I nodded. “I don’t have to see her, though … if this is a bad time. It looks like there’s a group meeting going on.”

“Nonsense, girl,” Latisha said. “Meredith isn’t in group, and a visitor is just what the doctor ordered.”

“Indeed it is,” Dr. Connors said as he came up to me. He held a clipboard in his hands and wore a long white coat over a sweater and slacks—the same sweater he’d worn to our family’s ill-fated Thanksgiving dinner last year. He smiled warmly down at me, but his eyes told a much graver story. “How’s your father doing? I called down to check on him earlier, but I’ve been unable to make it down there personally.”

“Same as earlier.”

“I see.” He cleared his throat.

“Has she asked to go down to see him?”

“No. I was hoping that…” He cleared his throat again and tucked a pen into the top of his clipboard. “Walk with me, Grace.”

I took a few strides in the direction he led me, until I realized we were headed toward the patient rooms rather than the visiting area. I still wasn’t sure I was ready for this. Dr. Connors glanced back at me expectantly. I swallowed my apprehension and fell into step with him.

“Normally, we’d have you meet with her in one of our visiting rooms, but I think in this case … it would be best if I were to take you to her.”

“What…” I bit my lip. “What exactly is wrong with her?”

Mom had always had OCD-like tendencies that amplified whenever things got stressful at home. Like, the worse things were, the more she had to make everything seem perfect. Then after Jude ran away, she really started to lose it. Like she’d developed her own designer brand of bipolar disorder—going from a manic overprotective mother bear when it came to me and my siblings to slipping into a zombie-esque state in which she was obsessed with doing nothing but watching news reports in hopes of spotting my missing brother in the background. She’d refuse to do anything else for days, and she’d totally lose all consideration for her children who were still home. Who still needed her. Dr. Connors had advised my father more than once that she might need more than counseling and medication—might need to be admitted—but she must have really snapped when I disappeared for my dad finally to have brought her to the main clinic. He’d known that she’d probably never forgive him for it.

Dr. Connors stopped in front of a patient room. A little card under the door number had my mother’s name on it. “I’ve known your mother for a long time. She was a godsend during my residency. However, as you’re probably aware, she’s always had a tendency to create a facade of perfection around her—a false reality, so to speak. It’s a coping mechanism. Yet as I gathered from our counseling sessions over the last year, that facade has been crumbling—and now, something, whatever it is, has torn apart her fake reality so completely, she can no longer cope at all.”

He pushed open her door and I saw her for the first time in over a week—yet I barely recognized her. She sat up in her bed, staring at what seemed like a black smudge on the wall, wearing gray sweats like all the other patients—but without a drawstring in the pants waist, I realized now—and slippers on her feet. Both items she wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing outside of the house in the past. Her normally beautiful hair hung stringy and unwashed around her face, which was so hollow looking, I wondered just how long it had been since she’d eaten anything at all.

“She hasn’t voluntarily left that spot since she got here,” he said. “She won’t go to group or eat with the others. She won’t even say a word to me.”

I swallowed hard. I’d lived through many of my mother’s bad days in the last year, but now she just seemed … vacant. “Will she ever get better?”

“Not until her mind can come to terms with her new reality—the true one—whatever that may be. What is it your father is always saying, ‘The truth shall set you free’? That’s what your mother needs to process: the truth. Whatever happened that caused this—it’s rocked her off her foundation. Until she can find her footing again, both mentally and emotionally, this is the only way her mind knows how to function.” He indicated her catatonic stare.

I nodded, as if I actually understood. So what Mom needed to do was tell her doctors she’s accepted the fact that her oldest son is a werewolf and her daughter is a superpowered demon hunter? Yeah, I don’t see that earning her a ticket out of the psych ward anytime soon.

“I’ll give you ten minutes alone with her. Short visits are best.”

I checked my watch, pretending I didn’t have much time anyway. A short visit was all I had the energy for. Maybe I don’t have the strength at all.…

“It’s good you came,” Dr. Connors said, and gave me a nudge into the room. He closed the door behind me. I felt trapped all over again.

Three eternal minutes ticked by on my watch as I stood there, not knowing what to do. Or what to say. Mom didn’t move. She didn’t even try to glance at me.

“Mom?” My voice sounded so awkward. I felt like I was talking to that smudge on the wall. I took two small steps closer to her. “Mom?”

No acknowledgment.

But maybe I didn’t want her to look at me. Dad had told her what had happened to me … about the curse … and maybe now she’d see me only as a monster. Maybe that was what she couldn’t accept.

“Mommy?” Tears pricked my eyes. “I don’t know what all Daddy told you, but it’s true. I know it’s hard to believe—what happened to Jude … and me. But I’m still your daughter. And Jude’s still your son. And he’s back now. And he needs you. We all need you.”

Nothing.

“James and Charity are staying with Aunt Carol—but they can’t stay there forever. And Dad’s been hurt. Really hurt. He needs someone to take care of him. But I have so much on my plate. I’m trying to find a way to turn Daniel back into a human. And Jude needs someone to help him, too. There’s a madman with a pack of demons that wants me dead, and another werewolf pack that wants me for heaven knows what reason. And then I’ve got my own pack of five—four—werewolf boys, who keep looking to me to be their leader … or mother … or something. But I don’t know how to do it all. And I can’t do it by myself. We all need you.” I stepped even closer. What I wanted to do was throw my arms around her and bury my head against her like I did when I was a child. Instead, I placed my hand on her thin fingers. “I need a mother. We all need one.”