“Does this mean Alex won’t come back here to help you with the cider business?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You know, you should try the Saskatoons in your cider,” she said.
“Saskatoons?” I asked blankly.
“Yeah, you know, the berries the Leytons grow—they’re a type of serviceberry.”
“Right, yes, but in cider?”
“My dad’s always fooled around with brewing beer and making wine. He’s used different berries for flavoring. It might be worth an experiment.” She turned to face me. “When are you going to start production?”
I smiled. This girl had some skills. Whether she was trying to put me at ease or just trying to offer something to a project that she knew interested me, her questions countered the distress and uncertainty we were both feeling.
“I think I’m going to start experimenting with production this summer.” In the telling, I realized it was true, and the chill at my center warmed for the first time in days. I would announce this plan to Charlie this afternoon.
“That’s great,” Julia said.
As her truck receded down the driveway, more slowly than it had at her boisterous arrival, I carefully placed Julia’s coffee cup, now flattened, in the DNA kit and sealed it. Though my stomach roiled with nerves, my fingers worked with steady purpose. I had no time for doubt now.
Two hours later, seated at my kitchen table once again, I served Charlie and James fresh coffee, tea, and fragrant muffins. I outlined my plan to affiliate with the nascent Michigan Cider Association, to acquire or produce small batches of juice for trials of different cider mixes, and to install fermentation and aging equipment; I laid out the substantial budget I’d developed, with three phases of implementation, beginning with this summer’s trial batches; and I asked Charlie and James if I could use the old press in their barn if I needed it, just for the experimental phase. They agreed, and James reviewed what he’d learned about bottling and distribution from his experience producing beer. He would draw up a detailed business plan. He was clearly in.
Charlie, whose responsibility would center on growing the apples, remained mostly silent. We had to wait for the trees to mature before full production could happen. He looked tired for this early in the day, but his few questions and contributions were well targeted and helpful. No one asked about Alex, or about Steven, and I mentioned neither. Our meeting ended with the promise to reconvene in a month. We had no formal contract, but we’d moved beyond talk to action, and my plans for the summer excited me.
The Aikens left and I woke my laptop to email Alex. He knew his way around the world of eBay and equipment auctions.
Hey Sweetie, I know you’re preoccupied right now, but will you keep a cyber eye out for cider making equipment for me? Everything beyond the press—growlers, casks, and fermentation equipment. Love you.
Done. I was making headway. Still, as I pulled on boots and a parka, stepped out into the afternoon cold, and crunched my way to the Flex, the needle of my moral compass sent dull stabs into my gut. Under my arm I carried the DNA kit, with the sample from Julia’s coffee cup. I still had a chance to turn this discovery over to the principal actors—to Steven and Fiona Phelan and Julia. I could step back.
Forcefully, with less anger than determination, conviction flooded through me once again. I didn’t ask for this, it’s none of my doing, but by God if my life and my family are going to be thrown into chaos, I want to know about it and manage it the best way I can.
Chapter 22
I’d passed the sign, located on the final stretch of M-22 before the blinking light that signaled entry into North-port, a hundred times. Today, the road was desolate in the way of grey icy January mornings in northern Michigan. The dry cold and snowless overcast effectively blocked sunlight and any expectation of warmth. For years I’d thought of stopping—of copying the phone number under the words “Tarot Card Readings” and calling to arrange an appointment—but never had. I didn’t know the first thing about tarot, beyond a distant notion of a fortuneteller in flowing India-print robes telling inscrutable things about the future.
Then, at Thanksgiving, I’d met Marie Elena during our labyrinth adventure, and just yesterday had seen her in town at the bookstore. I couldn’t place where I’d met her, so I’d asked, and our conversation had developed to reveal her work as a poet and healer and, finally, tarot reader. I banished Steven’s rolling eyeballs from my mind’s eye, wondering if perhaps she could see him anyway, and the thought suddenly popped into my head to try a reading. It had been nearly a week since I’d sent in the DNA samples, and I knew I’d get the results any day now. I could barely function. Why not try a tarot reading when questions of family identity, business ventures, and personal upheaval were at stake? Though mostly a pragmatist, I also believed in instinct. The pull toward any paradigm that might lend clarity to events about to unfold acted on me powerfully.
