The Vision by Jen Nadol Page A

greek—getting in touch with my roots.”
    And I felt like I was. Inching closer to the answers. It hadn’t been much, but the way she’d looked at me … I felt sure I’d connected with Demetria.
    They say three’s a charm. Maybe my next visit would be the one.

chapter 7
    I asked Petra about my Zander sighting when I got home that night. It was after eight and she was just starting on a pizza. “Grab a slice,” she said. She didn’t need to offer twice.
    â€œNope,” Petra said flatly, between bites. “No way someone could have gotten on the floor without signing in. Not with the desk right by the entry. They’re too strict.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought. But what if he used a fake name?”
    She shrugged. “He could have, but he’d need ID to go with it.”
    â€œYeah, but it’s not like it would have to be anything all that official. I mean, he wasn’t trying to buy beer, just visit crazy people.”
    â€œTrue. But why, Cassie? Why would he bother?”
    She had me there. Was I really still clinging to the idea that he’d followed me? I shook my head. It had been Joe Liguori and not Zander after all, though it had looked so much like him.
    â€œUnless he’s the father of her baby,” Petra said casually.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI saw it when I was checking her file today,” Petra said, leaning forward, her eyes gleaming. Sometimes I thought she’d become a psychiatrist just because she was nosy, the smartest person I knew who still read the National Enquirer and US Weekly . “It’s part of the standard blood work; the results came back a few days ago.”
    â€œWow.” I let the idea—pregnant—roll around for a few seconds, like a marble toward the chute of a funnel. Being a single teen mother would be bad. The responsibility of the mark was awful. What if the two were combined—Demetria realizing she was about to pass her visions on to someone else?
    Petra was nodding, still leaning forward, elbows on her knees. “Demetria hasn’t said anything about it to her therapist. Of course, she still hasn’t said anything at all to her therapist.”
    â€œAre you sure she knows? About being pregnant?”
    â€œThe hCG levels in her blood put her at about eleven weeks. That’s two missed periods. It’s possible she hasn’t realized it, but I’m guessing she has. It might even explain …”
    â€œâ€¦ why she’s there,” I finished for Petra.
    â€œExactly.”
    And then what Petra said before came back to me. The part about Zander. She’d been joking, but what if she was right? A player, Liv had called him, as if I’d needed her to tell me that. As if it weren’t totally apparent looking at him. Was he the father? That would be a reason to hide his identity. I was disappointed to think he might be exactly what he seemed.
    â€œWhat about her parents?” I asked, ignoring thoughts of Zander. “Do they know?”
    Petra held out the box with the last slice of pizza, pulling it onto her plate when I declined. “I don’t think so. I imagine they’d have mentioned it at admission. I think Demetria’s the only one who knows.”
    â€œDemetria and maybe the boy,” I corrected.
    â€œRight,” Petra agreed. “And maybe the boy.”
    Saturday at the funeral home was a bummer: a wake where almost no one came, the worst kind. The guy wasn’t old, maybe fifty. He’d died of lung cancer.
    I’d been disappointed, too, that Ryan wasn’t around. I’d thought about our conversation a lot, sure he thought I was some kind of weirdo.
    But when I went to my locker at the end of the shift, a stack of books was waiting: Death, Dying, and Religion ; Coming to Grips with Death ; and The Ultimate Journey.
    There was also a note:
    Thought these would feed your non-perverse