Eye of the Falcon (Psychic Visions #12)(2)

Not with the grief of losing not only her only living relative but her mother. They’d had a complicated relationship, but, when it came down to it, she’d been family. Issa wanted to keep the little bit of fantasy about her father for as long as possible. Not that she had much in the way of illusions. It was hard enough to face the reality of losing her mother. How could a woman in good health, and only sixty-two, have a heart attack and die, while Issa was at the university collecting the paperwork on her doctorate? To come home and to find her mother in her own apartment like that—on the kitchen floor, already cold from taking her last breath hours ago. Issa shook her head, tears never far from the surface, once again rising.

Nothing had been on the kitchen table or on her mother’s bed that explained what her mother had been doing right before her death, and, after the chaos of the police and the morgue attendants, Issa hadn’t been able to return to her mother’s apartment and had crashed at home with tears of loss and grief. When she finally awoke midday the next day, it was to the cold harsh reality of being all alone at twenty-six. She was much too young to be the last one of her family still living. And to be facing the grim job forced upon her to contend with the reality of burying a loved one unexpectedly. It had taken days, almost a week, as she couldn’t even consider starting the process for several days. The fifty-five-mile drive, one way, between her secluded cabin and her mother’s apartment had only added to her exhaustion.

Her mother had hated that she lived so far away.

“Why can’t you live nearby me?” she’d whined. “It’s as if you want nothing to do with me.”

“Mom, I just need to be out on the land. One with nature. I can’t live like this. I can’t live in these concrete boxes,” Issa had said.

“They’re called apartments. Everyone lives in them.”

Issa had turned and said, “No, not everyone wants to. There are places with open spaces and real trees and dirt beneath your feet.”

Her mother had shaken her head. “Dear God, why can’t you ever leave that alone?”

“I can’t. It’s who I am.”

“No,” her mother had argued. “It’s part of who you were. It has nothing to do with who you are. That was twenty years ago. Two decades have gone by. You should’ve adjusted. You should be somebody else by now.”

Issa’s teakettle started to whistle in her little cabin. Issa pulled out a teabag and a very large ceramic mug and poured hot water over the top of it. It was the way she always drank her tea. Strong and black. Her mother, Maier, liked hers with a little bit of milk and a little bit of sweetener.

Issa liked the comforts of home—but what she considered home. Her mother’s place had never been home. Apartments made Issa feel closed in, like a prison. Maybe she’d only spent her first six years of life on the hills of Ireland, but those six years were ingrained into who she was. And every day that she was not outdoors felt like a prison sentence with no end.

“I can’t live up there with you,” her mother complained. “And I don’t want to live away from you.”

Issa had nodded. “I know that. So I’m the one who will come back and forth. I’ll stay here sometimes, but my life will be there.”

“How can that possibly be?” Her mother had walked away and sat down on the couch, looking so lost that Issa had felt guilty. “You have no job up there. And to do that drive back and forth …”

“It’s not that bad, it’s only an hour.”

Her mother nodded as she always did. “Only an hour. It’s an hour that you are away from me.”

“It’s an hour where I’m coming to you or going away from you, yes,” Issa had said quietly. “But it’s also an hour where I’m closer to the life I need to live.”

Her mother had turned such sad eyes her way. “Why is it such a sacrifice to be away from there?”

“I can’t explain it, Mom. It just is.”

Holding the big ceramic mug in her hand, Issa stood in front of the fire, letting the waves of heat wash over her. And now, with her mother dead and gone, Issa didn’t need to make the drive again. She didn’t need to do anything in the city again as she had no job to go to either.

She’d completed her PhD, but, so far, unfortunately she had found only concrete city work available. But, when you were a biologist and had your doctorate in environmental sciences, surely jobs in her field existed where she could live out here like she needed to.

Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Yet one more sign of the trappings of civilization. She pulled out her phone and looked at the Caller ID on her screen. It was one of the university professors, one of the men on her doctorate team, sending condolences to her for her loss. She raised her gaze and stared into the darkness beyond the windows. “How is it they all know?”

She shook her head, not understanding. Her mother had been big on social media. And on secrecy. Her mother had made up a fake account and thought that was the best part. She could do and say and be anyone she wanted to be and no one knew.

Issa didn’t know that was possible. She was big on computer technology and having all the research material at her fingertips, but she would never want to be on those sites her mother had thought were such fun. Issa had been amazed when her mother showed her how many friends she had. The ongoing question in Issa’s mind was, Were they actually friends?