All the Light There Is

by Anise Eden

  Skeet seemed to grow ten years younger in an instant. “Absolutely! We’d love to have you. All you need to bring is yourselves. We’ll take care of everything else.”

  “That’s great,” Ben said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Terrific!” Skeet was beaming when the waitress arrived with our food.

  If we were really considering spending the week with Skeet, I was definitely going to need my strength. I plastered another cheek-aching smile on my face and attacked my enormous crab cake platter with gusto.

  Chapter Six

  We had found a bed-and-breakfast near St. Michaels that had two rooms available and convinced Ardis to spend the night as well. Once we arrived, the proprietor made us a pot of tea before retiring for the night. Ben went out on the front porch. He said he needed to make a phone call, but I knew that he was really trying to give me some time alone with Ardis. For that, I was deeply grateful.

  She and I sat at the table in the kitchen of the converted farmhouse, at first admiring the way the owners had blended clean, modern decor with nostalgic items, like old cookie jars and tobacco ads from the 1940s and ’50s. But then there was an unusually long silence, and I knew that Ardis was ready to have a serious talk. I sat quietly, staring at the steam rising from my cup, and waited.

  “Cate, you have no idea how good it is to see you.” She rested her hand on my arm.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, too,” I said. “I’m sorry I was such a stranger after…”

  She winced and held her hand up. “Enough. No more apologizing. You’re sorry for that; I’m sorry for surprising you with Skeet and everything this afternoon. We could both apologize to each other forever. But we don’t have all the time in the world, do we? And I have things to tell you.”

  I bit my lip as a grim shadow passed across her face. “About Mom?”

  She nodded. “And your father.”

  I shivered. I had never allowed myself to feel anything toward my father but ice-cold anger, which I disguised as indifference. After all, he’d abandoned us. My mother only mentioned him once, when I asked—and then, she simply said that he wasn’t a part of our lives anymore. Meanwhile, my question upset her so much that I vowed never to bring him up again. I convinced myself that I didn’t want to know anything about a man who had abandoned us and caused my mother so much pain. As far as I was concerned, the whole issue of my father was a closed book. But hearing Skeet and Ardis talk about him and learning of his death made me want to open that book up again. I steeled myself and gave Ardis a nod. “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “I guess I’ll start at the beginning.” She blew out a hard breath and clasped her hands together on the table. “Cate, I don’t know how much your mother shared with you about this, but she had a special gift. She was a healer of sorts. She could tell how other people were feeling, even if they were far away. And if someone was upset—well, people sought her out to make them feel better. Emotionally, I mean. I know that must sound strange—unless you already knew about it, that is.”

  Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I blinked them back. “She never talked about that.”

  Not while she was alive, anyway. My mother’s spirit had spoken through Kai during my initiation ritual two weeks before. That was the first time Mom had told me she was an empath, and that because of her gift, she had become emotionally overwhelmed by her work—a problem that ultimately led to her suicide. She had also confirmed that I was an empath too, and warned that I would be headed for a similar tragedy unless I accepted the support and guidance of the MacGregors. I decided against sharing any of that with Ardis, however. While she apparently was open-minded on the topic of alternative healers, I was unsure where she stood on psychic mediums.

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” Ardis said. “She wanted to forget about it most of the time, because it usually brought her nothing but grief. Like with your father, for instance. Well, you know now, he and Skeet worked together in the same lab. They did research on people like your mother, people with her kind of gifts. Once she told your father about her abilities, he kept trying to talk her into being part of their research projects, but she said she didn’t want to be a guinea pig. She was afraid of what they might do to her. He insisted that she wouldn’t come to any harm, of course, but I don’t think she fully believed him—or maybe she thought it wouldn’t be entirely up to him. Either way, it was an ongoing argument between them.”

  “Unbelievable,” I whispered, incredulous.

  “I wish it were,” she said. “After you were born, though, everything was fine for a while. They had something else to focus on, something positive. But when you got to be around nine months old, you started acting a bit like your mom. If someone was sick or upset, it was like you just knew. You’d reach out for them and hug their neck and make this little humming sound. It was the sweetest thing.”

  My stomach began to churn. “So they thought I might have a gift like hers.”

  “Well, you were so young, no one could tell for sure, but they suspected,” Ardis said. “Then, your father wanted to put you in his research project—for observation only, he said. He was all excited about doing a ‘cradle-to-grave’ study, as he called it. But your mother was too scared, especially with you being as little as you were. They had a huge fight, and she told him to leave and never come back and never to contact either one of you again. She exiled Skeet from your lives, too.”

  “Oh my god.” I tried to imagine how she must have felt—so scared, so torn. “Poor Mom.”

  “I know,” Ardis said. “It was terrible. We all liked your dad a lot, and he sure doted on the two of you. I’ve never seen a man so in love with his baby daughter. But for whatever reason, your mother was beyond terrified. Something spooked her, and she was convinced that she had to cut him out of your lives to keep you safe.”

  Ardis looked down at her teacup. “He offered to pay child support, but she refused to accept it. She said she didn’t want to be under any obligation to him, because he could use it as leverage someday.”

