I never mentioned the prediction to my mother, and if she remembered what that psychic had said, she never let on. I certainly never considered mentioning it to my sister, who had enough trauma in her own life to easily forget mine. When I was sixteen and Andi in college, I witnessed my sister go through an incident so unbearable that she wished for death. It shocked me that she wanted the thing I was most afraid of. Andi shifted my perspective and I vowed to start living—really living, not just waiting to die.
I dove into work and figuring out my dreams, rather than waiting until I was a grown-up, since for me there was a good chance that was never going to happen. I earned my GED at my mother’s insistence, but spent my time as a florist, a barista, a diner waitress, a house cleaner, and an astrologer’s apprentice, all of which prepared me for my future success with Stars Harbor Astrological Retreat. I was exhausted but happy.
With each passing year, the idea of an early death transformed into nothing more than a tiny buzz in the background. I was able to ignore it—until I did a terrible thing. Something I couldn’t take back.
I fell in love.
It was an accident. I knew to keep my distance, but that’s impossible when you’re essentially rebuilding a home from its studs and he’s the best local contractor. Eric was so kind and generous. He loved this project before he loved me. We had that in common.
Every time Eric stayed the night or we texted throughout the day, there was a little voice in the back of my head telling me not to trust it. You’re going to die. I couldn’t relax into the safety he offered.
When Eric started talking about the future—moving in, getting married, having kids—I freaked out. I made it my mission to track down the Pittsburgh psychic my mother saw when I was eight years old. I had to know my fate, if not for me, for him. For us.
Six months ago, I found her online through Facebook. She’d closed down the storefront operation less than a year after my mother saw her. Yet during the financial crisis of 2008—when everyone had no money but desperately needed to hear about their future—her online presence flourished. I called her hotline and cut off her introductions to bluntly ask if she had gotten it wrong all those years ago, or if I had somehow.
“You told my mother I would die as a child,” I said.
Metal clanked against the phone as she shook her head. A memory of her massive jeweled costume earrings flashed in my mind’s eye.
“Pittsburgh, eighteen years ago, I’ve never forgotten you. I was a beginner then, and ashamed as soon as I said it. I wanted to help your mother, but now I would never reveal such information.”
I was stunned. I expected to have to explain.
“But you were wrong,” I said. “You said I would die as a child, but I’m twenty-six.”
“I didn’t say you would die as a child.” Her words were drawn out and deliberate. “I said you would die too young.”
Neither of us said anything for a long time. Time stretched out before us. How young was too young? In the state of New York, the age of consent is seventeen. At eighteen, you can vote. At twenty-one, you can drink. At twenty-five, you can rent a car. Hadn’t I passed every adult threshold? Shouldn’t I be safe?
Then again, in some sense I never was a child. From the moment I was born I could feel the invisible burden of being the baby expected to fix a broken family. My mother hadn’t gone to college, and though she was proud of Andi for trying, she didn’t blink an eye when I dropped out of high school to start helping to pay the bills. I grew up too fast.
Was the psychic’s prediction wrong because I had never been a child? Or maybe karmically I was a child now, aging in reverse?
“I’ve been studying astrology,” I said to the psychic. “I’ve seen a few things that can be interpreted as death. A cluster of planets moving into my eighth house. My Imum Coeli in Gemini, which is the sign of youth. Or is it something less obvious, like my Saturn’s Return approaching?”
The psychic laughed. “I have no idea what any of that means, but I have been waiting for this call. I’ve debated what I’d do when it came.”
She sighed and shifted herself. I heard her earrings jingle.
“How about it’s not up to you anymore? You made that choice years ago,” I said.
The faint scratch on the other end of the phone told me she nodded, but she didn’t speak.
“I want a date,” I added.
“My guides tell me you have done well with the information I gave you then. I’ve regretted it all these years, but they say you’ve done all the right things. They trust you.”
“Tell me.” My words were forceful and confident, more so than I felt. But I was afraid if I hesitated she would give me nothing.
