The Soul Catcher

CHAPTER 74

Kathleen checked all the bathroom stalls. Good. The place was empty. She wished she could lock the door. But there was no lock on the inside. No chair to shove against the handle. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. She could hear the rally had already begun. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be interrupted.

She starting filling one of the sinks with lukewarm water. The water kept stopping. One of those conservation faucets. Damn it! At this rate, it would take forever. She punched the “on” faucet again and laid out paper towels on the counter. Silly, really. Why would she need paper towels?

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the razor blade she had confiscated from Reverend Everett’s hotel bathroom, a real razor with a real metal blade. Her fingers shook as she tried to pop the blade out of the razor. It took several attempts. Why couldn’t she keep her fingers from shaking? This was ridiculous. It wasn’t like it was her first time.

Finally!

She laid the blade carefully, almost reverently, on one of the paper towels. The stupid water had shut off again. Another punch. The sink would never fill at this rate. Maybe she didn’t need it to. Maybe she didn’t care whether it hurt or not. Maybe she just didn’t care anymore about anything.

She glanced around the bathroom and stopped when she saw her reflection in the mirror, meeting her own eyes, almost afraid to look too closely. She didn’t want to see the betrayal, the accusations, the guilt or even the failure. Because this time she had tried to make things work. She really had. She had stopped drinking. She thought she had found some sense of direction, some sense of self-respect. But she was wrong. She had even tried telling Maggie the truth, the painful truth that made her own daughter only hate her more. There was nothing left.

She picked up the razor between her thumb and index finger just as the bathroom door opened.

The young woman stopped when she saw Kathleen, letting the door slam shut behind her. She wore a baseball cap over short blond hair and a leather bomber jacket with blue jeans and old scuffed boots. She stood exactly where she stopped, staring at Kathleen and recognizing the object in her hand. But the woman didn’t look surprised or alarmed. Instead, she smiled and said, “You’re Kathleen O’Dell, aren’t you?”

Kathleen’s heart began pounding, but she didn’t move. She tried to place the young woman. She wasn’t a member of the church.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, stepping forward, then stopping abruptly when Kathleen shifted. “We’ve never met before.” She kept her voice friendly and calm despite her eyes which kept darting to the razor blade in Kathleen’s hand. “I’m Julia Racine. I know your daughter, Maggie. I can see the resemblance.” She smiled again. “She has your eyes.”

Kathleen felt the panic twisting in her stomach. Damn it! Why couldn’t they all just go away and leave her. She gripped the blade tighter, felt it against her wrist, the sharp edge promising such warm silence, promising to shut off the throbbing in her head and plug up the hollow place deep inside her.

“Is Maggie here?” she asked, glancing at the door, almost expecting her daughter to come barging in to rescue her once again. Always the savior, pulling her up out of the darkness, even when Kathleen wanted, needed, longed for the darkness.

“No. Maggie’s not here. She’s back in the District.” The woman, this Julia, looked unsure of herself now. Like maybe she shouldn’t have told a truth when a lie would have sufficed. “You know I never got a chance to know my mother,” she said, changing the subject quickly, but with such a smooth, steady voice that Kathleen didn’t mind. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what the woman was doing. But she was better at it than most. Almost as if she had some experience with talking people down off ledges.

Is that what she was doing? Trying to talk her off this ledge? It only worked if the person wanted to be talked down. Kathleen glanced at her wrist and could see blood dripping where she had started to cut. She hadn’t realized she had done that. She certainly hadn’t felt it. It surprised her that it didn’t hurt. Was that a good sign? That it didn’t hurt? When she looked back up she saw the woman had noticed, too, and before Julia Racine could snap back to her professional calm, Kathleen caught a glimpse of something else in the woman’s eyes. Something…maybe doubt, maybe fear. So she wasn’t as cool and calm as she pretended.

“My mom,” the woman continued, “died when I was a little girl. I remember things, you know, pieces of things, really. Like the scent of lavender. I guess it was her favorite perfume. Oh, and her humming. Sometimes I can hear her humming to me. But I never recognize the tune. It’s soothing, though. Kinda like a lullaby.”

She was rambling but still calm. It was distracting and Kathleen knew that was part of the game. It was a game, after all, wasn’t it?

“You know, Maggie’s really concerned about you, Kathleen.”

She stared at her, but the blue eyes were strong, unflinching, no longer playing or maybe just very good at lying.

“She’s so angry with me,” Kathleen found herself saying without really meaning to.

“Just because we get angry with people we love, it doesn’t mean we want them gone forever.”

“She doesn’t love me.” She said this with almost a laugh, as if letting this Racine woman know that she could see through her lies.

“You are her mother. How could she not love you?”

“I’ve made it very easy. Believe me.”

“Okay, so she’s angry with you.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Okay, sometimes she doesn’t even like you very much. Right?”

Now Kathleen did laugh and nodded.

Julia Racine remained serious and said, “It doesn’t mean she wants you gone forever.”

When it looked like that sentimental stuff wouldn’t work, the young woman smiled and added, “Look, Mrs. O’Dell, I’m already in a shitload of trouble with your daughter. How ’bout giving me a break?”