by Nicole Wells
“I can't get tested. I just can't.”
Mom turns to him, lays her hand on his arm.
“It's ok. You don't need to.”
“But I could die. I could leave you, and any family we might have. What kind of life is that? I love you too much to sentence you to that cruel future.”
“But—”
“No," he shakes her hand off, "let's not be naïve, Jessica. There's a huge chance that's probably going to happen. Do you know how hard it was when my mom died? How painful it was to watch her turn into an invalid?”
My mom huffs and throws her hands up, exasperated, then looks around her, realizing their raised voices were disturbing the peace of the park.
In a lower, calmer voice she says, “You don't have to get tested.”
My dad covers his face with his hands.
“I think we should stop seeing each other,” he mumbles.
My mom stares at him in shock and disbelief.
"Pushing me away won't help your fear, Rich," she says starkly.
Dad looks her in the eyes, his own pleading, “Let's end this before it goes too far.”
“You don't even know! You're deciding without the facts.”
“I—”
“You're making my decisions without my input!”
“You —”
“And it's already gone too far!”
She pokes him in his chest, pushing him off balance. “I love you!” She says angrily, through tears.
Now he looks shocked.
The anger drains and she seems to melt with it.
“I love you” she repeats, softer, sweeter.
“And I will not leave you, Rich. You are worried about a 'what if'. A very probable 'what if', I get it. But what about the right now?”
She moves over until she's between his knees, and then holds his face between her hands, gazing into his eyes.
“I love you and I won't leave you to do this alone. Let me in there with you, honey. I've got you. I'll take care of you." She wipes away a tear under his eye with her thumb. "It's okay to be afraid. But we're in this together. You're not alone." Her face gets so close their noses touch.
“You’re not alone” she whispers as she kisses him and the vision fades.
chapter 25
"But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
I don't know if you're even reading this, but I imagine you are. I imagine you forgiving me for whatever caused this distance, just as I forgive you. Always, Enya, unfailingly and unerringly.
Forgiveness is a funny thing. We can only forgive as much as we have known forgiveness. Do you know forgiveness such that each moment that passes without you is not blamed? I explore forgiveness in every single moment. No opposition, letting all the judgments go. So that there will be no resistance to you coming back to me.
I have loved you and I love you still. I think compassion and forgiveness go hand in hand. I know compassion to new depths now, as I suffer in each moment, as I see couples come and go around me, and I forgive.
I don’t feel up to sharing the doldrum tide of my life. I get up, I work, I study, I go to bed. I throw myself into my studies. You’ve had a remarkably positive effect on my education but it’s empty accolades.
I'm late for a class, my phone is almost out of battery, someone bumps into me, there are countless moments I would normally oppose. But I've learned to forgive them all. My roommate's nickname for me is Yogi. It seems your absence has been good for my soul too.
But I'd rather have you.
I wish you were here. I wish I could see you. I wish I could hear your voice. I wish you would write back.
This might be the last letter for a while. I don’t want to push you too far without knowing your reaction.
Yasmin leaks a few updates which I am grateful for, the rare times we talk. I try to play nonchalant. I gathered you want secrecy, so I have honored it. I try to act like things are relatively normal between us, and that she is just seeing the effects of time and distance.
But know I'll fight for us Enya, no matter how long or how far. If that means holding the space of our love and waiting, or if that means closing this divide of physical space and finding you, I will.
Because I will always be yours, Enya. I don’t think you understand that now, but that’s okay. Because I can keep holding the space and waiting.
Jacob
THE LINES OF JACOB’S HANDWRITING blur. I can't seem to help the tears. I should feel relief that he will stop writing, that this raw wound will stop being ripped open, but it's like we’re separating for the first time again.
I push past the memories of the recent vision of my mom and dad. Like a hair shirt, I pull the painful recollection of our death vision around me, a torturous but comforting device when the pain of our separation is too much. I've had the death vision of us a couple more times, but not enough to discern anything useful. It seems like some kind of explosion or crash. I'd guess a car crash because it feels like we're both sitting, but maybe we're in a theatre or something because it's dark. All I do know is that we die. It's that crystal clear knowing, like when you just know something in a dream. It's what most people seem to think of when they think of a premonition — you're privy to some truth. I never plan this truth to see the light of day. I resolve again to bury it so deep. Jacob, I vow, if nothing else I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. You stand for our love, but I stand for you.
——— ———
“THANK YOU AGAIN for letting me borrow those books,” I say as I take off my coat and drape it over the chair in Jackie’s office. November started warm but quickly shocked us with how cold it became.
“Of course.” She beckons me to take a seat.
My eyes catch on the view from the window behind her. It's mid-afternoon and the leaves are wafting down from the maple tree outside her window. Their lively green hue has died to reveal a scarlet riot of color. What strange tidings death brings.
Shaking myself from my morose thoughts, I turn back to her. She’s waiting patiently, observing but not obtrusively so.