“August twenty-fifth,” she said.
Two days from now.
On the roof of Stars Harbor, I lose feeling in all my fingers. I point my toes until I find footing on the wooden rail beneath me. My arms burn and shake. I’m reckless and afraid. My fate says I will die the day after tomorrow, but I don’t know when or how or why. My free will tells me that if I wanted to make the psychic wrong, I could. I have that power.
I could let go right now.
Instead, I use my remaining strength to haul myself back to safety. That’s when I hear the rustling below, and low voices murmuring. I squint to see two bodies undressing in the silver moonlight. Their faint moans reach my ears even from here, and I recognize them both. I don’t know why I find myself shaking my head. It shouldn’t surprise me to see those two together.
SATURDAY
THE SECOND DAY
MARGOT
With wet hair, I descend the back stairwell of Stars Harbor. At the bottom, I run my hand along the painted wall, searching for the door to the storage space underneath. A nostalgic touchstone, it’s the one closed-off area I don’t mind invading in any new location. This morning, there’s no one around to bother me.
The small square entryway isn’t obvious. It’s painted the same color as the wall and there’s no frame. I press my palm flat and pop the door open. With a creak, I swing it open and look inside. There are books shoved in a corner, overflow from the library. There are also cleaning supplies and extra towels and linens. The space smells like my childhood.
I hear Farah and Aimee giggling down the front room staircase, so I quietly press the door shut. I sneak up the back stairs to avoid them. In my suite, Ted is out of the shower.
“I slept terribly. How about you?” I ask.
Ted shrugs. “I don’t think I moved once. What was keeping you up?”
“I fell asleep quickly, but I woke up around midnight when I thought I heard voices outside, and then again at three a.m. I heard noises from above.”
“Maybe raccoons in the attic. Remember when that mother took up shelter in our beach house to give birth? It sounded like they’d come through the walls.”
Ted’s not wrong, but he’s focused on the wrong thing. “I probably couldn’t sleep because I’m worried about Adam.”
“He seemed fine to me yesterday, but he’s bailing on golf this morning,” Ted says.
When Adam started missing the occasional Wednesday night dinner, I’d been disappointed, but not worried. When he was a no-show at Clara’s ballet recital last month, both Aimee and I covered for him, telling her that he was there but she couldn’t see him in the dark. Not a high point, lying to my own defenseless niece, but when we got home it was worse. Adam was sitting on the couch, beer in one hand, the other down his pants.
Adam has always been prone to depression, and I think it’s because he lives mostly in a fantasy world as a writer. Compounded by the fact that he writes under a pseudonym, which means no one knows who he is. It’s like all his success exists only in his own head. At school functions and dinner parties, the question of his career ends with the lackluster grunt of “Writer.” Meanwhile, in reality, his novels have sold millions of copies.
“It’s this deadline. He doesn’t know when to ask for help,” I say.
Ted sighs and retreats to the bathroom while I cuddle up under the sheets again wishing I could start the day over. For the most part, Ted chooses to stay out of things with me and Adam, but occasionally he likes to offer a “gentle reminder” that maybe I get a little too wrapped up in my brother’s life. When Ted emerges from the bathroom dressed in his golf shirt, he slides his wallet off the dresser and into the back pocket of his shorts.
“I think you might be projecting a bit?” he says.
“Fine, that’s fair. But Adam doesn’t always see the big picture clearly. He needs my perspective whether he wants it or not.”
Ted sits down on the bed next to me. “I want you to take care of yourself before him for once. You are carrying a lot. Trying to create life.”
He smooths the sheet over my stomach and kisses my belly button. I smile, but part of me wants to remind him that there’s nothing I can “do” when “trying to create life.” It’s the worst feeling in the world. Helplessness. I consider reminding him that as of this morning I’m officially two days late, but I hold on to that to discuss with Rini, hoping she’ll give me something more concrete to share.
