by Keziah Frost
Summer paused, seeing the scene again with regret.
“So you did,” encouraged Norbert. “You did what they’d told you to do.”
“And their car slid on the icy road and crashed. They died instantly.”
Watching the sticks and logs burning in the fireplace, Norbert waited.
“So I’d always felt that I caused it. That I killed them.”
“And now?” prompted Norbert. “What do you feel now?”
“And now,” picked up Summer, “something has shifted.” She looked into Norbert’s dark, attentive eyes. “Between the truth that began to hit me during your reading, and the message that I feel now, coming up from the island itself—does that sound crazy?”
“Not at all.”
“If I’m quiet here, and just listen, I don’t know. There is truth here, too.”
“There is truth anywhere you are. The whole thing is the listening part. We don’t always listen.” Norbert turned the mug around in his hands. He added, as if to himself, “In fact, we hardly ever listen.”
Summer nodded slowly. “Maybe I felt, right after it happened, that if I accepted all the blame, my parents would be restored to me. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I think I really hoped for that.” She tapped her forehead in frustration. “I had a kid-brain.”
“Right. You had a kid-brain.” The fortune-teller spoke with energy. “Given the kid-brain you had at the time, who you were then, and your level of development, your blind spots—how could you have done anything but draw kid-conclusions? In fact, with your kid-brain, how could you have done anything differently that night?”
Summer paused, uncertain.
“But I’m sure that when you were a kid, you didn’t rebel like that, did you?”
“Oh, well, when I was a kid, it was a different time. When I was fifteen, it was...almost 1960. No one was rebelling yet. And I didn’t have parents to rebel against. I had my aunt Pearl, who I knew had essentially saved me from being sent to an orphanage. So it was entirely different for me, when I had a kid-brain.”
“So your aunt Pearl for you was like my grandmother to me.”
“I guess so. You and I—we were both orphans, now that you mention it. And we each had a loving woman to raise us.”
“You didn’t rebel against your aunt, partly because of the times. But maybe there is something special about being raised by that loving person after your parents are dead. I could have given Gramma a hard time. I did think about it. But I was too grateful to her. And sad for her. I lost my taste for rebelling. I just played by her rules. I’m glad I at least did that.”
The old man stirred his sugary tea. “Now, what you have been struggling with is self-forgiveness. It’s one of the hardest blocks we put in our own path. It’s the same for everyone, with self-forgiveness.”
“The same for everyone?” Summer threw another log on the fire and adjusted it with the poker. “Not many people have guilt like mine.”
“Many people do have something they can’t forgive themselves for. You’d be surprised how many. When I meet with someone like that over a reading, this is what I tell them. You have basically only two options. One—keep up this grudge against yourself and bring more negativity into the world, make yourself sick physically or mentally and live a life of dark self-absorption.”
Summer shivered and looked at him with deep attention. He went on. “Or option two—acknowledge that people do grow and change and do better. Let your apology be a life worth living.”
The two sat in a companionable silence for several minutes.
Finally, Summer spoke. “My apology could be a life worth living. That’s sort of what I heard my parents telling me a little while ago. I could hear them telling me to live my life. I’d never been able to hear them before, though I’d always tried to. Today, I didn’t try. Their voices just floated to me on the wind. It was really them, I think.”
The kind old man nodded, and gazed out the window at the snowy branches of the woods all around them.
“Sometimes,” said Summer, softly, “I still miss them so much.”
“I know,” answered the fortune-teller. “I miss my wife, Lois. It’s been almost thirty years, and the pain is muted now. But I still catch myself thinking, ‘Lois would love Ivy,’ or ‘What would Lois say if she could see me reading cards in the café?’ I think she would think it was funny. She was a person who laughed a lot. Maybe that’s what I miss most of all, the sound of her laughter. Yes, the sounds of her laughter and...the beat of her heart.”
Summer reached for his hand and held it. He was warming up.
She looked at him clothed in Lindsay’s bathrobe and slippers and thought how nearly he had approached death that night.
“I still wish you hadn’t crossed the ice. It scares me, to think we could have lost you. The world needs you, you and your fortunes, Mr. Zelenka.”
The fortune-teller seemed mildly surprised at this compliment.
“I think the world has actually had enough of my fortunes. I should never have gotten into fortune-telling to begin with. And I’ve already told you,” he said. “I had no choice but to cross the ice bridge. You had disappeared.”
“Disappeared? I never disappeared. I came here. I have every right to come here. I love it here.”
“But no one knew where you were, and—”
“Oh! Oh, no! I just realized—Gramma!” Summer’s mind had been so far removed from Carlotta and Toutou, but now everything came rushing back. “My grandmother is worried, huh?”
“You could say that. There’s a huge search party—”
“A search party? Oh, no!” said Summer. “Poor Gramma!”
Norbert pushed his cell phone across the coffee table to her.
Carlotta’s exclamations blasted through the phone, causing Summer to pull her ear away.
“It’s me, Gramma! Wait, wait! I’m okay... On Black Bear Island... Wait—let me tell you...”
