THIRTY-TWO

She found Jack, as she’d hoped she would, sorting through what looked like hundreds of cookbooks. She found that equal parts commendable and exasperating. How many books about pudding does any one family need?

He turned his head—his back was to the kitchen doorway—and nodded. “Hey.”

“Hello, Jack. Please don’t leap to your feet and prepare me a nutritionally sound prenatal snack. I’m just here for the orange juice.” Which was one of the silliest things to drink when you wanted to sleep—hospitals kept it on hand because it got a patient’s blood sugar up in a hurry—but oh, well.

“Wasn’t gonna,” he muttered.

“Oh. Then this just got awkward.”

A muffled snort. She stepped to the fridge, got the juice, ignored the mustard (the poor boy was going through enough without having to witness that horror show), poured herself a glass, sipped, set it down, went to him, touched his shoulder. After a moment, he looked up at her. He was sitting cross-legged in front of the jam-packed bookshelf, and it might have been the overhead lighting, but he looked haunted. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

She smiled. God, the bags under his eyes. “That’s my line, Jack. Can I help you? Will you tell me?”

“I’m okay.”

“Bullshit. Which I say with deepest respect as a guest in your kitchen.”

He blinked up at her. “I’m okay. You’re the one who should go and sleep, you’re making another person.”

“I can do more than one thing at once. Well, sometimes. I’m sorry to pester, and I know we only just met, but I’d like to help you.”

“I’m o-kay.”

Sure you are. “If I can guess what’s bothering you, will you confirm?”

A shrug. But this time, he didn’t immediately go back to pretending to read a cookbook.

She sat on the floor beside him. “It’s not that you can’t sleep. It’s that you’re afraid to sleep.”

Silence.

“You don’t want to sleep because you’re having bloody, violent, terrifying dreams. So being awake is good, right? But it’s a problematic long-term solution.”

“Everybody has nightmares.”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. And lots of people fight them the way you are—by trying to avoid them. Or they go the other way, self-medicating with Ambien or alcohol so they go down deep and don’t dream.”

“I can’t do that, though.” He immediately went red, like he knew he’d showed his hand and was now resigned to her taking advantage.

“That’s right, you can’t. And you’re clever to know it. Access, for one thing, is a problem. You’re the youngest in a house full of people who’d bust you in a cold minute, that’s another one. So you’re stuck with coffee, which is why you’ve slipped caffeine into every dessert for the last three days.”

“Everybody likes triple coffee cheesecake. And mocha brownies with coffee frosting. And coffee meringues. And coffee cinnamon rolls. And—”

“Sure, Jack. Please don’t misunderstand; I’m not criticizing you. I think you’re to be commended.” She nudged him gently with her elbow. “You had me buying you more coffee—you got me to feed your habit right under my nose, that’s how long it took me to catch on. You made me your dealer, dammit!”

“Kinda,” he mumbled. “But I usually made two batches of desserts, so I’ve actually been feeding you decaf.”

“Huh. Well. That’s something to be proud of, you duplicitous jerk.”

He giggled, but immediately sobered. “I wasn’t trying to trick you.”

“You literally just explained how you tricked me. And how you tricked anyone who had one of ‘my’ desserts and thought they were getting caffeine.”

He shrugged. “I just needed it.”

“I know. But it’s just another stopgap measure. It’s not a long-term fix. And other problems are cropping up, too, aren’t they? Because the more exhausted you are, the more the world seems bigger and louder. Things that didn’t bother you before are bugging the hell out of you now.”

“But again, that happens to a lot of people.”

“Here’s what doesn’t: You’re starting to get pictures in your head, but they’re not your pictures. They’re not your thoughts. They’re about people you don’t know . . . Except you can’t shake the feeling that you do know them. You were gray as a ghost when you and Paul were done wrestling for who had to paint the deck.”

“Only because he forgot to put on deodorant.”

“Or because you realized he was born in 1934 and his name used to be Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space. And the shortest person in space,” she added under her breath, and managed to lock back a snicker.

Leah waited while Jack looked away and fiddled with his shoelaces. Then: “Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly right and I shouldn’t know that so why do I know that? I don’t want to know that.”

“No, I imagine you don’t.”

“So why?” His voice cracked on “why” and he flushed red.

“Oh, Jack. You know why.”

“I don’t want to know that Mitchell starved to death in a potato famine or that Angela has a history of getting innocent people killed or that Mom ends up alone in every single life,” he cried. “When I was little—”

“When you were little,” Leah said quietly, “they chalked it up to a vivid imagination. If you talked about it at all. In this house, it’s easy to get lost. If someone said ‘Insighter,’ they were talking about Angela. Right? So you didn’t say anything to disabuse them. And that worked for a long time.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“But puberty often kick-starts the ability, or gives it a sizeable boost—you can blame that on the pituitary gland. The same thing directing your body to grow several inches got your Insighting going, too. Because ordinary puberty isn’t horrifying enough.”

