Page 75 of Find Me in California

“I want to meet her.”

She’s surprised he wants to, but pleased nonetheless. “All right, but fair warning. She won’t know who I am.”

Matt’s mouth turns down. Just a glance from him and he makes her feel like she isn’t alone in this. She leads him into the room and around the residents parked in front of the screen. Just as they reach Mama Rose, Matt stops abruptly. She glances back to see what grabbed his attention. He gapes at Mama Rose. Disbelief pulls at his face while Mama Rose gazes up at him with the smile she reserves only for those she knows. It’s the smile she used to give to Julia.

“Magnolia?” Matt’s voice croaks. The box drops with a thud.

“Matty.” Mama Rose grasps his hand. “You came back for me.”

CHAPTER 37

MATT

Matt gapes at the woman who’s pressing his hand to her cheek like a long-lost lover. Her skin is cool and speckled with age spots. Her eyes, though—faded, the milky whites veined with the decades separating their ages—are Magnolia’s blue gray. They sparkle with mischievous joy, as they did at the motel, her smile shimmering all the same.

Impossible. Age aside, he couldn’t have pictured Magnolia Blu this accurately based solely on the diary entries Julia read to him.

“What’s going on?” Julia’s gaze pings between him and her grandmother, reminding him that he’s in a room surrounded by strangers. This isn’t the place for a psychotic breakdown.

“I don’t know.” When he woke this morning and found Magnolia gone, he couldn’t believe she’d left him. When he searched the motel for her and three people denied they’d seen her with him when he swore they had, he figured between the alcohol, the edibles, and the stress of having to see Elizabeth again, he’d been hallucinating. That he’d experienced a drug-induced, alcohol-soaked psychotic trip fueled by stories of Magnolia through conversations with Julia.

Becausethatwas logical whilethisis not: Magnolia Blu recognizing him.

“Who do you think he is, Mama Rose?”

Magnolia, or rather Ruby Rose Hope—Julia’sgrandmother—smiles up at Matt. “He’s my Matty.”

“She has dementia,” Julia tells him. “She confuses me with my mom on occasion, but mostly she thinks I’m one of the caretakers on staff. I’m guessing she’s thinking you’re Matthew Holloway.”

“I—I’m not so sure,” Matt says more to himself, peering at the pendant she wears. It’s an exact replica of the one Magnolia was wearing yesterday morning.

His skin prickles as time warps, confusing reality with his fever dream.

He drops to his knees.

“What are you doing?” Julia whispers roughly.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Matt startles at the question coming from his mouth. He sounds crazy to himself. Too late. It’s done, and his apparent psychosis is visible to all. He didn’t even have to sell tickets.This is a free show, folks.

Ruby Rose Hope cups her hands over his and shocks him further. “Have you allowed yourself to love yet?”

“What?” His voice croaks. If he was hallucinating this weekend, Julia’s grandmother wouldn’t have been privy to their conversation.

Unless she was there.

“I don’t understand,” he whispers.

“I’m not understanding either,” Julia says above him.

Ruby Rose’s eyes fill with love. “So much grief. So much anger. You have to go back, Matty.”

“Back where? The motel?”

“Back to where it all began.” The creases around her eyes soften. “You have to let it go.” She rests her palm over his heart, and he jolts at the contact. He’d felt something similar when she touched his hand the day they met on the roadside.

“Sorry I’m late, Ruby.” A tall, beefy man in matching teal pants and shirt with glaringly white sneakers grasps Ruby Rose’s wheelchair handles. He unlocks the wheels, and the chair jerks back. Matt’s handsslip from hers. He notices the movie has ended and the lights have been turned on.

He jumps to his feet. “Where are you taking her?” They aren’t done talking. He needs to know where he’s supposed to go back to and why. What does he have to let go?

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