He gets out of bed. He will turn off the dripping tap. He will make himself a cup of tea with one of the Sleepytime tea bags that Jasmine is always offering him. He will not put on a shirt. He pays rent. He too will walk shirtless around his apartment like Carter.
He is toggling the tea bag in his mug while scrolling on his phone when Jasmine appears in the kitchen. He’s only switched on the range’s hood light above the cooktop so she is a shadowy, bundled-up figure.
“Are you wearing a scarf?” asks Ethan.
She shivers. “Carter likes the bedroom freezing.”
“I’m trying out one of your tea bags,” says Ethan. “Do you want one?”
“Yes, please,” says Jasmine. He gets a second cup and when he turns she’s illuminated by the bright light of the open refrigerator, like a beautiful actress under a spotlight on a dark stage about to deliver a dramatic monologue.
She says, “English muffin?”
“Sure,” says Ethan. He wonders if Carter is asleep, if they just had oh baby sex, then banishes the thought.
Jasmine toasts the muffins. Ethan puts out two plates. She finds honey in the pantry. It’s her special honey, made by a family friend who has started up beekeeping at their “hobby farm.” The hobby farm has its own homestead and another one for the live-in managers. Carter is the right man for her, not Ethan. Carter also has family friends like that. He is not amazed by her life. Why is Ethan pining for a princess when he is a peasant?
Women don’t find self-pity an attractive trait, says Harvey. They like confidence.
Please, you were the self-pity king, Harvey!
He remembers he hasn’t had a chance to show Jasmine the video of the car accident. Obviously he hasn’t wanted to talk about it in front of Carter. It’s officially gone from the internet but he’s kept a recording.
“Remember the lady on the plane?” he says as he puts the tea bags in the sink.
“Of course,” she says. She turns to look at him. “Has something happened?”
He finds the video, offers his phone. She licks honey from her fingers and takes it.
The volume is low but loud enough for him to hear the sounds of the deadly collision. Jasmine gasps on cue.
“Oh, Ethan,” she says. They are standing close to each other, her hand on his bare chest.
The kitchen floods with fierce, blinding light.
Carter blinks and frowns, his hand on the light switch, and says with ferocious sarcasm, “Ah, sorry, guys, am I interrupting?”
Chapter 70
The screen recording of the TikTok LIVE video of Kayla’s accident was eventually removed after a request from the family, but not before it had gotten a million views and three thousand “likes.” I am told that this does not mean people “liked” the fact that Kayla died.
There was a lot of online “chatter” and one small article in a tabloid newspaper, but that was all. Kayla’s family never spoke publicly about the prediction.
Her friend, the passenger who filmed the accident, had to spend weeks in the hospital and she shut down her social media during that time.
People soon got interested in other things, as they tend to do.
To put it in perspective: a video of a dog barking at its own reflection in an oven door got two million views and ten thousand likes.
People forgot. Only those who knew and loved Kayla continued to talk about her.
At this point no one had yet referred to me as “the Death Lady.”
That was all to come.
Chapter 71
The second and third deaths were a day apart, in August, a month after the first.
News of the first diagnosis broke shortly after.
It was just like the roulette table in Monte Carlo, when that tiny white ball kept landing on black, again and again and again, and everyone gathered around, so certain it had to mean something.
Chapter 72
Leo learns about the next two deaths when he’s at work.
He has set up a Google alert for the words “psychic,” “plane,” and “death.”
The headline, from a Tasmanian newspaper, reads: “Plane Psychic Correctly Predicts Deaths of Married Doctors.”
The article is behind a paywall, but he doesn’t hesitate to sign up for a subscription, and as soon as the full article appears on his screen, he recognizes the elderly couple from the departure lounge in Hobart. He stood in line behind them while they ordered coffees and he noted their frailty, but also the Apple Watches on their wrists and the bright intelligence in their eyes. They were both warmly dressed and he’d thought about his grandmother and how badly she felt the cold.
The article says that the couple were both retired doctors who had run a joint medical practice in Hobart for sixty years and were well known in the local community, beloved by their patients. Dr. Bailey and Dr. Bailey had one daughter, three grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
Their daughter is interviewed. She says her parents flew from Hobart to Sydney to attend their youngest great-grandchild’s christening, and while on that flight, a lady informed them they would die at the ages of one hundred and one hundred and one respectively, which is exactly what happened.
“They were scientific people, being doctors, so they didn’t take it seriously, they found it entertaining,” she said, “and they were very philosophical about death. They got a kick out of hearing their cause of death would be ‘old age,’ just like Queen Elizabeth. They were proud royalists.”