“It's the end of Autumn,” she notes.
“Yes, the element of Metal,” I say.
“The domain of grief and spirituality. What is it like for the trees to lose their leaves? At the same time, what is it like to finally see the majesty of the mountains again, when those very trees shed their leaves and they reveal the horizon through the forest?”
She looks at me like I am a coin spinning, and she is waiting to see which side will land — grief or spirituality. But they are both different sides of the same coin, all the same energy. It was fascinating to learn that spirituality and grief have the same energetic signature. Maybe that helped my visions manifest, all my grief with no outlet but spirituality.
Nodding as if she has her answer, she motions to my wrists, silently asking permission to take my pulse. I turn my palms up, invitation complete.
“Your heart protector is still overtaxed, your heart’s flame needs to be fed. I can feel your metal energy better now in this season, and there is such sadness here, but it's contained. Not despair, but deep nonetheless.” She sighs deeply, and her shoulders slump slightly.
“You need to feed your fire. I will help with the needles, but I want you to take up some practice of compassion. Something that is loving and feeds your heart, but also allows you to explore your grief, so it may follow its natural course into the gift of spirituality.”
I cannot think of what I can do. I already meditate regularly, and that seems both loving and spiritual, so I offer to meditate more.
“The meditations have undoubtedly helped, yes, but I don’t think more is the answer.”
She drums her fingers on her chin, loo
king at me.
“Are you in this present moment allowing your heart to sing, compassionate but also not holding on, and ready to let go? Can you make peace with your death?”
“I thought I had.”
“It's every moment, Enya. Every moment is a little death. Any moment could be the final shirking of your soul to your body. Are you prepared for that? You have cultivated a beautiful practice of love, and you are much more skilled at being in the present moment. But to that degree? That you are so here now, you are complete? Including completely ready to let go? Right now?”
I cannot go without him, the thought comes unbidden. A desperate need for one last time, to greedily have another moment seeing his face, smelling his hair, hugging him to me, looking into his beautiful eyes. And then I think that is so incredibly selfish.
As if perceiving she has gone too far, she shakes it off and says in a much less serious voice, “It's okay. Most people aren't. It takes time, and you are on your way.” She puts my hand down and pats it.
“Just a thought, if you want to get into the spirit of the elements." She pauses to offer a muted smile. "Get it, spirit?” she softly jokes as then turns towards her packs of needles.
"Let's address that fire directly ..."
She proceeds to talk about stoking my fire, but my mind is fractured from the present moment, my peace shattered. Am I ready to die?
I didn't know it then, but I once was. When I perceived the beautiful scarlet of love behind the veil of green and knew it for what it was. When I had everything I needed with me, I had nothing to fear.
——— ———
IT'S LATE AFTERNOON, the time for one of my daily meditations, when I'm staring at my candle. I usually close my eyes at this point when I meditate, but the sparks appeared so strong and bright, I opened my eyes in surprise. And the sparks are still there. In front of and surrounding the candle. Some are as big as the flame. I watch them come and go, my personal fireworks show.
Be at peace
I'm interrupted by a sound and a thought. It's both a voice and it's not. It's like that knowing that happens in dreams. I just know this thought, I experience this intention. This is weird. Because usually, I have to reach for the premonition. I don't make them happen, but I have a role, there are things I do. This is not following the script. Never have my visions interacted with me, talked to me. I try to stay present and be with it. It feels like I'll drop the connection if I lose my calm.
Be the peace
With those words and that thought, I find myself transported. Or rather, it's like I’m presence without being present, in an unfamiliar terrain. There is a beautiful art deco building in front of me, with tiers of glass windows topped with right-angled arches. I read "Berkeley Public Library" and my heart stutters.
Peace starts with you
It's like I’m floating, or flying, because my view is impossibly high. It raises farther still until I see the rooftop from above. There are a bunch of people clustered near the edge. I scan below for any sign of Jacob, but it's mostly children I see, with a few adults. They are each holding something. It's some white object, a little larger than their hands, although the size seems to vary. One small hand thrusts forward and I rush to catch him, not remembering I have no body, not realizing he is releasing a paper airplane. No, not an airplane. A paper crane. A flying origami bird. His release has set off a chain reaction, and all the children are launching theirs off the edge of the roof. They are luminous white, catching the sun and capturing it, glowing. I feel each one as a ping in my heart, bringing tears to my eyes. Here is a wish to be cured of cancer. Here is a hello to a dead baby brother. Here is goodbye to a beloved grandmother. Here is one for his parents who shout and yell too much. Here is another for her mom to get well. Here is one to eradicate a tumor. And here is one for peace in the world.
Peace in all the world.
I fly like a bird through the floating cranes, up to white clouds ablaze with sunlight. I know now that this is a ceremony for World Peace Day. That the cranes represent wishes, a tradition of peace starting from a girl in Hiroshima who died at age 11 because of the bomb. I have a brief disorienting sensation of acts happening simultaneously throughout the US — headlights turned on, kind words said, and paper cranes hung in trees — before I feel the heaviness and reality of my body.