So I had phoned Marie Elena for an appointment, and now I rolled down her driveway, berms of snow on either side funneling me toward the house. Its warm yellow paint provided a cheery contrast to the grey winter morning.
Marie Elena greeted me in an attractive wool skirt and sweater, not an India print in sight. She led the way into an open central room filled with a mix of antiques, upholstered chairs, and an odd assortment of tables. A fine Persian rug lay on the wood floor. We crossed into a second room, an add-on to the original farmhouse, and then passed through to yet another, smaller room, where the plaster had been repaired and cleanly painted. A serviceable laminate table, two dressers, a bench, and a bookshelf comprised the furnishings, and prints of Buddhist deities graced the walls. A beaded deerskin pouch sat on the table.
Marie Elena seated me and in a gentle voice asked, “What brought you here today? Do you have a specific question you’d like answered?”
“Not really,” I said. I wasn’t ready to reveal all that had brought me to her.
Did I know about tarot? I didn’t, and so she explained that the cards could give me a snapshot of the important forces operating in my life. I still had choices and free will, but a reading could clue me into my life’s direction. In pursuit of joy and fulfillment, she said, we sometimes got stuck with one idea of how that should happen. “A reading can show where your challenges might lie, and what energies would be helpful to meet those challenges.”
She went on to talk about karma and different lifetimes, and mostly I stayed with her. She must have seen or felt that my earnest effort to absorb it all for the sake of making this a meaningful experience bordered on incredulity, because she soon wrapped up her introduction and proceeded to withdraw a deck of round cards from the deerskin pouch.
“I’m going to shuffle these and then ask you to place your hands on top of the cards and arrange them into three piles.”
When I’d accomplished this, she drew seven cards from the three piles and arranged them faceup in what seemed to be a particular order. “If you don’t have a specific question, we will simply call your spirit guides to join us,” she said.
As much as I was drawn in, my real questions remained unspoken. Is Julia Steven’s child? Will she become his daughter? How will that change our lives? Will Alex be able to manage his impending fatherhood?
Marie Elena continued to look at me, and I thought a quizzical expression passed fleetingly across her face, but if so, it vanished swiftly. For the next fifteen minutes, she spoke quietly but firmly, interpreting each of the cards.
She called the focus card of the reading the World card. “Your world is about to expand,” said Marie Elena, “through events or a new person.”
The hair on my arms tingled.
“This will create wholeness and completion,” she continued. “The woman pictured on this card is ready to break free and start a new cycle of life.”
Another chill passed through me, and I continued to stare at the cards as Marie Elena moved on.
“Your second card is the
Chariot. You will be victorious in steering your life direction, and in balancing the spiritual and material planes. You may face unexpected challenges, but you will meet them with calmness, core strength, and ultimate joy.”
I stared at the woman in the chariot, and at a second female figure on the card, entirely blue, who bent over the whole scene like the night sky, stars studding her body. She hovered over an apple tree!
The warrior woman in the chariot drew me in like a magnet, as did the mysterious, protective blue woman. The card’s colorful images danced off the table and into my center and the room receded. Like the circle of women on the World card, the hands of one holding the feet of the next, in that moment I felt surrounded by a fierce but loving energy. I need to act from my warrior woman center, whatever happens. I cannot act out of fear.
After what felt like a long time, I returned my awareness to the room and Marie Elena, who looked at me calmly, expectantly. Did she know?
Before I could even formulate a question, she continued. “Your third card is the Justice card. It symbolizes what is fair and just. Because it is tilted so far to the right, you may feel out of balance. Perhaps you’re expending too much energy on getting the outcome you want, rather than where truth and justice lie. Perhaps you need to look at a bigger picture.”
All control of my thoughts subsided, along with consciousness of space and time, and a vision of Julia rose before me. Truth and justice.