It fell flat; he wasn’t in a joking mood. “I don’t want a biology lesson and I don’t want other people’s lives in my head! I’ve got enough trouble juggling my own. Did you know I drowned in molasses in 1919? I mean, what the fuck?”

“If it makes you feel better, my mom killed me in several past lives.”

His eyes almost literally bulged. “Why? Leah? Why would that make me feel better?”

That brought her up short. “Well. When you put it like that, I have to admit, that was a dim move on my part.”

“I don’t want to be an Insighter,” he said, lips trembling. His gray green eyes filled and she knew he would be embarrassed and angry if even one tear fell. “No offense.”

“I’m not offended. I wasn’t happy about it, either. And my mother . . . my mother was horrified.”

“Well, yeah.” Jack sniffed and raked his forearm across his face, dashing away tears. “Because she wanted an easier life for you.”

“You’re adorable,” she said dryly. “Because she didn’t want anything that might take the spotlight off her. She insisted it was just my overactive imagination. She spent years denying it.”

“That’s when you tried to get emancipated?” When she raised her eyebrows, he added guiltily, “I Googled you.”

“Oh. No, I tried to get emancipated because she was making me work—shows, movie cameos, endorsements, all of which I hated—and keeping all my money.”

“But your mom banged the judge so you were stuck.”

“Uh, yes.” I should probably look myself up online.

“But then you got famous. Famous-er. You were always in the news, but not because of TV anymore. Archer was super excited when he got to meet you, he told us all about it.”

Got to meet me. Well, that was one way to put it. “Was hired to stalk me” would have been a tad more accurate.

History. Focus. “Yes, I was famous. On quite my own merits.” Leah smiled, but it wasn’t a happy one. “The unforgivable sin in Nellie Nazir’s eyes is that I wasn’t even on TV anymore and I was still more famous than her. Her only focus from the time I was seventeen until I—until last year—was luring me back to revive her career with ‘our comeback.’” Leah still couldn’t say “our comeback” without a shudder.

“So you left to get out of the spotlight, but took a job that put you right back in it, and kept you in it.”

She shrugged. “There wasn’t a conscious plan, that’s just how it worked out. And urgh!” She stretched and rubbed the small of her back with both hands. “Come on. Unlike you I’m a pregnant crone and this floor is hard.”

“You’re not a crone and you’re not even showing.”

“Irrelevant! Help me up and we’ll sit at the turtle table and you can ask me anything you want while I drink juice and don’t stir mustard into it.”

“Anything? Really?” Then: “‘Mustard’?”

“Less asking, more pulling.”

When they were at the table and Leah was sipping her mustard-free juice: “Yes. Anything. But I warn you, any sex-related questions will be awkward and we’ll probably have to avoid eye contact for a few days.”

“Just . . . gross. No.” He leaned forward. “Did you ever like it?”

I’m going to assume he’s talking about Insighting. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “I’ve been able to help a lot of clients.” She thought of Chart #6291, formerly Clara Barton, currently chief of neurosurgery at Massachusetts General. And Chart #5272, formerly Ludwig van Beethoven, currently the author of Musical Anhedonia Hath No Charms (“How can I be him? I hate classical music. And concerts. And my hearing’s fine.”). The actions and consequences from their past lives bled into their present ones, paralyzing them. Leah had helped with that.

It wasn’t always about making a mark, she’d explained to a construction worker who used to be Albert Einstein—the month before she met Archer. “You don’t have to live up to your last life. You love being an electrician. That’s great. Do you know how many people I meet who hate their jobs? Do you know how many people anyone meets who hate their jobs? To be honest, I’m a little envious. You make good money, you and your husband are raising a beautiful family, you love your life, what’s the problem?”

“Well, after my folks had me tested . . .”

“Can I tell you something? Pretexting often brings more problems than it solves. It’s like an IQ test: It narrows everyone’s expectations. ‘You have a genius IQ so you’d better invent something wonderful. Or cure something terrible. Make your mark or you’ve wasted your life. No pressure.’ Expecting children to live up to that is begging for trouble.

“Pretexting does the same thing: ‘You used to be Alexander Graham Bell, so we’re already talking to MIT since you’ll have an incredible life and become world famous by your thirtieth birthday.’ It’s crap. It’s a straitjacket.”

Other patients had the reverse problem, and she had helped them understand they didn’t have to live down their past lives, either. “So you were a necrophiliac who targeted landladies until you were hanged in 1928? You’re not compelled to kill, you don’t have to write letters of condolence to the victims’ great-great-grandchildren. And if you’re that worried your past will bleed into your present, buy. Don’t rent.”

Well, that one was perhaps oversimplified. But never mind. The bottom line is . . .

