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inevitably, Vera never came back to the motel. A sunken ship they had been exploring, after years of stability, had suddenly shifted, pinning Vera and another teacher under the hull. Both women, novices at scuba diving, had panicked, not giving the instructor time to get to them.
    â€œYou don’t have to talk about it,” Suzanne said. “I know how rough it can get. Believe me, I know.”
    â€œNo. It’s okay. It’s sort of neat to have someone to talk to—someone who really understands what I’m saying. I tell Nicole, she’s my best friend, just about everything, because sometimes I think I’ll just bust if I can’t talk about it, but I know she doesn’t really believe me always. I told her about Aunt Vera, though, and she was really spooked when she found out about the accident.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œIt was the first time anyone close to me had died,” Jessie said quietly. “Even my grandparents are alive. So at first I wasn’t certain what I was seeing. But the vision was similar to what I had seen when different animals of mine on the farm had died. First I sort of see them in my mind, then the image begins to get darker and darker. Momma and I tried to reach Aunt Vera in the Bahamas, but we were too late. She died in a scuba diving accident.”
    â€œI’m sorry. You know it wasn’t your fault, don’t you? That’s the hardest lesson a psychic has to learn.”
    Jessie nodded with an assurance that belied her young years. “That’s what Momma said. She said it over and over until I believed her.”
    â€œI think your mother sounds pretty special.”
    â€œShe is. I don’t really know if she believes in all this psychic stuff, but she knows I can do some pretty weird things, so she tries to keep my head on straight through it all. We had a Border collie named Jo-Jo who got run over, and I knew something was wrong and went to find him. Momma loved that dog almost as much as she did Amy and me. When I said something had happened to Jo-Jo, Momma just went to the phone and called the vet. I sort of guessed she must have believed in me, to call the vet before I even went looking for him.”
    â€œGet down, Zero! Get down! Bad doggie! You’re going to ruin my new dress!” Suzanne heard the child’s words. Her words. Then her father screaming at her. “You’ve killed him, you little devil! You sent him into the road didn’t you? Just because he jumped on your dress!” She could still see her father coming toward her, fury on his face. She had tried to run, but he grabbed her and tore at the pretty new yellow dress her mother had sewn for her.
    â€œYou think this dress is so God-damned special? Well, how do you like this?” And he had ripped it from her body, tearing it into a dozen pieces.
    The next day her mother had left to go visit her sister Alma, and it was the last time Suzanne had seen her.
    She had begged her mother not to go. She knew something awful was going to happen. When Roy came to her with news of the horrible car accident, she hadn’t even been surprised.
    â€œMiss Richards? Are you all right?”
    Suzanne shook her head, trying to erase old memories. “Yes, I’m sorry, Jessie. Once in a while when you speak of events that have taken place in your life, it reminds me of my own childhood.” She rubbed her hands across her face as though just waking up from a bad dream. “So what happened to Jo-Jo? Did he survive?”
    â€œOh, sure. He still goes out to bring in the cows every evening. Out of habit, mostly. Momma says to let him keep doing it, even if he is so old now that he can barely make it. She says if we took his job away, he’d probably just curl up and die.”
    Like me, Suzanne thought. I’m twenty-seven years old, and feel like I just want to curl up and die. The only thing I ever did that was worthwhile was taken