Free The Awakening: A Sisterhood of Spirits Novel by Yvonne Heidt

there. She sighed and went to open a cupboard instead, revealing half a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter but no jelly. She made a sandwich to eat in front of the tiny television in the living room that also doubled as her bedroom where she slept on the couch. She hated it, people coming and going all hours of the night. The only good thing about it was she was visible to her mother, and the men she ran with didn’t bother Jordan. Not like they did when she was younger and she had her own room. She kept the volume low so as not to wake her mother and watched television until it was dark outside, waiting for the bedroom door to open.
    Jordan didn’t know when she fell asleep, only that when she opened her eyes, the gray light of dawn was coming in around the closed curtains. She was surprised she hadn’t heard her mother get up during the night.
    The room was chilly and Jordan felt a little weird. She crossed quietly to the closed door.
    “Mom?” No answer. Jordan tapped her fingers slightly on the wood. “Mom?”
    Jordan’s stomach twisted and she felt nauseated, but she turned the knob anyway. Her mother lay on the top of the dirty blankets, her legs crossed in a figure four. Long, blond hair covered her face, and her arms were stretched to the side.
    The smell was horrible. Jordan cautiously stepped into the room, ready to duck and run if she needed to. “Mom?”
    Her mother didn’t move and it was then that Jordan saw the needle hanging from her mother’s elbow and pink rubber tubing by her side.
    She leaned over carefully and moved the veil of hair, stifling a scream when she saw the vomit caking her mother’s cheek and blue lips, and her eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling.
    Jordan remembered choking on bile and how she’d run to the bathroom to throw up before she’d cried and rocked for what seemed like hours on the cold tile floor. There was a blurry recollection of finally going to the neighbors to use the phone.
    Social services picked her up and took her away from the house where she’d found her mother dead. It was the last time she’d cried.
    The sound of laughter from the boardwalk above her brought Jordan back to the present. The sharp ache of grief in her chest surprised her. Jordan thought she was over that emotion years ago.
    She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Okay, enough with the tripping over things she couldn’t change. She wasn’t that young girl anymore, and hadn’t been for a very long time. Jordan had grown up without affection, and in the years since, hadn’t felt as if she even needed it. But she had to admit that as she got older, there were a few times her arms ached to hold someone who could love her back. Was she so unlovable?
    An ugly voice from the past whispered in her ear. What have you ever done to deserve love? Jordan felt her shoulders tense again. Then, out of nowhere and clearer than the first, she heard another, sweeter voice ask, What have you ever done to not deserve it?

Chapter Five
     
    Sunny walked her client to the exit. The old woman hugged her close. “See you next month.”
    Sunny smiled. “You take care, now.” She loved this woman who had been a regular for almost five years. She was a lonely widow, and they enjoyed their time together, which was always more social hour than spiritual work.
    Sunny’s mother was answering the ringing phone, but waved good-bye to their favorite customer enthusiastically from the reception desk.
    “S.O.S. How can I help you?” her mother said into the receiver.
    As Sunny drew closer, she could hear the hysteria in the caller’s voice.
    Her mother put the call on speaker so Sunny could hear the conversation.
    “We’re booked solid for the next two months.”
    “But it’s getting worse every day!” Harsh sobs left the woman almost breathless, and her fear was palpable even over the phone. Her mother pushed a notepad toward her with the caller’s name written on it, circled in black