Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

sometimes, a psychologist who can’t talk about the painful things in her past.” She gave another self-deprecating laugh, this one choked with tears. 
    I said quietly, “I remember his death.”
    I felt her tense. She looked at me, eyes wide. Her grip tightened on my hand. “You do?”
    I reached back in time, but came up with little more than vague images and impressions. “I mean, I think I remember you telling us he’d had an accident and we wouldn’t see him again. I remember—I remember crying. You holding me. It was hard on us all, I guess.”
    She drew in a sharp breath and looked away as tears came to her eyes again. “It was the worst time of my life.” She paused. “I didn’t think I’d survive it.”
    A terrible pity filled me at the sight of my proud, strong mother brought to tears by an old grief. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
    “No, no, you have a right to wonder about your father.” She let go of my hand, sat straighter. “And we’ll talk about him sometime soon, I promise. Right now I want you to get some rest. You’ve had a rough day.”
    She’d reoriented her concern, turned it outward to me again, and I would get nowhere by pushing her with more questions. But she’d promised that soon we’d talk about my father, at long last.
    “Would you like me to take you through some relaxation exercises?” she said, entirely herself again. “It’ll help you sleep.”
    “No, thank you,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
    “All right then.” She stood and walked to the door, where she hesitated for just a second, as if she wanted to say more. But all she said was, “Good night.” She closed the door as she always did, silently.
    I removed my robe, turned out the lights, slipped between the sheets. Lying rigid in the dark, I closed my eyes and tried without success to shut down my mind.
    The pictures. I was sure our baby pictures were around here somewhere, in an album we hadn’t opened in years. I remembered looking at them, although I wasn’t sure when. We must have pictures of our father holding us.
    But the only mental image I had of my father came from the photo on Mother’s dresser. Young, impossibly handsome, with blond hair brushing his ears in the style of the mid-seventies. Michelle, hardly more than a baby, sat on his lap. They were laughing. I couldn’t remember his laugh. I couldn’t remember his voice, what his body looked like in motion. I’d been five years old when he died. Surely memories of him were buried in my head, waiting to be coaxed forth.
    Turning onto my side, I pressed my cheek into the pillow and again tried to empty my mind. I was too exhausted to think about these things anymore.
    Taking deep breaths, letting them out slowly, I gradually relaxed into drowsiness.
    I heard her crying. A high thin wail, a keening. My tiny sister stood alone in a vast open space, stood in the pouring rain and cried. A woman’s sad defeated face turned toward me then faded away before I could make out its features clearly. An angry man slashed the air with his hand.
    I jerked upright, hauled myself out of the dream.
    I stumbled from the bed and over to a window. I pushed it open, leaned my face to a cool breeze and waited for my thudding heart to slow. The night air vibrated with the songs of frogs down along the stream, a chorus that rose to a crescendo, dropped to a murmur, swelled again. It was mating season on Dead Run.
    I’d thought I was rid of them, those phantoms in my dreams. Even in wakefulness they floated through my head like tendrils of fog, impossible to catch and give meaning.
    They’d left me for years, left me in peace. I’d thought they were gone forever.
    I slumped onto the bed, massaging my suddenly throbbing temples. What was I thinking about before I went to sleep? The pictures. My father. What brought on the dream?
    Mother was right, I was stressed. My mind was jumping from one thing to another without logic.
    I needed rest. But I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time before I was willing to lie down in the dark again.

Chapter Three
    I walked into the clinic shortly before nine the next morning to find half a dozen staff members, including Dr. Campbell, clustered in front of the reception desk. Alison saw me, gestured with a flourish of her arm and exclaimed, “Dr. Goddard—our bat doctor!” 
    For a second I thought she’d said “our batty doctor.” Then I saw that the short man at the center of the group held a bird