by Amber Foxx
“Yeah. Most likely. Her mama would drive her car up to her, bring her all her things. I talked to her before I called you. She says she’s had a breakthrough. That she realized she’s not cut out to be a mother after all. Maybe not cut out to be married. I told her she needs to give it time, give therapy time, but she said she’s finally getting to know herself and this is who she is. Why didn’t I see it coming? What’s the matter with me?”
“Nothing’s the matter with you. You’re a good father and a good husband. You just wanted a family, that’s all.”
“I had one.” He met her eyes. “I had a perfect family.”
Mae tried to tell herself he meant the one he’d grown up in, but she knew better. He meant his marriage to Mae. Profoundly uncomfortable in a way she didn’t understand, she looked away for a moment before answering. “I don’t think we were perfect. We had some pretty good years, though.”
“As young and as broke as we were, raising two kids? We did more than ‘pretty good.’ We were damned near perfect. I’m proud of what we had. And then I let this town drive you away. I let my closed mind come between us.”
“Hubert, don’t blame yourself.”
“But I was wrong. You found our girls. You let me know they were safe.” He leaned toward her. “I was so wrong about you.”
Mae had to keep him from saying more. “I’m glad you understand about the Sight. But we can’t go backward. You and Jen broke up before and got back together, and it didn’t work. Let’s not even think about us that way.”
Hubert nodded and looked down, knotting his hands together. “At least you’re happy with Jamie. One of us made a good choice.”
Unable to say if she had or not, Mae let the conversation fade into small talk and reassurances and then goodbyes. She turned off the laptop and closed it. If only Hubert had realized he’d been wrong sooner. Before she’d moved across the country, while she was still in Norfolk, while they were still only separated and not divorced. Before she’d met Jamie.
It was too late now, though. She had a new life. New friends, school, a renewed closeness to her father, and a feeling of belonging she’d never had in Tylerton. And what if Jamie was in worse health than he knew or would admit? She’d turned him down, and yet, could she bear to leave him? Guilt weighed her down and she hadn’t even made a decision about anything.
A hissing noise and a burned smell made her rush to the stove. The soup, still a frozen block on top, was scorching on the bottom. She lowered the burner temperature, grabbed a wooden spoon, and stirred. Jamie would think it was funny she couldn’t even thaw something without messing up. He was so much at home in the kitchen. And so much himself when he cooked. Creative, fussy, talkative, nurturing. If they broke up, she would miss— Mae stopped her mind from going any further.
She’d looked up the thought experiment about Schrödinger’s cat. It had been confusing, but if she understood it correctly, the cat was both alive and dead at the same time until someone opened the box. Don’t open the box.
Leaving the soup to simmer, Mae took the poem and her crystals out on the back deck. A psychic journey wouldn’t take long, and it would get her mind off Jamie, and off Jen and Hubert. The sunset glow from the west reflected on Turtleback Mountain, painting it orange. Mae sat on the steps and focused on the Turtle to settle her mind, then chose crystals: purple-and-white charoite, to sharpen her clairvoyance, and aventurine for protection. To direct the journey, she asked to know more about Posey’s pretense of being sick then healed, and tuned in to Posey’s energy traces.
Mae’s inner vision swept through a tunnel and then opened in a park, a flat rectangle of dry grass with a walking path around it and a large abstract sculpture at one end. Nearby adobe-style apartments and tall mountains in the background suggested Santa Fe. Posey, in tight jeans and a flowing, lacy blouse, was walking a tiny dog with scraggly white fur. From the other direction on the path came Yeshi, walking a brown-and-white pit bull. Posey’s dog began to squeal and prance, tugging on the leash. Yeshi commanded his dog, “Sit, Mitzi.”
She sat and he praised her. Posey, meanwhile, coaxed her animal with no results.
“Perhaps you should pick her up,” Yeshi said. “She does not obey.”
“Oh, my goodness. Dr. Ngarongsha!” Posey gushed. “What a surprise. Your dog is so good.” She scooped hers up and bounced him in her arms like an infant. “This is Baby. He’s a very bad boy.” She spoke in squeaky pet-talk. “Aren’t you, Baby-boy?”
He yipped and whimpered.
