Liars and Fools by Robin Stevenson Page B

miracle, I thought. A dead husband and a dead kid. You’d think if someone was there that day and in the business of performing miracles, they could have been a bit more inclusive.
    â€œAnd it was after that you became a medium?”
    Kathy turned to look at me, which was a bit worrying, as we were speeding along a busy road and talking about car accidents. “I couldn’t imagine how I could keep going. Only I had to, of course, for Caitlin.”
    Caitlin’s face was turned away so I couldn’t see her expression. She would have been eight or nine when her dad and her sister died, I calculated, and I felt a sharp stab of shame about how mean I had been to her.
    Kathy looked back at the road. “I don’t know if this makes sense to you or not, but I felt so guilty.”
    I swallowed. I knew all about guilt, but I couldn’t let myself think about that, or the whirlpool would suck me right in.
    â€œI should have been with them that day, going to the game, but I had the flu.” Her hands were gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. “I kept thinking that if I had been there, maybe I could have done something. After Jack and Nicole died, I was so depressed I could hardly get out of bed.”
    Like Dad, I thought, remembering all those weeks I stayed with Joni and Tom.
    â€œThen one day, I saw a poster inviting everyone to a meeting at a spiritualist church. I remember exactly what it said: Lost someone you love? Seeking comfort? I’d never been very religious. I’d never given much thought to what happens after we die, to be honest. But when I saw this poster, I thought, Well, why not? What do I have to lose?”
    â€œAnd what happened?” I asked.
    â€œI know this might be hard to believe, but I received a message,” she said. “A message from beyond. From Jack, that first time, telling me that he and Nicole were together and that everything was okay.”
    â€œHuh. How did you receive it? Could you, like, hear his voice?”
    Kathy shook her head. “One of mediums at the church meeting—a wonderful man—he picked me out of the crowd and said he had a message for me. He asked if he could come to me, and I said yes, and he came over and told me that he could see a tall man— Jack was very tall—and that the man wanted to tell me that he loved me.”
    I nodded, caught up in the story despite myself. “And?”
    â€œAnd then the medium said, ‘You have lost someone else too.’ And I started crying and told him about Nicole. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was so young.’ Just like he could see her.”
    I thought again about Abby’s words: it’s all acting and guesswork . It wasn’t a huge leap for someone to guess that Kathy’s daughter would have been young.
    â€œAfter that I went to meetings for a while. And then I started getting messages myself. Directly. From Nicole, mostly.” Kathy took one hand off the steering wheel and rested it on Caitlin’s knee. “It was incredible, just incredible, to speak to her again. I thought she was lost forever, but she turned out to be so close.”
    I thought she was lost forever . All I could think about was Mom. She turned out to be so close. I blinked back tears so hot, they were scalding my eyes. Get a grip, I told myself. Only idiots believe this stuff. I cleared my throat. “So, do you talk to them both? Your daughter and your…” I wanted to say ex-husband, but that made it sound like they were divorced.
    â€œJack never speaks to me directly,” Kathy said sadly. “Though of course I have friends, other mediums, who pass on messages from him.”
    Like they were all on some kind of online social networking site. Twitter for dead people. “So do you, like, talk to them too?” I asked Caitlin.
    She shook her head. “Mom gives me messages from them though.”
    Kathy squeezed her