Kate-

I spoke to you on the telephone and then you were gone. If I had only known it was my last chance, I would have told you how much I admired the young woman you had become. The drunk that killed you still has 16 years to go. Ten years have yet to change his attitude, so I don’t have much hope for the rest.

I have no regrets, nothing I wish I’d said: you knew how much I loved you. But I have one haunting problem I wish I could share with you. Remember the July day before you left for school when we were all watching that psychic on TV? You insisted that we all decide on a secret word that only we would know. A word, you said, that we could use if one of us died so we would know we were really talking to the person we knew. You had a word right that minute. It took me a few minutes and your sister refused because she never wanted to think that one of us could die and leave the others. After all, we were the three mermaids!

Now we are haunted by the “what if” we could connect? Would it work? You were so insistent that we make this pledge, did you somehow know this might happen? As hard as I have tried through the years, I can’t find a psychic to talk to you. Your sister and I feel that we have let you down. The ones on TV won’t talk to someone specific and the ones we have located are either too expensive or too flaky to trust with this important deed. Are you still waiting for us? We would love to know you’re there. We want you to know we are trying. Please, don’t give up on us. You are so very dear to me.

Mom, age 56