Yeshi cringed, glanced down at Mitzi, then regarded Posey with apparent concern. “How have you been feeling? I have not seen you.”
“I’m just so, so tired. And the pain ...” Posey sighed. “I don’t know what to do. I’m so frustrated with my doctor. He’s supposed to be really open to alternative medicine, but he says I’m wasting my time and money on treatments.”
“With me? Ms. Hammond, I did not, I hope, waste your time. Did you use the herbs? Did you follow the diet?”
“Not yet. I haven’t felt up to shopping.”
“There are some things the patient must do. The massage is the only part I can do for you.”
“Dr. Gross says there’s nothing wrong with me. Can you believe that? I’m so tired of being disrespected by doctors.”
“Western medicine and Tibetan medicine sometimes agree. Sometimes not. Shall we walk?”
Posey put Baby down and he resumed shrieking and feinting toward Mitzi. With a pained expression, Yeshi gestured toward his ears. Posey seemed not to notice, shouting over Baby’s racket, “You’re the only person I’ve consulted who believes me that something is wrong.”
Yeshi gave Mitzi a firm command and she walked at his side. “Your nyepa are out of harmony. This Western doctor cannot see that.”
Posey kept pace with him. “But why are they out of harmony?”
“Perhaps because you do not follow my advice?”
“I told you—‘”
“I’m sorry, that was not a good joke. My friend, Sierra, she would say you have this pain and tiredness because of your karma. Many things are karma, are they not?”
Posey’s eyes lit up. “So, this could be spiritual?”
Baby lunged at Mitzi, wheezing as he pulled against his collar. The pit bull let out a warning growl. Yeshi spoke softly to her and directed a pointed gaze at Posey. “Please, silence your dog. I would like to talk to you, but this is too difficult.”
With a hurt look, Posey gathered Baby up again and he lowered his volume to a whine. “Could my pain be something karmic?”
“Perhaps. Sierra tells me I became a healer because of karma.” He smiled. “She is a remarkable young lady. Call me and I can put you in touch with her if you wish to explore karma. Now I think our dogs should go their separate ways.”
Yeshi gave a nod that bordered on a bow and urged Mitzi to continue their walk. Wide-eyed and glowing, Posey watched him go.
Mae left the vision and used snow quartz to close her boundaries and separate herself from the journey.
The story she’d found wasn’t the scam she’d expected. Posey and Yeshi seemed sincere. He had given her a Tibetan diagnosis and recommended natural remedies she hadn’t used. Her reason for not taking his advice didn’t ring true, since she felt well enough to go out and walk and didn’t move as if she were in pain or exhausted. Did she have some psychological problem that made her crave attention from healers and doctors? Don would know, but due to doctor-patient confidentiality, Mae couldn’t ask.
Still, the confirmation that Posey was his patient was important. Fibromyalgia wasn’t dismissed as “all in your head” anymore, and Don struck Mae as a doctor who would listen to his patients. If he said Posey had nothing wrong with her, he was probably right. Jamie’s strange little spirit guide had implied the same thing.
Had Sierra manipulated Posey into thinking she was healed or convinced her to fake it to manipulate others? And why had Yeshi sent Posey to Sierra? He could ha
ve genuinely thought she could help; he could have wanted to get rid of an annoying and uncooperative patient; or he could have seen a perfect pawn for Sierra’s game.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Relieved that Mae had trusted him with the girls again, Jamie triple-checked the child safety seats in his van and then stopped, wondering if all the rocking and testing was making them less secure. They were only driving a few blocks. Nothing would go wrong. He turned, expecting to see the girls behind him, making impatient faces the way they did when he was fussing over something, but they were still on the porch, each with an ear pressed to the door.
“Come on. Stop eavesdropping.” They didn’t move, so he added, “That’s the word for when you don’t mind your own bizzo. Listen in on people.”
Slowly, they peeled away from the door and descended the stairs with heavy steps, stopping a few feet from the van. Stream gazed at the ground, while Brook looked up at Jamie, asking, “Are you still mad at Mama?”
“Nah. What made you think that?”
“You didn’t kiss or hug or anything.”
He leaned against the van, arms folded, his right hand tapping his left elbow. This was going to be complicated. “We’re working something out. Wouldn’t say we’re mad. Just, y’know, taking our time to solve a problem.”
