I Wish You Happy: A Novel

by Kerry Anne King

  “Don’t jump out of the window just yet,” he says, as if he really can read my mind. “I wouldn’t take you there if I wasn’t sure you’ll be fine.”

  “Me and strangers don’t have a huge compatibility rating, in general.”

  “She’ll love you, and you’ll love her. Trust me.”

  “She who?” Now I’m picturing an ex-girlfriend. One of those maybe-she’s-born with-it types who spend hours putting on a face that men think is natural. One of those sweet-as-pie-to-your-face-but-rip-you-to-shreds-behind-your-back women. I trust Cole as much as I trust anybody, but in my limited experience men can be incredibly stupid when a beautiful woman is involved.

  “My grandmother. And I’m 99.2 percent sure that you will still love me after. I reserve a small margin of error.”

  His tone is light, casual. Is the use of the word love intentional? Does he mean love in the way of chocolate or the way I felt while we were kissing? For some reason this question of usage seems much more pressing than the fact that he is taking me to meet a family member.

  She lives out of town, way out of town, which could be either a point in her favor or a point against her. People who live out here either like their solitude (point for) or are avoiding law enforcement for one reason or another (point against). Since Cole obviously loves her, and he seems to be an upstanding citizen, I’m hoping for a pleasantly introverted old lady.

  When we turn off the road onto a rutted driveway, the house is still screened from view. I’m not sure what to expect out here. Manufactured home, single-wide trailer, cabin, hovel, or beautifully constructed house. We’ve seen variations of all of the above along the way. My imagination fails to prepare me for what meets the eye as Cole parks in a graveled yard.

  We just sit there for a minute. My brain can’t process what I’m seeing, but my soul takes to it like a duck to water. The war between the two parts of me makes me dizzy.

  “Is she . . .” I stop before finishing the question, unable to find a word that will encompass the riot of flowers, the naked gnome peeking out from a patch of raspberry canes, the open door in the middle of a small field of clover, leading from nowhere to nowhere. The house itself has been pulled out of a storybook world, a cozy little cottage painted daffodil yellow with lilac trim.

  Cole laughs, clearly enjoying my reaction. “Clear as a bell, sharp as a tack.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “I know. It’s impossible to mean anything when it comes to Gram. I do assure you that her oven is used only for baking cookies and that she abhors gingerbread. Come on.”

  A dreamlike daze moves with me out of the truck and up the paving stone path that leads to a neat front porch topped by a rose-covered trellis. Wind chimes, seashells, and crystals dangle from among the leaves and scarlet blossoms.

  I stop in the shade of an apple tree, heavy with more than fruit.

  “What’s with the bottles?”

  They are tied to the branches with bits of twine wrapped around their necks. Some are old and weathered. A few are new and shiny. Beer bottles, coke bottles, green glass bottles that might have once held olive oil or even perfume.

  “That’s the prayer tree.”

  “But why are there bottles on it?”

  “To keep the prayers in.” He keeps moving, and I follow him, although I could stand in the shadow of that tree for hours, immersed in a sensory heaven made up of rose perfume, humming bees, and ever-shifting rainbows from the prisms hanging overhead.

  Cole knocks, then pushes the unlocked door open and calls, “Gram?”

  “She knows we’re coming, right?” I whisper.

  “Probably,” he replies, not an answer that inspires confidence. He reaches back for my hand and gives a comforting squeeze, but I realize, suddenly, that it’s only my mind that’s frightened, and only because it thinks it should be. My emotions are merely hushed, waiting.

  The inside of the house is as unlike the outside of the house as it could possibly be. I’m primed for knickknacks and fussiness—doilies on antique tables, a collection of figurines. What I don’t expect is a whole lot of nothing.

  The room we enter has a split bamboo floor without a throw rug in sight. No antique tables, no chairs, just a couple of oversized floor pillows and a yoga mat. The far wall is all windows, opening onto a green space bounded by a closely woven hedge. A doorway on the left opens into a dim hallway, to the right into a small but efficient and spotless kitchen.

