I was born unlucky. Not “brick falls on my head as I stroll by my favorite coffee shop” unlucky. Not “struck by lightning” unlucky. Nothing that would go viral on social media. My life has mostly been “Alanis Morissette’s ‘Ironic’ ” unlucky. Black flies and myriad spoons. With the constant threat of death.
My father left our family when I was seven. A year later, my mother dragged me and Andi with her to Pittsburgh for a psychic reading. The psychic said my mother would meet and fall in love with a wealthy black-haired man who would rescue us and keep us safe in a tower in the city. My mother couldn’t hide her joy. The psychic had promised three things she had always wanted but never had: true love, riches, and a lavish home. She was so happy, my mother tipped the psychic handsomely.
In a hushed tone at the end of the session, the psychic added that maybe my mother should consider spending more time with “the little one”—she nodded her head toward me next to my older sister—because I would die as a child. My mother’s new smile crumbled for a split second, but she snatched back the cash gratuity and recovered her glow.
At the time, I must have thought the session was pretend storytelling until my mother met and married that black-haired rich man who swept us away to Manhattan. They divorced five years later, and my mom, my sister, and I ended up in a one-bedroom in Queens. The psychic hadn’t said anything about it lasting forever.
An eight-year-old’s brain can’t truly process the idea of dying. It only knows that it is unsafe. As a result, I was on high alert at all times. Since I didn’t know what danger I was looking for, I became scared of everything. It was simply how I moved through the world: afraid.
When my stepfather left us, my mother sought the counsel of an astrologer. Unlike the psychic who had rocked side to side with her eyes slightly closed, this astrologer was composed. She sat in front of stacks of books printed in languages I couldn’t read. She studied a massive piece of paper, a map of your mother, she’d said. She drew lines with her finger and pointed to symbols of planets we’d learned in science class. She told my mother all sorts of truths, about her and her future, but something more amazing happened that day. My fear evaporated in that room.
Astrology was something I could study, unlike the psychic prediction pulled from thin air. Looking at the stars, my challenges could be found in the location of the planets in certain houses of my birth chart. Obstacles were explained by noting the angles these planets made to one another—the oppositions, trines, and squares. And yet, there is still one thing I can’t find in my chart: my death date.
I pick up a stray acorn on the roof and toss it as far as I can. I don’t hear it land. I shimmy over to the landing and pull myself up. But instead of climbing to safety, I stand on top of the railing so that my head pops above the turret’s roof. With nothing above me I have to grip the edge of the roof from underneath. My fingers bend and burn, but I hold on tighter and spit into the wind. I let go of the underside of the tile with my right hand and shake it out. I switch hands, simultaneously grabbing the tiles with my right hand while I shake out my left. I lose my balance but stabilize by pulling myself closer to the turret roof.
I lean back farther this time and do the switch again. My left hand slips and I scramble to catch myself. My favorite purple pen falls out of my pocket and bounces off the lower roof with a click, click, click. I let myself hang there until sweat springs on my upper lip and my fingers cramp up.
I never mentioned the psychic’s prediction to anyone. Not my astrology mentor, though I asked her for strategies in predicting death all the time, which she repeatedly dismissed. She thought there were some dark matters that should stay outside the purview of the practice. Namely, no forecasting elections and no death dates.
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.