Norbert smiled as Summer struggled to explain to her grandmother their current circumstances amid Carlotta’s outbursts of mixed annoyance and relief.
“Oh, and, Gramma? When the boat comes? Mr. Zelenka? He’s going to need some clothes. He left his in the woods... Well, no—not actually naked. He’s wearing Lindsay’s bathrobe.”
* * *
When the police boat carrying Norbert, Summer and Officer Curry docked in Edwards Cove that afternoon, the search team was there to greet and cheer them.
Carlotta, after embracing Summer, approached Norbert.
“It appears I will not have to make good on my threat to murder you, Norbert. I’m glad. I am eighty years old and have not had to murder anyone yet. It would be a shame to start now.”
Norbert saw that she was fighting emotions that were close to overcoming her. He smiled.
“Norbert, let me start again. What I mean to say is, thank you. You risked your life to bring Summer home. A man your age, falling into that icy water, well, things could have turned out very differently. You are a hero, Norbert.”
“Oh, no, hardly a hero,” protested Norbert with a frown. “My aunt Pearl always said, when you make a mistake, set things right; make amends. It’s just the normal thing to do.”
“Normal!” exclaimed Carlotta. “If that’s true, then I must say there seem to be very few normal people left in the world these days.” She squeezed his arm and turned her attention back to her darling granddaughter.
Reggie Di Leo sidled up to Norbert and tilted his head toward him in a confidential manner. “I don’t know how you did it, Mr. Psychic, but you and I both know you’re a fraud.”
Just then, there was a popping noise in Reggie Di Leo’s pocket. He pulled out a cell phone—Summer’s. The text was from a “Lindsay Prescott.”
Having an amazing time in Rome. Will send pics later. Enjoy the cottage!
“I woulda found her,” he said, to no one in particular.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Six of Hearts:
You already know the answer to your deepest question.
Carlotta had to hand it to Norbert. He had nearly expired in the attempt to bring Summer back. Of course, her granddaughter was safe the whole time, but the point was, Norbert had not known that. He had shown true heroism.
Naturally, she’d been annoyed with Summer for impulsively disappearing. Summer was suitably embarrassed and apologetic. Young people didn’t think things through all of the time. Carlotta was so grateful to have her lovely granddaughter restored safely. After they came home, dear Summer had wanted to talk about that awful night ten years ago, but Carlotta had calmed her down, and they’d said no more about it. Raking over the past was no way to get on with one’s living. And the important thing now was to get on with life. With Toutou at her feet, Summer curled up the way only the very young can curl up on her elegant overstuffed chair, and the fire blazing away in the fireplace, Carlotta’s heart was filled with peace. And, of course, a New Plan.
* * *
That night, Norbert closed the blinds in his little house on Harrison Street. He heard the rumble of a train as it rocked along the tracks downtown. Summer was safe with Carlotta, and she would be reflecting on the lessons that had presented themselves to her in her card reading and during her sojourn on the island. That was her own path to take. Meanwhile, Nobert had some soul-searching of his own to do.
Carlotta had told him that he was a hero. Reggie Di Leo had told him that he was a fraud. Norbert knew that he was neither. He was only a simple man with a desire to be of service to others.
He didn’t know if his fortune-telling days were all behind him. What does a fortune-teller do when his readings cause people to do things they wouldn’t normally do? Where does a fortune-teller look for answers to his own predicament?
He consults the cards, of course.
Norbert sat down at his table, set Ivy on his lap and the deck facedown before him. No need to do the horseshoe spread. One card was all he needed. One card would tell him: continue or stop. Keep being Norbert Z, the psychic, or go back to being Mr. Norbert Zelenka, respectable retiree and amateur painter. Keep meeting with people, listening to them and advising them... Or live the simple, quiet life of a simple, quiet man.
Taking in a deep breath and letting it go, Norbert fanned out the cards, facedown, before him. He let his hand be drawn to one of the cards, pulled it and read its message. It was the Six of Hearts.
You already know the answer to your deepest question.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Eight of Hearts:
An unexpected meeting brings new perspective.
A Wednesday afternoon in early January. The trees and bushes stood in elegant black outlines, bearing inches of snow, and dangling glittering icicles from their branches. The temperature had risen to a balmy thirty-eight degrees, and the grateful residents of Gibbons Corner were outside in droves, enjoying the promise of thaw while it lasted. A few were out in their boats, some were walking along the snow-covered beach, and a group of kids was sliding on the patchy ice of the parking lot near the pier. Children and their parents were making snowmen in the park adjoining the lake.
Norbert had Ivy in tow in her carrier, where she was bundled in a pink sweater knitted by Birdie. Her chiseled head poked over the top of the bag. No wind blew. There was ice over the pier, and all around were small hills of snow. Norbert stopped just before the sign on the pier: No Admittance. Pier Closed For Winter Season. He and Ivy gazed off into the horizon—a horizon that was very different from the last time they had been here. The sky and water blended together: green-gray, gray-blue. The beauty of the lake in winter and the relentless shush-shush-shush of the waves calmed Norbert’s heart, which had been turbulent.
