True believer - Nicholas Sparks [51]
“Nice metaphor.”
“I thought you might appreciate that.”
“So what about you? What made you want to become a journalist?”
For the next few minutes, he told her about his college years, his plans to become a professor, and the turn of events that had brought him to this point.
“And you said that you have five brothers?”
He nodded. “Five older brothers. I’m the baby of the family.”
“For some reason, I just can’t see you with brothers.”
“Why?”
“You strike me as more the only-child type.”
He shook his head. “It’s a shame you didn’t inherit the psychic abilities of the rest of your family.”
She smiled before glancing away. In the distance, red-tailed hawks circled above the town. She put her hand to the window, feeling the cold press of glass against her skin. “Two hundred forty-seven,” she said.
He looked over at her. “Excuse me?”
“That’s how many women visited Doris to find out the sex of their babies. Growing up, I’d see them sitting in the kitchen visiting with my grandmother. And it’s funny, even now I can remember thinking that they all had this look about them: the sparkle in their eyes, the fresh glow to their skin, and their genuine excitement. There is truth to the old wives’ tale that women who are pregnant glow, and I remember thinking that I wanted to look just like them when I grew up. Doris would talk to them for a while to make sure they were sure they wanted to know, and then she’d take their hand and get really quiet all of a sudden. Hardly any of them were even showing, and a few seconds after that, she’d make her pronouncement.” Lexie let out a soft breath. “She was right every time. Two hundred forty-seven women came by, and she was right two hundred and forty-seven times. Doris kept their names in a book and wrote everything down, including the dates of the visits. You can check it out if you’d like. She still has the book in her kitchen.”
Jeremy simply stared at her. Impossible, he thought, a statistical fluke. One that pressed the limits of believability, but a fluke nonetheless. And her notebook, no doubt, would only show the guesses that had been right.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but you can check it out with the hospital, too. Or the women. And you can ask anyone you want, to see if she was ever mistaken. But she wasn’t. Even the doctors around town will tell you straight up that she had a gift.”
“Did you ever think that maybe she knew someone who did the ultrasounds?”
“That wasn’t it,” she insisted.
“How can you know for sure?”
“Because that’s when she stopped. When the technology finally arrived in town. There was no reason for people to come to her anymore, once they could see the picture of the baby themselves. The women visitors began slowing after that, then turned into a trickle. Now it’s maybe one or two people a year, usually folks from out in the country who don’t have medical insurance. I guess you could say her abilities aren’t in too much demand these days.”
“And the divining?”
“Same thing,” she said. “There isn’t much demand around here for someone with her skills. The entire eastern section of the state sits over a vast reservoir. You can sink a well anywhere and find water around here. But when she was growing up in Cobb County, Georgia, farmers would come to the house begging for her help, especially during the droughts. And even though she wasn’t more than eight or nine, she’d find the water every time.”
“Interesting,” Jeremy said.
“I take it you still don’t believe it.”
He shifted in his seat. “There’s an explanation somewhere. There always is.”
“You don’t believe in magic of any kind?”
“No,” he said.
“That’s sad,” she said. “Because sometimes it’s real.”
He smiled. “Well, maybe I’ll find something that changes my mind while I’m down here.”
She smiled, too. “You already have. You’re just too stubborn to believe it.”
After finishing their makeshift lunch, Jeremy slid the car into gear, and they bounced back down Riker’s Hill,