Stream bit her lip and queried her sister with a look. Brook must have agreed in their silent way. Stream raised worried, mournful eyes to Jamie. “Jen and Daddy are mad at each other.” Her voice quivered. “That’s why he let us run away.”
“He tell you that?”
“No,” Brook said, “But they’re fighting so bad, Jen wouldn’t come home with him.”
How could their marriage have collapsed that fast? Maybe Jen needed space to think. If it was only a phase, Hubert wouldn’t want to worry the girls by telling them. “You shouldn’t have eavesdropped, darl. They need time to work things out—”
Stream began to cry. Brook squeezed her hand, and Jamie dropped to his knees on the gravel to hug them both. “Bloody hell, what did I say? I’m not mad at you.”
“You are,” Stream sobbed into his shoulder. “Everybody’s mad at us. Everybody fights because of us. We didn’t mean to make Jen and Daddy fight. And now you and Mama are fighting. We make—”
“You did not make us fight.” Jamie wanted to cry with her. Everyone had fought because of the children, but it wasn’t their fault. They were innocent. “Adults fight because we’re human, y’know? It’s just how people act.”
As he held them, their pain soaked into him, making him ache all the way to his bones. Finally, their energy shifted and softened, still sad but lighter. Jamie rose and adjusted Brook’s head-top ponytail so it stood up higher. “Come on. We need to shop. What kind of cookies do you want me to make?”
Once they were in the store, Jamie sent the children to the produce aisle to pick out salad ingredients. “Meet you at the checkout. I’ll get what we need for cookies.”
It was better if they didn’t see him for a few minutes, in case he needed to do something embarrassing like sit on the floor, and he trusted them with the task. During their cross-country trip, he’d learned they were proud of liking vegetables, as if this made them superior to other children.
He cruised the baking section, light-headed and shaky, unable to tell if the cause was anxiety, exhaustion, hunger, illness, or all of the above. It had been another long day, harder even than the one before.
Cookies. Pay attention. You’re making cookies. Whole wheat flour. What else did he need? Mae had all-natural peanut butter on hand. Should he add dark chocolate chips? Ground peanuts? It was strange to be thinking about something so normal, so not-about-sickness-and-dying. Jamie hoisted a five-pound bag of whole wheat flour, then stalled out, staring at it. Mae didn’t bake. And he wouldn’t be back to do it for her, would he? With a pang of grieving, he returned the heavy bag to the shelf and chose the smallest.
He put a large jar of local honey in the shopping basket. He wanted agave nectar, but there was none on the shelf, and the honey would be useful even if Mae never cooked with it. Tea with honey was good for sore throats. Not that she ever got sick, as far as Jamie could tell, not even a cold, though she’d been through plenty of stress. Risk factors and all, illness still seemed so random, it was no wonder people believed Sierra.
She had been extra weird during the soul group gathering in the morning. Jamie and Rex had agreed in private that they would pretend they were still believers, but it had been hard. First, she’d spouted her usual stuff about abandoning ego-based “self-stories,” and confronting past life failings and remedying them. Then she claimed that Magda’s hospitalization had resulted from her refusing the healing and warned them that soul groups got closer and closer to the same death cycle with each incarnation because of quantum entanglement. If Jamie had still believed her ideas, he would have been terrified. Already worried about Magda, he’d have feared she could be dragging him to death with her. Was that what Sierra wanted?
Leon made an urgent plea for the group to pray for Magda. Sierra told him to pray in silence, and then she startled Jamie by praying aloud in gibberish. Leon and Posey regarded her with awe and bowed their heads.
Sierra’s nonsense syllables were similar to Tibetan, which to Jamie sounded like a cross between Sanskrit and Apache, but her words never matched the ones in the chants, and there should have been some overlap in sacred terminology. There was no repetition, no structure, no pattern in what she said. Did she pretend to speak Tibetan to impress people? When the group meeting ended, Jamie took Leon aside and asked what language that had been.
“The language of Mu.”
“Jeezus, you mean that lost continent, lost civilization stuff was about Mu?”