Norbert considered the message of the Six of Hearts. Was it true? Did he, in fact, know the answer to his deepest question? Should he quit the psychic business, or keep advising customers at the Good Fortune Café?
Gamboling over the snow-covered beach, Carlotta’s miniature poodle Toutou appeared. Norbert looked around for Carlotta, but she was nowhere to be seen. A girl of about twelve was following behind the dog, which looped back and ran a few circles around the child and then ran forward again, as if showing off her superior speed. As they approached, Norbert realized that the distant form he had perceived as a child was, in fact, Carlotta’s granddaughter, Summer. He waved, and she approached, clipping a leash on Toutou.
“Hello, Mr. Zelenka. Beautiful day! Feels like spring, eh?” Her eyes were covered against the brilliance of the snow with black sunglasses.
“Yes. Warming up,” answered Norbert, stomping his feet, which were beginning to feel frozen inside his boots.
She smiled at him and took off her sunglasses, revealing her blue eyes flecked with brown.
“I was going to stop in at the café this afternoon and see if you’d do another reading for me.”
Norbert started. “One wasn’t enough?”
Summer laughed. “One was enough to put me on a new path. Now I want more directions.”
Norbert shook his head. “What do you suppose your grandmother would do to me if she heard I’d read for you again?”
Summer made a dismissive gesture, identical to Carlotta’s trademark dismissive gesture. “Oh, Gramma! I can deal with her. Seriously, though. Your reading helped me see something I’d been hiding from myself. The self-blame has been poisoning my life. I’m trying to change the habit of sinking into that. I don’t really know how to do it—not completely.”
“It’s a funny thing about guilt, Summer. Well. I mean, not funny, really. But the strange thing about guilt is that it’s the good people who suffer with it. The people who do harm to others repeatedly and never care—they’re the ones who are free of guilt. That’s strange, isn’t it? But the purpose of guilt is only to keep you from making the same mistake again. The point of guilt was never to poison your life.”
“How did you get to be so wise, Mr. Zelenka? Every single thing you said in the reading was true.”
“Was it?” asked Norbert, frowning. “I’m not so sure about that. Maybe you made it come true because I’d predicted it?”
“What? No! I averted a disaster—just like you said. The disaster was wasting my whole life, making my life be something negative, maybe even hurting the people I love the most with my insistence on blaming myself forever. That was the disaster.”
“The disaster could have been you falling through the ice—because of my reading.”
“But I didn’t fall through the ice. You did—heroically, I might add... I think I understand now that I need to learn to release the past and live the life my parents gave me. The problem is, I have no idea how to do it. I need to write my next chapter, Mr. Zelenka. I just need a little help from you to know how to do all that.”
Norbert saw the lake and sky reflected in Summer’s eyes. A few snowflakes had begun to fall. Summer caught a couple of them on her mitten and watched them, before dropping her hand.
“Another reading, eh?” asked Norbert.
Summer nodded.
“Tell you what. Let’s do that reading—in six months from now. In the meantime, listen to yourself. The answers will come, if you make quiet time and listen. I’m glad to help you, Summer, if you think I can. But you don’t want to depend on me or anyone else for your answers in life. The fact is, you already know the answers to your deepest questions.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Four Sixes:
A period of equilibrium is restored. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Carlotta’s Club was gathered in her formal dining room, eating biscuits and drinking café. Brochures on Quebec’s Winter Carnival were strewn among the floral china cups, and excitement was popping in the
air as twinkling icicles dripped and fell from the eaves outside. Carlotta’s New Plan was under way.
Margaret made a brave attempt at using the French she had been batting away at in private lessons with Carlotta and Birdie. The nastiness of the episode of the French tourist was behind them all. Carlotta was back to pretending she was fluent in French, and her best friends were back to pretending to believe her. After all, the Club knew that one day, they would all meet their “tourist from Quebec,” in whatever form that might take, so it is best to be kind to their friends when it happened to them.
“I am fatty gay,” said Margaret.
“Je suis fatiguée,” corrected Carlotta, brightly. “‘I am tired’ is Je suis fatiguée.”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” said Margaret.
“Almost, dear. Very close.”
“Well, then,” said Margaret.
Birdie soothed Margaret, “Ce n’est pas grave, Marguerite.”
“Huh?” asked Margaret.
“It’s no big deal. It’s okay,” translated Birdie.
“Well, I’m excited about the trip!” sparkled Margaret. “I’m sure there are plenty of people in Quebec who talk regular.”
Margaret was such a child, dear old thing. But my, Carlotta reflected, it felt so good to have things back in order in her life.
“Now, let’s decide on what we most want to see when we get there. The Charlesbourg Night Parade? The Winter Symphony? The Ice Hotel?”
Brochures went flying from hand to hand and exclamations grew in volume as Carlotta’s Club planned their winter vacation. They might have suspected that, regardless of the options they would choose, Carlotta had already finalized their itinerary in her own agenda.
When they did come to realize that their activities were preplanned for them, they would surrender to the power of Carlotta’s personality, and Birdie would remark, “C’est la vie.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Nine of Hearts and Nine of Diamonds:
Most favorable. Because of your humility, you are vindicated.