  I struggled to absorb this new information. It seemed like everything I’d believed about my father—and some of what I’d believed about my mother—wasn’t true, after all. “So you’re saying that he didn’t abandon us.”

  “Not willingly, no.”

  “He didn’t want to leave? He actually loved us?” I whispered, “Loved me?”

  “Very much, sweetheart.” Ardis looked pained. “One of the conditions he demanded in return for staying away from you was that he could contact you once you turned twenty-five—an age they settled on after a lot of negotiation. She wanted him to wait until you contacted him, but he was afraid that might never happen. He said a quarter of a century in the shadows was enough, and that by that time, you would be more than grown-up enough to make up your mind about whether you wanted to be in touch with him. Eventually, she came around, and they made an agreement. But as it turned out…”

  The tears that had threatened earlier finally wet my cheeks. “He died before my twenty-fifth birthday.”

  She stood and walked around the table, wrapping her arms around me. “My poor girl. I’m so sorry.”

  I screwed my eyes shut as the tears streamed down. My father had wanted to know me, but my mother’s fear had been so intense that she’d kept me from him. Why was she so afraid? I gripped Ardis’s wrists.

  “I don’t understand why she didn’t at least tell me when he died,” I said softly. “Whatever she’d been afraid of, he couldn’t hurt anyone at that point.”

  Ardis shrugged as she returned to her seat across the table from me. “Well, for a while, she was working through her own grief. Then, she was having trouble figuring out how to tell you, after all those years of not saying a word about him. Shortly before she died, she told me she’d finally made up her mind to talk to you about him the next time she saw you. But then…”

  “She never got the chance.”

  Ardis nodded. We both looked down at the dwindling co
ntents of our teacups.

  Eventually, I broke the silence. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “What was his name?”

  Her shoulders dropped under a heavy sigh. “Joe. Joseph Robert Grant.”

  “Joe.” I’d never known anyone named Joe. The name felt strange on my lips.

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you that first thing.”

  “No apologies, remember?” I gave her a mock-stern look, and she tried to smile. “Were he and Skeet friends all this time?”

  “Sort of.” She shook her head. “Not long after your mom and dad separated, Joe and Skeet had a big argument—over what, I’m not sure. They stayed friends, and they still worked together, but Skeet said they were never really as close after that.”

  Another falling out; another mystery. Had their argument been about my mother? I couldn’t help wondering.

  “Your mother planned to tell you one day all about her and Joe,” Ardis said. “In fact, right after she made him leave, she asked me to promise that if anything ever happened to her, I would give you the whole story. Over the years, I told her several times that I thought you needed to know what happened. But she said the one time you’d asked about him, you were too young to hear the details. Since you never brought it up again, she told herself you weren’t interested in knowing more. I didn’t think there was any way that could be true. It seemed only natural to me that a girl would wonder about her father. I feared you might have assumed the worst about him.”

  I didn’t want to make Ardis feel worse by telling her how right she’d been. “Yeah, well. As it was, I never knew what to think of him.”

  “I know,” she said, “and I think that was a poor decision on your mother’s part. But Cate, you know she didn’t scare easily. She must have had her reasons, although she’d never tell me what they were. She said it was better if I didn’t know.” She slumped down in her chair. “Skeet has always told me that she didn’t have anything to be afraid of, but she was certain she was doing what was necessary.”

  I nodded. That was the real question, wasn’t it? The root of the whole thing. What was it about their research that had scared my mother so badly? And it was Skeet, Joe’s friend and colleague, who would be able to answer that question.

  Suddenly, I had a compelling reason for wanting to spend the week at Skeet’s lodge. But I still didn’t know what Ben’s motivation was.

  “By the way, Skeet asked me to tell you that he needs to speak to you in private sometime,” Ardis added. “Something about an inheritance from your father. I don’t know the details.”

  “Okay,” I said absently. I had no idea what my father might have left to the daughter he never knew. A notebook full of answers, I hoped. But my brain was unable to process any more new information. Ardis caught me glancing at the front door of the house.

  “That’s all I’ve got for you, sweetie,” she said gently. “You should go spend some time with Ben.”

  I felt my cheeks heat up. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, go on. It’s a nice night, and I’m sure he’s wondering what we’ve been talking about.”

  “Probably.” I smiled. “Ardis, thank you for telling me all of this. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you, carrying these secrets around for so long.”

  “Harder on you, not knowing about your father. I’m just glad you finally do.”

  We stood and looked at each other, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: we wished my parents were both still alive and there with us. We shared a hug heavy with grief. Eventually, she pulled away. “I’m off to bed.”

  “I’ll be up in a while.” Ardis and I were staying in a room with two twin beds, and Ben was in another room with a double.

  “Well,” she said, with a wink in her voice, “if you spend the night in Ben’s room, I won’t tell anybody.”

  “Ardis!” I said with forced indignation, as though I hadn’t spent an indecent amount of time fantasizing about just that. “I’ll be up in a while,” I repeated firmly.

  “Okay, whatever you say.” She grinned and pointed to the front door. “Well, don’t leave him hanging.”