“Sometimes the work is beyond rewarding. Since most people only ever hear me complaining, it’s only fair to mention that there are many days when I like what I do. It goes beyond helping people in their day-to-day lives. I’ve been able to work with the police and attorneys to put away some utter degenerates. There’s satisfaction in that.”

Jack was nodding. “Okay. Sure.”

“It’s a little like being a world-famous baker who doesn’t like cake. Possessing the skill doesn’t mean you love it. People demanding your cake doesn’t mean you actually like baking.” Not my best metaphor. Well, it is past midnight.

“But you’re different from me. Just like Angela’s different from me. What works for you might not help me.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Because you’re—I dunno—the Bette Davis of Insighters. Or something.”

She groaned. “Oh, my God, you’ve all got to stop that. Not least because you’ve got it wrong. Davis had natural talent that she built on. She was relentless and fearless about her craft—she liked playing monsters—and the work was always, always her number one focus. It’s why she was so mesmerizing on-screen. If you go back and watch the early films, you can almost see how each picture is a stepping-stone to the deeper characterization she found for the next.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I know.”

“Film geek.”

“Yes, well, Hollywood childhood. Those movies were my homework. And the best part—” She laughed a little, remembering. “My mom was furious when I told her she’d never been famous except for that time she’d been a serial killer—”

“Wait, what?”

“—and she certainly wasn’t the reincarnation of Davis. Or Garland. Or Hepburn. Or anyone of note.”

“Can we circle back to your mom the serial kil—”

“The thing is, Jack, if I was the anything of Insighters, I’d be Greta Garbo: skilled, but ultimately resentful of the attention it brought and constantly tempted to exile myself.”

“Um . . .”

“Sometimes I can barely be bothered to try. Which makes me the jerkass of Insighters.”

“You’re not making me feel better about being a freak.”

“Ah, but as I remind my clients, my job isn’t to make them feel better. It’s to help them see. What I’m trying to explain is, it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to be a career. You don’t have to end up—” Like me. “For most people, like your sister, it’s just something they have a knack for. Like being great with numbers—the fourteen-year-old kid taking college trig, for example. Or like knowing what spices go together with what food even if you’ve never cooked. It helps—or hinders—exactly as much as you want it to. What if that same math whiz decides on medical school? It doesn’t mean they’re not a math genius, they’re just putting their focus elsewhere.”

She cleared her throat. “Wow, I’m talking a lot.”

“Uh-huh. But, Leah, the thing is—” In his anxiety, Jack grabbed Leah’s hand, squeezing for emphasis. “That’s why Angela’s always been so obsessed with Dad’s case.”

Unspoken: And I don’t want to be like that.

“Is that what you think? That it’s about her gift, and not her personality?” Is that what you all think? That explains quite a bit, come to think of it. She shook her head. “No, Jack. Your sister’s obsessed—and I don’t think she’s clinically obsessed, by the way. We throw that word around far too often, so many people use ‘obsessed’ when what they really mean is ‘focused’ or—”

“Argh.”

“Sorry. Your father’s murder is a constant, strong issue for her because that’s her nature, and it’s nothing to do with Insight. Her attention to detail, her reliance on being in control—”

She was delighted when he snickered; it was an improvement over tearful despair. “Soooo tactful.”

“Yes, well, I’ve got skills. Angela’s personality traits have little to do with the ability. The way she looks after all of you—do you think that’s because she knows Jordan died of gangrene after biting his tongue?”

“What?”

“No, it’s because something in her compels her to take care of all of you. Your sister isn’t driven to spend years researching a murder because she can see other lives. She’s driven to research it because she knows something’s wrong and she wants to fix it.”

“Okay. That’s—okay.” He sighed. “Can we stop talking about this for now? I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just, there’s a lot to think about.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t feel . . . better, exactly? Just less bad, and I don’t think that’s the same thing. But I’ll take it. To be honest, I’m so tired I feel like you wrapped a brick in cotton and whacked me in the forehead with it.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

He started to get up from the table, then paused. “Don’t tell anybody, okay?”

“Of course.”

“And thanks. For talking to me.”

“Of course.”

“You want some more juice?”

“No, I thought I’d go back to bed and try to sleep.”

“Me, too.” He headed for the doorway, then paused and turned. “Y’know, you’re really screwed up,” he said cheerfully. “Your family’s worse than mine, which I sort of thought was impossible. But think about it!”

“I have.”

“Your mom killed you a lot—”

“I remember.”

“—and was a serial killer—”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“—and you’re pregnant with a Drake baby—”

“For Christ’s sake. I get it.”

“—and you have to go back to prison again.”

“All true. Not sure what your point is.”

“There’s just so much madness wrapped up in all that. It’s kind of glorious, you know?”

That made her laugh. Hard. And why not? The kid had a point. He’d also reminded her that helping clients see themselves gave her perspective into her own brand of insanity. She still didn’t know what to do about The Return of Nellie Nazir, but it was a problem she didn’t have to solve on her own, and remembering that was always valuable.