“The Eight of Discs,” said Marie Elena, pointing to the next card, “suggests that you need to take the time to consider next steps, to patiently wait for opportunities, and avoid mistakes from earlier attempts. You have many talents and gifts, and you can trust in yourself.” She moved to the next card. “Your lesson card is the Sun card, a very powerful life card. You have a radiant life force at this time. You will pursue opportunities with the warmth of a loving heart.”
I could only stare at Marie Elena as she pointed to a card depicting a community of women acting as midwives to a younger woman, ready to give birth. “This next card suggests that you will have the support of your community, or perhaps be that support, but the tilt suggests you may be hesitant to seek or give the support needed, and to feel part of something larger.” Unbidden, Fiona and Margaret Phelan came to join Julia at the edge of my consciousness. Would I need to make community with them for the sake of a child? Would I birth that fully grown child into my family? Or perhaps this signified something about Alex’s child. Who would be the village to welcome this grandchild with me? I shuddered once again, but Marie Elena moved on.
“Your last card is the Judgment card. Now is the time for everything to come out into the open. It is a time of change and it may not be smooth, but the outcome will make you happy, and since this is your outcome card, it is very powerful. Because the card is tilted, you may face opposition and harshness from those who do not understand you. Give others time to rest and renew themselves so that healing energy may come to them. In all of this you will find the courage and strength to be the person you are meant to be, because your consciousness flows from unconditional love.”
As if to consecrate this benediction, Marie Elena reached both her hands to mine, which were gripping the edge of the table. She gently massaged my fingers up to my wrists. What I’d engaged in as a diversion, a parlor trick, suddenly felt like a tsunami of energy, a beacon of light leading out of the trap of unsettling decisions I’d made to pursue the truth behind Julia’s connection to Steven without their involvement. I wouldn’t be derailed, but I had some thinking to do about acting from unconditional love.
Wordlessly, I held Marie Elena’s gaze, unable to move past the swirl of stunning revelations that had just lodged in me like a flock of birds settling in the branches of a tree.
And still, Marie Elena wasn’t finished. “I’ve done the computations from your birth date to determine your Life card and your Year card. Do you want me to tell you?”
I nodded mutely.
“Your Life card is the Lovers card. You need balance and integration in joining with others. This card can signify a person falling in love, or perhaps a first time making an entirely independent decision, of finding your own truth in your life. It’s an important card; it suggests that you may get your heart’s desire. And your card for this year is the Crone, sometimes known as the Hermit card. It often comes when there is a crossroads in a person’s life, when you need guidance to make a serious decision. It reflects a time of soul searching, of listening to your heart and your intuition to tell you what to do. See how the sun, that radiant, powerful, but sometimes overpowering life force is pushed behind the Crone, allowing the moon goddess to rule emotion and intuition? The Crone has much life experience, as she is older. Her lighted staff helps others find the way, though this may require a period of solitude and reflection. Finding the right path is sometimes lonely work. The Crone stands ready to light the way when others are ready to move forward in a course of action.”
Marie Elena pushed the glass of water she’d brought me closer to my hand and quietly rose, leaving me to try and gather myself. As I pulled her payment from my wallet, I thought, I’ll never remember all this. I snapped photos of the cards with my phone.
I still hadn’t moved when Marie Elena returned carrying two sheets of paper. One had a schematic of the seven card positions, along with one-sentence summaries of each of the interpretations written next to each one. The other page listed my life card and year card computations and descriptions.
“Thank you so much,” I said quietly. “I think I got in touch with my warrior self.” I smiled. Marie Elena smiled back, and led me through the living rooms to the front door.
Outside, even though it was still overcast, the day seemed blindingly bright. After stumbling to the Flex, I sat for several minutes before slowly heading back out to the world, and home.
For two more days, I haunted my email account, cleaned furiously, and knit until my fingers hurt, all in an effort to tolerate the wait for DNA results. We were enjoying what people in northern Michigan call a “January thaw,” which means only that temperatures rise into the high thirties or even low forties at midday.