  The only wall décor is a photograph of a naked tree in winter, a blue jay making a bold splash of color in its branches. All around the tree, tangled in its branches, floating above the grass, are small, glowing spheres. Some are white, others colored; no two are the same. The picture draws me in, even more than the fountain burbling in the corner and the view from the window. Bubbles, I think. Soap bubbles, only these look more substantial. On closer look, some seem to have mandalas inside. Maybe it’s a painting, not a photo, but the details are so pristine, so perfect.

  “What is this?” I breathe. “How was it done?”

  “It’s a photograph, taken with an ordinary camera.” The voice reminds me of the clear tones of a bell. “You can see the tree through the window.”

  Spinning around, I see a small woman emerge from the shadows of the hallway. Silver hair hangs over her shoulder in a braid. Her spine is ramrod straight, and there’s nothing of age in her movements or her voice.

  “Cole,” she says, “I thought you might come today.”

  He crosses the room and bends to enclose her in a hug. She kisses his cheek and then turns to me. Her eyes are darker than Cole’s, almost black, but she has that same intensity of focus that narrows the world down to the two of us; everything else, even Cole, fades into the periphery.

  “This is Rae,” I hear his voice saying, but my name doesn’t matter.

  “And I am Tana.” She reaches for my hand. As my palm nears hers, a light in the ceiling fixture above us flares and burns out with a little pop. The fountain in the corner stills. Cole’s phone makes a garbled ringing sound that dies without completion.

  Before I can snatch my hand back, Tana grips it strongly in hers, her eyes looking into me all the while. “Oh dear,” she says, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “There goes the electricity again.”

  “Does this happen often?” I ask. There are a lot of burnt-out light bulbs in my past, along with the dead watch and cell phone batteries. I try not to think about this. It’s certainly not something I talk about.

  “Not so much anymore. I’m glad Cole brought you.”

  Not the slightest whisper of annoyance about the light bulb or the electricity. No commentary on the strangeness of it all.

  “Damn. My phone’s dead,” Cole says. He also doesn’t sound surprised, although there is unmistakable irritation in his voice.

  “Good. You young people are entirely too attached to those objects. It won’t hurt you to be without it for a while. Shall we sit outside? I’ve made tea.”

  “I’m on call. The phone is necessary.” Cole pokes at a button as if the thing is going to magically come back to life. “I don’t suppose you have a charger?”

  “You still locking people up, then?” She releases me from her searching with a smile and turns her attention to her grandson.

  “I don’t lock them up.” There’s an edge to his voice I haven’t heard before.

  “No, you leave that part to other people.”

  “What do you want me to do? Let them die? Not everybody can come sit in your garden and have a cup of tea.”

  “Then maybe we should be building more gardens and making more tea,” she says, her tone very gentle. “You can use the landline. Call your dispatch and let them know where you are.”

  Cole excuses himself to go into the kitchen. He says nothing, but the line of his jaw is tight.

  “Come, dear.” Tana reaches for my hand, but I jerk away, thinking enough damage has been done to her electrical circ
uits. “It will be fine,” she says, in the tone of voice I use to calm a frightened animal. Hesitant, I reach out, and our hands connect. This time there are no fireworks.

  “You see?” she says, leading me across the room and out the door into her garden. I don’t see at all.

  “Wait here. I’ll get the tea and the boy and we’ll talk.”

  Standing dead center in Tana’s beautiful backyard, an incredible peace flows through me. A stream burbles across one corner, entering and exiting through the hedge. Hummingbirds chase each other around a feeder hanging from the branches of a maple. And then a wild, sweet music springs up out of nowhere, a haunting song without melody thrumming through my entire being.

  The sound seems to come from the tree. It draws me, step by slow step, until I’m standing under the branches, looking up at a canopy of green. Little balls of light dance at the edges of my vision.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Cole’s voice is quiet.

