"I know and I'll try to follow the rules from now on."
Thank you, Jeezus! "Would you like to go sit in the dining hall?" Kylie asked.
"Or your cabin," her mom said.
"Sure." And then Kylie remembered Socks-her little skunk. "Uhh, I forgot that ... Della and Miranda invited a few girls over. The dining hall might work better."
"That's fine," her mom said. "Maybe I could grab something to drink so I could swallow a couple of aspirins. My head is pounding like I'm going to have an aneurysm."
An icy coldness suddenly settled around Kylie again. For a moment, she thought the ghost was back.
She looked at her mom. "Don't say that."
"Don't say what?" she asked.
"The aneurysm crap." It had been one of the many unsaid possibilities Kylie had considered happening with someone messing with your mind, and erasing your memories, and it still freaked her out.
Her mom smiled. "I'm just being a drama queen. I'm fine."
"Good," Kylie said. And when she looked at her mom, she recalled how frightened she'd been that she might never see her again. Another wash of emotion filled her chest. Kylie almost reached out to steal another hug. She didn't. Not just because it might make her mom suspicious, but because where her mom was concerned, she'd probably handed out her quota of hugs for the month.
Amazingly, thirty minutes later, they hadn't run out of things to talk about. Of course, they'd talked a good fifteen minutes about her mom's new makeover. All of which Kylie admitted liking. Sure, Kylie was still a little hesitant about the thought of her mom dating, but Kylie decided to cross that bridge when she came to it.
Then her mom noticed Kylie's "growth spurt."
"Tell me that's one of those Wonderbras making you look so big."
"'Fraid not," Kylie said. "I'm a growing girl."
That conversation led to her mom asking about Kylie's shopping trip.
But Kylie didn't want to talk about shopping, or anything that occurred during her recent trip downtown. So she told her mom that her dad had come to visit. They talked a good five minutes about him. Kylie hadn't given any details about the embarrassing scene she'd caused. She'd never even told her mom that she'd seen her dad in town.
She also opted out of telling her mom that her dad had broken up with his little girlfriend. For some reason, she didn't want to remind her mom about that.
"I'm glad you two talked," her mom said. "No matter what mistakes he's made recently, he is a good father."
"Yeah," Kylie agreed.
Then Kylie spent another five minutes telling her how much she loved camp and her interest in the cake decorating class, all prep work for getting a commitment from her mom about signing her up for the boarding school in the fall. Not that she planned to ask about it today. Face it, whether her mom remembered it or not, she'd had a pretty lousy day.
"Seriously, you really enjoy decorating cakes?" her mom asked. "I do, too. Do you remember that I took that class when you were younger and made you the Cinderella cake?"
"Yeah," Kylie said. "I loved it." Another big freaking lie. She'd been fourteen and embarrassed out of her mind when her mom had served a fairy-tale cake at her soccer meet, but hey, what did one more little white lie count compared to the others she'd told today?
Lies aside, this whole new direction in their relationship was really going well. So well, Kylie decided to chance asking for more info about her real dad.
Picking up her soda, Kylie twirled the can in her hand. "Mom, can you tell me a bit more about Daniel?"
Her mom's eyes widened. "Sure. I guess. But I think I pretty much covered everything the last time you asked."
"You hardly told me anything. Like ... where were his parents from?"
She smiled. "I remember him telling me that they were originally from Ireland."
"They're Irish?" Kylie asked, not sure it would help, but not sure it wouldn't. "When did they come to America?"
"I don't know."
"Was Daniel born in the States?"
"I'm guessing he was. He didn't have an accent."
"But you don't know for sure, right?" Her hope started to wane. If he was adopted in Ireland, wouldn't that make it almost impossible to trace him?
"I think he would have told me if he was born somewhere else."
Kylie nodded. "You said his parents were in Dallas, right?"
"Close to Dallas. You know, somewhere up there."
"Where?" Kylie couldn't believe she'd spent this last two weeks calling Dallas numbers only to learn they didn't even live there.
"I can't remember." Her mom studied Kylie. "You're not thinking of trying to find them, are you?"
Okay, decision time. Kylie had told the PI that she would eventually tell her mom about her quest. Maybe this was showtime. "Would it upset you if I was?" Kylie asked, not wanting to add any more stress to her mom's day.
Her mom frowned. "I ... I just ... We don't even know if they're still alive."
"They could be," Kylie said, and couldn't tell her mom that her real interest was in finding them so they might be able to lead her to Daniel's real parents. Soon, her mom might find that out, but one thing at a time.
Besides, she didn't have a clue as to how she could explain that she knew Daniel was adopted. Well, not a clue without going through the whole ghost thing, and that was totally a conversation she didn't want to have with her mom.
"Seriously, would you mind if I tried to find them?"
Her mom let go of a deep breath. "I don't mind, Kylie. I guess I'm just worried they will be very angry at me if you did. There have been so many times that I felt guilty for not letting them know about you." There was something in her mom's voice that drew Kylie's attention.
She suddenly realized if her mom felt guilty about not telling them, then she had to know where they were.
"Do you know where they are, Mom? Do you know how I could find them?"
Chapter Twenty-four
Her mom looked down. "I..."
"Please, Mom," Kylie said. "Please. If you know anything, tell me."
Her mom seemed preoccupied with her soda as if fascinated by the condensation running down the can. "I couldn't bring myself to throw away his obituary," she said finally. "I put it in the back of the frame of your baby picture hanging on the wall. It has their names and the town they lived in."
Hope flared anew in Kylie's chest. "When you get home, can you scan and e-mail it to me? Please."