On the third morning, I turned my walk to the mailbox into a long hike around the shoreline and back through the woods, sinking into snow dampened by the warmer temperatures.
By the time I returned, a Crock-Pot full of sweet and sour meatballs had infused the kitchen air with a pungent comfort. As I pulled a spoon from the drawer to stir them, an email ping sounded on my laptop. I sat down and found a brief email that instructed me to go to the website for the DNA lab results.
Perhaps I should have driven to the library in town, which had high-speed internet, but I could not wait, and so—heart pounding, fingers shaking, cursing the tedious progress of the blue line measuring the browser page’s slow loading progress—I entered my user name and password.
In the split second before I read it, I knew. They were a match. With 99 percent confidence.
Like a sonic boom, the knowledge knocked me back in my chair. Now I knew. Now I would have to do something. Make decisions. The weeks of what-ifs vanished in the face of this reality.
The ringing phone barely surfaced in my consciousness. I couldn’t think of a single person I could talk to at this moment, so I let it ring, and cringed when I heard Julia’s voice leaving a message I didn’t want to listen to.
The vision of the Tarot cards swam before me. What had Marie Elena said? That the Judgment card meant that everything had to come out in the open—that unconditional love would win the day. I didn’t possess a single loving thought right now. No ember of tenderness lightened the stony weight behind my breastbone. Steven. I shuddered. I should probably get in the car right now and drive downstate. The urgency I felt to speak to him immediately, to offload this terrible knowledge that, unbeknownst to him, lay between us like a tumor, sent me to the phone.
What was just and fair would prevail, Marie Elena had said, but neither justi
ce nor fairness was finding any space in my frozen heart just now. The blinking light of the answering machine also thrust the problem of Julia Reiss front and center, but I couldn’t think of her now, and left the message unheard.
“Hello,” Steven’s rushed, impatient voice made my heavy heart sink further.
“Hey, how are you?” I realized I hadn’t spoken to him in two days, an avoidance I now regretted.
“I can’t talk now. There’s been a breach and a breakdown in all the computer systems at the firm. I have to go in.”
“Jesus. Sorry. Call me when—”
“I’ve got to take the other line.” Steven was gone.
I stood looking at the phone for a long moment before crashing it back into its cradle. A rage I’d been holding at bay burst forth with blinding power. Maybe I just won’t tell him. Make up some lie to tell Julia and just move on with my life. The years of holding down the fort, of managing crises at home for days at a time while Steven worked across the state or left because of a case or a crisis, bubbled up with a familiar sense of my being left holding the bag. Our crises were dealt with on his schedule.
I knew my thoughts were unfair. Steven didn’t know about this upheaval, and I hadn’t told him. As a senior partner in the law firm, he had to handle messes. The old process of rationalizing, making allowances, and shouldering responsibility took hold like lava pouring forth from a volcano—sealing the rock of resentment under its fierce heat.
I poured a scotch. It was five o’clock somewhere. Downing a gulp, I surveyed my options. I could wait and speak to Steven later. I could see Julia and break the news to her.
Or—and this thought popped up with the clarity of the perfect plan—I could contact Fiona Phelan. Yes. I knocked back another belt of scotch. Her choice had created this mess. Her lap was where I intended to drop it.
Chapter 23
To drive to the middle of Ohio on a January Sunday to blindside a stranger about the paternity of her twenty-five-year-old daughter surely made no sense. Nonetheless, fueled by anger and frustration, I had already traveled two hours south before the sun rose the next morning. The thaw had given way during the night to a knock-down, drag-out snowstorm, so the first hour had been slow and treacherous. Now I sailed down a cleared expressway, considering my listening choices: audiobook, music, or NPR talk, which at this hour might be gardening or a spirituality show. Neither interested me, so I was soon listening to a novel about a young woman in 1940s Chicago whose ambitions gave way to her husband’s career. The well-told story reminded me that everything and nothing had changed since those marker years for women my mother’s age.
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