softly.

At least she was too little to know what was happening at the time, Calla finds herself thinking, no longer empathetic toward Evangeline for being orphaned so young. She said she doesn’t even remember the accident. At least she isn’t stuck with this horrible gory image that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Never in her life has Calla felt so utterly alone.

You feel like nobody has ever been in your shoes before, don’t you? Nobody’s heart has ever been broken this badly before.

That’s her mother’s voice, echoing in her head.

Those are things her mother said when Kevin dumped Calla, just a few months ago. She could have been referring to how Calla’s feeling now, though.

Listen, other people have gone through this, and worse, Calla. They’ve survived. And you’ll survive. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how alone you feel, you’ll get through it. I promise you. And I’ll always be here for you.

Her voice choked with a sob, Calla manages to say, as she pushes past Ramona, “Can you . . . can you tell Evangeline I couldn’t stay?”