Leon smiled for the first time Jamie had ever seen. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah. Dad’s an anthropology professor. I’ve heard of all sorts of things.” Jamie tried to keep his incredulity under wraps. “It was supposed to be like the Atlantis of the Pacific.”
“More important than Atlantis. The cultures of Atlantis, the Mayans, Easter Island, your ancestors in Australia, they all came from Mu.” Leon’s watery gray eyes searched Jamie’s, and his voice grew hushed and serious. “Do you ever feel you remember it?”
Of course not. “Do you?”
“A shadow of it. Yes. A longing.”
A memory of something that had never existed. A longing for a mistaken hypothesis. If only Jamie had put the Mu error together with Sierra’s name right away, he wouldn’t have believed her for a second, but Mae’s guesses about Greek letters or Chinese words had seemed logical, and then the twins’ Mrs. Moo jokes had made the name so ridiculous he’d never wondered again where it came from.
He could almost hear the children mooing. No, he could hear them mooing. Was Sierra in the store? Jamie hurried to the produce aisle. Brook and Stream were crouched behind a freestanding display of apples, mooing, “I kne-e-w yoooo when yoooo weren’t yooo and I’m Mrs. Mooooo.” Sierra stood just inside the entrance, staring toward the apples.
The basket felt heavy on Jamie’s arm. Trying to look disapproving, he signaled to the twins to be quiet. He couldn’t help wanting to laugh, though, and they seemed to know it, giggling as they obeyed.
“You got the salad?” Jamie asked.
They stood and Stream showed him what was in their basket. Leaf lettuce, baby zucchini, carrots, and cucumbers. “Is that enough? Mama doesn’t like tomatoes in salads.”
“Neither do I.” One of those odd things they agreed on. “They’re fruits, not vegetables.”
“Look out! Moo behind you!” Stream warned.
Sierra approached slowly, shaking her head with the pitying expression that Jamie hated. “You may mock my name, but we all remember Mu. Deep in our souls.” She met Jamie’s eyes. “You may not want to face it yet, but you will.”
“Yeah,” he lied. “You’re probably right. Give me time.”
“You don
’t have much time.” She studied his shopping basket. “You shouldn’t get that big jar of honey.”
“Jeezus. You think I’m going to drop dead before I can bake some cookies?”
“When you’ve transcended your karma, you can eat anything you want, but your healing is in limbo right now. You should be careful.”
“What about you?” He remembered his encounter with her by the prairie dog town when he’d escaped from the bug museum. Not knowing he didn’t eat meat, she’d invited him to join her at Blake’s Lotaburger. “Once you’re healed, you can eat cheeseburgers?”
“Yes. Once you’ve transcended your issues, there’s no new karma. Not for the mind, not for the soul, not for the body. It’s a new level of being.” She removed the jar from his basket. “I’ll put this back for you.”
Jamie took it from her. “It’s in the recipe.”
“Sugar feeds cancer.”
Did she know? Jamie tried to focus on his breath, but his chest felt more crowded than ever. Dizzy, he turned to the twins and gave Stream his basket. “Take this to the checkout, darl. I’ll be there in a second.” He handed her his wallet. “Pay if I’m late, all right?”
If only Dr. Farrow hadn’t been so bloody informative. Jamie bent over, hands on his thighs like a winded runner, as he envisioned the string of lymph nodes winding past his bronchioles and his diaphragm like a chain, swelling, closing in on him. The crowded feeling in his chest was real, and knowing it added to his panic and anxiety.
“Are you having a wobbly?” Brook asked. “Should you lie down?”
“This is part of your healing,” Sierra said. “Face the fear.”
Jamie looked up. “Rack off and let me breathe.”
“Look what happened to Magda. Soul groups cycle together. Are you going to go backwards, too? Drag all of us with you?”
Stream whacked her grocery basket into Sierra’s kneecap. “Leave him alone.”
Sierra cried out in pain. Jamie tried to tell Stream not to hit, but no sound came out. Shoppers stared. Their voices echoed in his head. His vision was narrowing, going black at the edges and his heart was out of control, his breath too tight and fast. As he reached out to Stream, she put down the basket and took his hand. Then Brook hit Sierra in the other knee with the other basket, dropped it, and mooed long and loud, sneering and backing toward the door. Sierra gasped and strode after her.