  “What is it?”

  “Aeolian harp. It’s actually on the other side of the hedge; it just sounds like it’s coming from the tree.”

  “That photograph . . .”

  “Orbs,” Tana calls, from over by a wooden picnic table. Once again I haven’t heard her coming, this time because of the wind music.

  I look to Cole for an explanation.

  “Weird photographic phenomenon,” he explains. “Little balls of light showing up in digital pictures all over the world. Nobody knows for sure what they are.”

  “Spirits,” Tana says. “Or energy, maybe. Sit with me a little. I’m not as young as some.”

  “You can’t know that,” Cole says, leading me over to the table. “It could be dust flecks or a trick of the light.”

  She wrinkles her nose at him and lowers her voice to a theatrical whisper. “Or ghosts of the dead.”

  “You’ve been on the Internet again.”

  “I love the Internet. Portal to alternate realities.”

  “They are beautiful, whatever they are,” I say.

  Tana smiles approvingly, as if I’ve said something wise, rather than admitting that I have no idea what we’re talking about. “Just so.”

  “And your yard . . .” I wave my arms and then shrug. “Beautiful isn’t the right word.”

  “Sacred space,” Cole says.

  But that isn’t right, either. Sacred space makes me think of religion and solemnity and ritual. What I feel here in this garden is free. A weight I didn’t even know I was carrying has been lifted off my shoulders by the music of the wind, and scattered far and wide as lightly as dandelion seed.

  Tana hands me a tall glass filled with ice and a clear amber liquid. “It’s the harp music that does it, I think. The orbs love music as well.”

  “They’re not static? They come and go?”

  “Oh, absolutely. How about I show you how it’s done? So much easier than telling.”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Perfect.” She beams at me.

  Cole, on the other hand, slumps backward in his chair and makes a gesture with his hands that clearly means Here we go again.

  “You and Cole go stand under the tree, and I’ll take pictures of you.”

  I stare at her, my glass halfway to my mouth. This was not at all what I’d been expecting. I’ve never liked myself in pictures.

  “Again?” Cole protests. “I’ve posed five times for you and never yet seen anything besides myself and the tree.”

  “That’s because you’re posing, dear.”

  Tana pulls a digital camera out of her pocket and stands up, waiting. Feeling like an actor who hasn’t been given any lines, I grab Cole’s hand and pull him out of his chair. He slouches over to the tree with all the enthusiasm of a teenager being coerced into kitchen chores. Self-conscious, I look toward Tana, who has already begun snapping nonstop pictures.

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  “Forget about me and think about the orbs,” she says. “Invite them.”

  “Out loud?” I’ve been willing to go along with this, but standing under the tree and openly invoking some invisible magic bubbles isn’t in the same universe as my comfort zone.

  “Like making a wish,” she says. “It doesn’t need to be out loud.”

  Make a wish. It’s a common enough phrase. She can’t possibly know about my wishing stones. And surely it’s not possible to call in little glowing spheres of light. But then the wind picks up and the harp vibration shakes all of the doubts out of my head. I look up through the green leaves above me, focusing on light and shadow, letting the sound flow over and through me like water. Turning my back to the camera, I let my arms drift upward to touch a leaf, then spin toward Cole, suddenly laughing like a child.

  He sweeps me off my feet and twirls me around and around until I’m dizzy and out of breath. When he sets me down I lean into him for balance, the world still moving around me, the music inside and outside and everywhere.

  And then the wind dies away.

  Everything goes silent.

  My breath, Cole’s breath. My forehead resting against his chest, his hands on the small of my back, the rich scent of earth and grass and leaves intertwined with the fragrance of roses. He kisses the top of my head.

  We’re not alone.

  It takes me a minute to remember that. There is an old woman and a camera. A world of realities demanding my attention. With a sigh, I stand up straight and look out of the tree shadow into the sunlight.

  Tana sits at the table, the camera nowhere in sight.