I am sitting on my floor, legs crossed, the candle sputtering in front of me, burning low. My shades are drawn against the bright November sun, but there is enough light seeping in for me to find my phone. A quick search reveals today is November 17. A date that coincides with a little known holiday — World Peace Day, started by a guy named Don Morris. I scroll down. He has directions for how to make paper cranes on his website. Heart beating fast, I search for the Berkeley Public Library. There, on the Events page, at 1 pm today, a commemoration for World Peace Day and Sadako Sasaki, a little girl who died of Leukemia. Make and release origami cranes, with some to be later hung from the trees outside the library and the rest sent to Hiroshima's Peace Park. I look at my clock, 4:37 pm. I sigh in relief until I realize it's 1:37 pm in Berkeley.
chapter 26
“DON’T. REALLY. Just keep on moving. Nothing you want to see here.” Fee is ominously waving me away. Which is no easy feat, considering her back is to me. She looks like an inept mechanical fly swatter, if such a thing were to exist, and I feel like an annoying pest. An undeterred, intrigued pest.
She's sitting on the floor in front of the couch, the mail spread before her. At first, I think she's referring to bills, but then I see the free papers that come with our mail. Most people consider them trash, but I like our little community newspapers. Usually. I creep closer to see. All I can make out are Christmas holiday sales ads.
“Don’t” she puts out a hand to halt my progress and turquoise hair whips around as she turns to stare me down.
I stare back, confused. She's serious.
"See? This!" She motions at my face, an up and down movement like she's wallpapering a new expression on me because my current one is so offensive.
“This puppy dog face! You are too gentle-hearted. Too fragile. Too naïve. Why didn’t you take to that Bible group set-up? You are too much work for one person.”
“Huh?”
"The real world! I have to protect you from it. From yourself. You're just too open-hearted. Too trusting. Thinking the best of everyone." She says the last like a curse.
“It’s like you’re not even real. What 18 year old talks like you do? You’re like some vulnerable newborn alien that doesn’t know how to act, and it falls to me, of course. Always having to clean up after the incompetant. Because, who else is going to do it?”
“What?” Is this about not putting my dishes away?
“Fine!” She stands up and thrusts newspaper print at me. “Don't say I didn't warn you!”
It's the Letters to the Editor section. Another local paper had written about me. I skim the comments, of which there are many. Perhaps this paper has a different demographic? "An Offense to Devotees Everywhere" "Religious Fake" "What Next, Snake Oil?" "The Death of Science" The highlighted comments seem to clamor in righteous indignation.
I start laughing.
"Oh my God, they broke her!" Fee shrieks.
"No, no. I just realized I was able to bring the religious right together with the hardcore scientists."
She looks at me like I’ve lost it, and maybe in her eyes I have.
"Look, I don't care. People are entitled to their opinions." I've garnered more attention since my visions have increased, often triggered by strangers when I'm out and about. Some ESP groups have contacted me and I get regular requests from locals to do psychic readings. I turn most of those down unless I get some sense from my heart not to. I also get contacted by people in the local media. I always focus on the facts and tell them the truth, although I haven't shared the ones that come during meditating. They're too personal, and I don't know what to make of the fact that they are seeming
more real, some happening in real-time.
She looks at me intensely, which is never a good thing from Fee.
"They don't know me. They only know a projection of something that doesn't fit in their rights and wrongs. It's judgment. It's beliefs, not facts. It's reactive. People get mean when they feel threatened, and when you bring their beliefs into question, backing them into a corner."
She hasn’t blinked, but now she’s squinting, and I’m starting to think she’s planning an intervention, so I explain further.
“To the fanatics, I’m sacrilegious. But that's because they don’t see me, they don’t see a human. They just see a fight they want to start, a belief that needs defending. I forgive them because I know they are blind right now. You can’t get mad at a sleeping person for not being awake.
"To the skeptics, they think they are the voice of reason. But they are just as deep in belief, just as invested and reactive to a threat to their theories. Science in the hands of humans can be funny like that. But I’m not mad at them. It's the same deal. That's who they are right now, who they’re being, the role they're playing. But it's not the totality of them just like they cut me short by reducing me to a role. I won’t do the same to them. So, I’m not mad.”
“Huh” She crosses her arms. “Well, if you do need a scathing rebuttal, Operation —”
"Kill 'em with kindness," I blurt to cut her off. Prior experience has proven I can't unhear her colorful epithets.
I slink onto the carpet and idly check out the ads. “Hey, are we exchanging Christmas gifts? I mean, should we, like, set a price range?” I was thinking of gifting her an acupuncture appointment, but they’re kinda costly and I didn’t want her to feel like I overspent. “If I splurge a little, don’t feel bad, okay?” I look up at her, our positions now reversed from when I first entered the room.