  I waved her up the stairs. Then I took a moment to pull myself together. Everything Ardis had told me… It was almost too much. My body felt leaden, but my emotions rumbled like unstable elements, skating on the edge of control. I didn’t know if I’d be able to repeat everything I’d learned to Ben, to physically get the words out.

  In the quiet, I could hear Ben’s voice. He really was talking on the phone. I winced as the screen door squeaked loudly and closed it carefully to make sure it didn’t slam. With his cell to his ear, Ben waved me over to where he was sitting, a long wooden swing hanging from the porch ceiling. I sat next to him for a moment, then gave in to my overwhelming desire to lie down. I rested my head in his lap and curled my legs up on the swing. The cool night air was like a balm on my skin. I heard the sound of water lapping up against something nearby—a pier? A shoreline? Ben began to stroke my hair as he wrapped up his conversation.

  “So you and Vani can be here Monday, and Kai, Asa, and Eve can come up on Tuesday? … Okay, that should work… Might as well bring everything… Kai can do that? … All right. Couldn’t hurt… Right. I’ll call to confirm.” Ben pushed a button and slid his phone into his shirt pocket. Then he tucked his arm under my head, cradling it.

  “Talking to Pete?” I guessed.

  “Yeah,” he said softly, moving his stroking fingers from my hair to my cheek. “You okay?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to lose myself completely in the sensation of Ben’s touch. “I am now.” I knew he wanted to know how I was after my conversation with Ardis, but I wasn’t quite ready to talk about it. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I was pretty impressed that you ate in front of everyone at the meeting this morning, then with Skeet and Ardis.”

  “Thanks. I’m working on it.” Ben brushed a strand of hair off of my forehead. “I don’t want this phobia to hold me back anymore. It’s getting easier all the time—especially when you’re with me.”

  He leaned down and kissed me softly on the temple. A low note of pleasure vibrated through me, as though I were a bar on a xylophone that had just been struck. I felt myself melting into his lap and onto the swing. I didn’t want to move or think or speak anymore, just dive into the sensation. Ben seemed to sense my reluctance to talk further. For a few blessed minutes, he just sat there, stroking my hair as I slipped further into bliss. But I knew it couldn’t last. There were too many things pressing on us.

  “So,” he murmured, “how do you feel about spending the week at the lodge?”

  I turned onto my back and looked up at him. Even with his face in shadow, I could see the worry lines forming. “It’s not exactly my idea of a vacation, but I have my own reasons for wanting to go, now. And I know you have reasons, too, which I’ve been waiting to hear about.”

  “Right.” Ben straightened up and shifted into businesslike mode. “Do you remember telling me last week that you felt ambivalent about Skeet, and had suspicions about his research ethics?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, you’re not alone in that,” Ben said. “You know that we treat some of his research subjects at our clinic when they need help. There’s more to that story that I was planning to tell you about—especially after Skeet tried to recruit you to join his experiments. Sometimes his participants come to us with problems they shouldn’t be having, or wouldn’t be having if they were cared for properly.”

  A shiver skidded down my back. “What kinds of problems?”

  “Addiction issues, sleep and appetite disturbances. Less often, visual and auditory hallucinations, but you can imagine how confusing those are for telepaths, mediums—people who already hear and see things that others don’t.” Ben paused. “Of course, these could just be naturally occurring problems, unique to each individual client. Sensitives aren’t immune to
mental health issues, after all.”

  “You don’t believe that, though?”

  He blew out a hard breath. “I wish I could, but we’ve observed certain patterns that are concerning. These patterns suggest that questionable research methods are being used, but we’ve never had enough information to know for sure. Spending time at Skeet’s lodge might be the opportunity we need to get answers, especially since some of his research subjects will be there too.”

  “Right, of course.” It was chilling to think that Skeet could actually be harming sensitives. Ben had clearly decided that it was his job to find out and to fix the situation if necessary. His expansive sense of responsibility worried me at times, especially when it meant putting himself at risk for others—something he forbade anyone else to do. But Ben’s determination to protect the vulnerable and the people he cared about was also one of the things about him that I loved and admired most. It seemed that having a real live hero as a boyfriend came with some unavoidable complications.

  Ben looked at me quizzically as he helped pull me up into a sitting position. “Okay, your turn. You said you have reasons for wanting to go to the lodge now.”

  “Right, yes.” I gripped the edge of the swing. “I do want to go, but not for R&R purposes, as Skeet suggested.”

  Ben draped his hand over mine. “It’s about your father, then.”

  My throat closed, trapping my voice. I looked down at our hands.

  “Cate.” As he spoke my name, I could hear the depth of his caring and his urgent desire to make everything better. “Tell me.”

  I clutched his hand as though it were a life vest, the only thing keeping me from drowning. Slowly at first, then in a flood, the words spilled out of me. I told him everything Ardis had told me—including how my mother’s fears had been so intense that she’d kept me away from a father who had loved me.

  “But Ardis never did find out what scared my mother so badly,” I said. Ben leaned in, wiping the tears from my cheeks before I realized that they’d fallen. “Skeet must know, though. That’s why I want to go to the lodge—to find out. And to learn more about my father.”