  “Your tea is getting warm,” she says, “better drink up.”

  My tea is not warm. It is icy cold and perfect, with just a hint of sweetness.

  “Thank you for humoring me,” Tana says to Cole, who has the grace to flush and drop his eyes. “And now maybe you’ll tell me why you brought Rae to see me.”

  “I can’t bring a girl over just because?”

  “Rae’s not just any girl. And I can tell when you want something.”

  “Rae’s an empath.”

  That word again, said this time like it explains everything, when I’m still not even sure what he means. I feel myself go tense, my breath catching in my throat.

  But Tana wears the same warm, curious expression she did when talking about orbs. “Empaths come in all different shapes and sizes,” she says. “What particular stripe are you, Rae?”

  I don’t have an answer. In all my years of counseling, nobody has ever talked about empaths. Empathy, sure. Highly Sensitive People, definitely. But this is unfamiliar territory, and I don’t have an answer.

  Tana rests a hand lightly on my forearm. “I call it the Empath Continuum. There are empaths like Cole, who build their lives around helping others because they feel things deeply. And there are empaths who are blown to kingdom come by other people’s emotions and end up as cat ladies in isolated houses. I suspect once upon a time they were burned as witches.”

  Given this analogy, it’s pretty clear where I belong on her continuum.

  “Cat lady,” I tell her. “Definitely.”

  Tana graces me with an approving smile. A warm rush of energy runs through me.

  “I thought you could tell her what you do to shield yourself. The things you taught me.”

  “Please.” I focus on the coolness of the sweating glass in my hand to keep from reaching for hers. “This empath thing—I think it’s what I call the dimmer switch. That’s what I’m looking for.”

  Both of them regard this request with raised eyebrows. The identical expression on two very different faces almost makes me laugh. I don’t want to explain in front of Cole. But they are both quiet, waiting, so I keep talking. “People. Relationships. I have two modes, my counselor says. Full-on, or off.”

  “What’s so bad about full-on?” Tana asks.

  I laugh. “You’re kidding, right? That thing that happened with the light bulb? That’s what full-on does to my life. What if I don’t want to be a crazy cat lady?” Wha
t I really mean is that I don’t want to spend my life alone. Much as I love my animals, I want to have people in my world.

  I want Cole in my world.

  “Nobody says you have to be crazy.” Tana drains her glass and refills it from the pitcher, then pours more for both Cole and me before going on.

  “To be clear, I’d guess the problem is that other people’s emotions get all tangled up with your own, and it all keeps amplifying until it explodes. This makes casual friendships rather difficult and large groups pretty much impossible. Does that sound right?”

  When she puts it that way, it sounds so simple, and my heart beats with hope that the answer will be as simple. That I can walk out of this charmed space and into the world as a normally functioning human being.

  But she pats my hand and shakes her head. “I’m sorry to say there’s no magic trick that makes an empath not an empath, which is really what you’re saying you’re looking for when you talk about this dimmer switch.”

  Cole sets down his glass, leans forward in his chair. Tana waves him back with one hand.

  “You’re not broken, Rae, dear, and therefore not in need of fixing. You are designed to be more. You weren’t meant to be what we call normal, not that normal really exists.”

  She goes on as if she’s still talking to me, but her gaze zeroes in on Cole. “The number one thing I would tell you is this. You can’t fix people. You can’t change people. So the trick, if there is one, is to differentiate. Your emotion. Their emotion. Your responsibility. Their responsibility. Oh, you can offer your friendship, your support, even your help. But what somebody does with that is entirely up to them.”

  “That’s it?” Cole asks. “All of that stuff you taught me, about shielding, about imagery, about toning down the energy . . .”

  “That was you. This is Rae.” Again she smiles at me, but this time it’s tinged with sadness. “You are welcome anytime, to come sit in my garden. To talk, or not to talk. And I can tell you tricks and tools and teach you what I know. But if you can understand and grasp what I’ve just told you, that’s the balancing point. The first step.”