Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) (17 page)

“I’m Ravenna Pelletier,” Raven told the receptionist at the state hospital. “My mother, Margot, is a patient here and had some sort of incident this morning.”

“Let’s see here,” the woman responded clicking through her computer. “Oh, yes, her doctor would like to visit with you and,” she paused and looked over her glasses at me, “and Joe?”

Raven shook her head. “My uncle Joe is out of town. He’s an OTR truck driver. He should be back tomorrow, though.”

“Okay, go ahead and read through this, and then sign here,” the receptionist said handing Raven a form. “And I'll need to see your ID.” She looked back to me. “Are you a relative also?”

“Friend… friend of the family.” I looked down at Raven. “Do they let friends visit?”

She nodded. “Friends are welcome just like family. Encouraged actually. But you don’t have to… not if you don’t want to.”

She looked so small and helpless and alone. It was a completely different Raven from any I’d known before.

“Do you want me to?”

Say yes. Please say yes. Let me be the strength for you that you’ve been for me.

She gave me the faintest of nods.

“Then I want to,” I said.

Raven smiled sadly as the receptionist pulled out another clipboard with a form.

“Okay, Mr.…?”

“Massey. Drew Massey.”

“Okay, Mr. Massey, fill out this form, and I'll need to see your ID as well.”

I looked down at the patient visitation sheet before me. It seemed oddly surreal. Not so long ago, it had been like pulling teeth to get Raven to talk at all. And now here I was, standing beside her at the state mental institution to see her mother.

The receptionist took our signed forms and called for someone to come get us. Once we’d slipped on the “VISITOR” badges, we were led back to the physician.

“Ms. Pelletier,” the doctor said, “glad you could make it. I’m hoping it will be helpful for you to be here when she wakes up.”

“Dr. Reynolds, this is Drew, a friend of mine.” Raven looked from him up to me. “Drew, this is Dr. Reynolds. He’s my mom’s LIP.”

“LIP?” I asked.

“Licensed Independent Practitioner,” Dr. Reynolds nodded. “I’m her doctor.” He looked from me back to Raven. “Your mom managed to get a hold of something sharp this morning. She went in her room to nap after breakfast. One of the techs thought she was acting a little suspicious and followed to check on her. She had herself pretty cut up, trying to slit her wrists, but she was stopped before she’d done any real physical damage. However, she was very combative and hysterical. We ended up sedating her.”

My mind reeled with this information. Not only was Raven’s mom in the state mental hospital, but she had tried to kill herself. Raven glanced up at me, reading my look of shock.

“This isn’t the first time,” she murmured warily.

I slipped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head when she leaned into me.

“At any rate,” the doctor said, “she’ll probably be waking up within an hour or so. Since she’s had a rough day, we’ll let you go into her room, but I would recommend that she wake up a little before you do to ensure that she is a little more stable.”

“Or that she wants to see me.”

The doctor gave her a grim nod. “Yes, there’s always that. You could go sit in the waiting area, and we’ll come get you.”

We had been taken to a small waiting room, and Raven stood at a window, looking out at nothing, really. Sorta dazed and forlorn in appearance. I stepped behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist, offering her some solace. She closed her eyes and leaned back against my chest.

“So, wanna tell me a little?” I asked after a while.

“My mom and my Uncle Joe grew up in Anaconda.” Her voice was low and flat. “Mom hated it, though. She was the daughter of a miner, blue collar and common, but she always dreamed of a glamorous life in the big city. She studied her ass off to get into college and to earn scholarships to pay the way to someplace really prestigious. In reality, though, she went more for a man then a degree. She met my dad.”

She pulled away a little and turned to face me. Her violet eyes showed pain and loneliness that caused an ache to settle deep in my chest.

“He was from a wealthy family near Portland,” she continued. “She took one look at him, at everything he represented, and set forth to make it hers. She played the role perfectly. She became exactly who she thought he wanted her to be. Gorgeous. Refined. Not a hint of the common, backwoods girl she had been. She became someone else.”

“A little risky.”

“She got everything she wanted at first. They got married in a huge, ridiculously expensive wedding. They honeymooned in Italy. They moved back to his hometown so he could take the reins from his dad as CEO of Northwest Insurance.”

“Your dad is CEO of Northwest Insurance?”

“Yup, a little family business,” she nodded.

“A multi-million-dollar little family business.”

She gave me a wry, sad smile and shrugged. “Doesn’t mean much to me. I think I’m written out of his will.”

That threw me a little. “What? You're his kid.”

“I’m the black sheep. The square peg in a house full of round holes.”

“Because of your mom? Did her secret past come back to bite her in the ass?”

“No,” Raven shook her head. “She was right there with him for most of my life, wishing me away.”

