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girl wonder. chapter twenty three
IN the morning, my ringtone pulls me from my sleep. It's Dick again.
"Nat, it's urgent. Can you give me your mother's address? I'll explain everything later, but we have to go," he says, breathing heavily on the other end of the phone.
I'm half-tempted to demand more information after his lack of greeting, but I decide to trust that it is urgent and tell him the address.
"We'll be there soon, okay?"
I don't get to respond before he hangs up. With an exasperated sigh, I slide out of bed and begin to dress myself. I'm still half asleep, seeing as I barely drifted off during the night. My mind was wide awake, filled with thoughts about my mother.
She's already in the kitchen when I enter. She frowns upon noticing that I've changed.
"You're heading off?"
I nod, nervous under her disappointed gaze. "Dick called. He says it's urgent."
"I see."
For a few seconds, both of us are silent. I'm trying to think of something to say, but it's hard when I have to decide whether I want to see her ever again.
"I'm glad you found me," Mother admits eventually, breaking the bittersweet emptiness. When she walks towards me she practically glides. "I loved you and your father. I still do, but I understand if you don't want me to be part of your life."
She stares desperately into my eyes. Hers are filled with tenderness and affection. The blanket feeling returns. After a while I shake my head.
"I believe that you can make it right, the fact that you hurt Dad."
A smile spreads across her face, stretching from ear to ear. Her eyes glisten with disbelief. "So much compassion... You're more of an Amazon than most I've ever met, even despite not knowing your origins."
I shrug my shoulders, smiling innocently. "It was all Dad."
Dick and Donna arrive a couple minutes later. Mother gives me her phone number just in case of anything and for a moment I consider leaving her with a hug, but I remind myself that right now, she's just a stranger. She may have given birth to me, but she hasn't earned me as a daughter. Not yet, anyway.
As soon as I jump into the back of Donna's Wrangler, Dick speeds away — literally speeds — and we're leaving Illinois behind.
"This may just be my intuition, but something tells me the asylum wasn't the end of this thing," I say eventually.
"Your intuition's right. Remember those symbols we found in Kory's storage room? The ones you said were like Sumerian?"