“Jesus,” I exhaled. My family wasn’t exactly
Leave It To Beaver
, but at least they were just kind of absent.

But this…

“Look at me, Drew,” she said, stepping back and motioning from head to toe. “Look at me with my purple hair and my tattoos and my piercings and my love of all things goth and steampunk. Then imagine it. Imagine the perfect family—the strong, successful man with his little Stepford wife. Their perfect daughter, beautifully blonde with perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect teeth. Straight A’s and class president and homecoming queen. They should have stopped at one, but they wanted a boy. Instead, after a few years of trying, they got another girl… one that didn’t really fit in.”

“I take it you’re the other girl.”

Raven nodded. “Alessandria was my idol for a long time. I wanted so badly to be like her. Everyone else wanted me to be like her, too. I just never really could. She was tall, I was short. She was light, I was dark. The more my parents held her up as an example, the less I cared. The more I rebelled. She was teacher’s pet, I became the class clown. She was a cheerleader, I started smoking pot under the bleachers.”

“You were probably a lot more fun,” I murmured and pulled her closer.

“Eventually, the stain of my existence got to be too much,” she said, her voice muffled a little by my shirt. “When I was a sophomore in high school, I got caught with a bottle of vodka in my locker at school. It was rather scandalous for my snobby private school, and my parents were mortified. My dad gave a sizable donation to help avoid any public shame, but they were done. They made arrangements for me to come live with my uncle in Anaconda, to put me away so they didn't have to worry about how I reflected on them.”

She looked up at me, and I tenderly brushed the hair from her eyes.

“It was kind of a relief, really. Joe’s a truck driver, so he’s gone a lot. He was pretty laid back, much different than my parents. He was accepting and sweet. My aunt had died when I was young, but Lacey became like a sister, much more than Alessandria had ever been. They welcomed me in just as I was. They accepted me as myself. As…
this
.” She gestured down to herself.

“So,” I asked, “with all that perfection, how did your mom end up here.”

“Well, first of all, my dad’s an egomaniacal whore. My mom always knew he ran around on her, but one doesn’t air dirty laundry. She popped some pills and got Botox and boob jobs. As long as everything looked good on the outside, the inside didn’t matter, you know. But, then, about two years ago, he told her he wanted a divorce. He found a newer model.”

“I take it your mom didn’t handle it well.”

“She cracked. Completely. She went after his new piece right in the middle of the company Christmas party. He was appalled. So was my sister who, by this time, was married to his protégé. She didn’t want anything to do with her own mother.”

“Pretty cold,” I empathized.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It got worse, too. Together, my dad and sister petitioned the court to have Mom committed. They claimed she was dangerous. I had moved to Billings by that time, so the attorneys contacted my uncle to try and find me. I guess they thought I would help their case, or something, although I’m not entirely sure how. It took some doing, but Uncle Joe convinced them to have her brought to Warm Springs, someplace where he could check in on her. She had turned her back on him, but she was still his little sister. She needed him, and he still loved her after everything she’d done.”

“So you came back to help him?” I asked.

“She’s still my mother.”

“This was just over two years ago?”

She looked up at me and nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“When you came to work for me.”

“Yeah, that it was. I needed to be close, but I also needed a little space. I got the job at Ink and moved to Ophir.”

“I had no idea.”

“Not many people did. I’m not an overly social person. I do much better at dark and gothic.”

“Your cousin…” I began, prompting her for the name.

“Lacey?”

“Yeah, Lacey,” I nodded. “Did she know?”

“Yeah, she was still living with my uncle. I stayed with them when I first came back, before I started working for you.”

The door opened and a staffer poked her head into the room.

“Ms. Pelletier? Your mother is awake. Dr. Reynolds said you could see her now.”

Raven seemed to tense at the thought, her features drawing tight. I hadn’t noticed her relaxing at all, but I realized at once that she must have a little since we’d arrived. As though talking or just having someone around had been helpful to keep her from dwelling on the stressor in front of her.

But now, she once again looked anxious.

I laid my hand low at her back, a silent cue that I’d stand by her. With a quick glance up at me, she took a deep, shaking breath.

“I’m right here,” I promised.

Then we started for the door.

The room was pretty simple. Raven’s mother lay in the bed with restraints holding her back, even though she still looked a little out of it.

She had long hair that could have been blonde with a little sun, but appeared drab and lifeless. Yet the woman who sat there in the bed seemed almost regal, even in her disheveled state. Her mannerisms didn’t exactly seem to be instinct, more that she’d practiced the poise for so long, it had become second nature.

“Hi, Mama,” Raven softly said.

“Oh dear,” her mother replied with a groggy frown. “Your hair is purple now?”

Raven quickly glanced up at me through her lashes, then stepped forward, away from me a little.

“It is. It was last time, too.”