Page 7 of Here One Moment

Max gives his wife a baffled look and Sue steps in, as good wives do, to rescue husbands from confusing social situations.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Did you recently lose someone?”

The lady appears exasperated, but her tone is tolerant. “Cause of death. Age of death.”

That’s when it clicks for Leo. She’s not diagnosing, she’s predicting.

“ ‘Cause of death, age of death,’ ” repeats Sue carefully. She puts her hand on the buckle of her seat belt. “Okay then.”

“Holy guacamole,” says her husband.

The lady points at Sue. “I expect pancreatic cancer. Age sixty-six.”

Sue laughs uneasily. “You expect pancreatic cancer? As my cause of death? Goodness. At sixty-six? You expect that for me? No, thank you very much!”

“Don’t engage.” Max lowers his voice and taps his forehead. “She’s not quite…?”

“Something’s not right,” agrees Sue beneath her breath.

She looks back up at the lady and speaks in that very specific, commanding tone Leo remembers so well from the nurses who took care of his grandmother. “We’ll be landing soon, sweetheart!” It is a voice designed to cut through confusion and impaired hearing. Leo hates it. He could never bear hearing his formidable grandmother spoken to as though she were a not-very-bright preschooler. “So if you want to use the bathroom, you probably should go now.”

The lady sighs. She turns to appraise Leo.

Leo says, “You’re telling us how and when we’re going to die?”

Later he will berate himself. He will think he should have followed Sue’s lead and shut her down, but his feelings are mixed up with memories of his beloved grandmother’s confused face and how he—Leo!—could make it smooth and peaceful when he went along with her delusions. He was better at it than his sisters. Those were the last gifts he gave her. He will do the same for this lady. It doesn’t matter what nonsense she is talking.

“Cause of death. Age of death,” says the lady. “It’s really very simple.”

“Sounds very simple,” agrees Leo. “Give it to me straight.”

The lady points her finger like a gun at the center of Leo’s forehead. Her hand is steady. “I expect workplace accident.” Her eyes are a pretty color: the soft blue of faded denim. They don’t look like crazy eyes. They look like sad, sensible, resigned eyes. “Age forty-three.”

Forty-three! Leo does not experience it as a shock—he is taking all this as seriously as he would a fortune cookie or a horoscope—but he does feel a jolt. Fortune cookies and horoscopes aren’t usually so specific. He turns forty-three in November.

“I’m going to die in a workplace accident? Might have to give up work then.”

Max chuckles appreciatively while Sue makes the kind of worried “tch” sound of a mother seeing her child doing something mildly risky.

“Fate won’t be fought,” says the lady. Her gaze glides past Leo as her forehead creases.

“Better get my affairs in order then!” Leo is playing for the crowd now. This particular jolly persona normally only kicks in after two drinks. This guy is not uptight! He never spirals! He doesn’t lie awake at night fretting about his utilization rate. No one accuses this guy of being a workaholic.

The lady doesn’t answer. Her face is a door slammed shut. She is done with him. She takes a deliberate step forward.

Leo twists in his seat to watch. She’s stopped at the very next row. Still close enough for him to touch.

“I expect.” She points at a young woman wearing giant headphones over a headscarf. “Disease of the urinary system. Age ninety-two.”

The woman unpeels one headphone away from her ear with her thumb. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh my word,” marvels Sue as she also cranes her neck to watch the lady, while Max shakes his head and Leo grins inanely like the relaxed, easygoing guy he is not and tries to ignore the sensation of someone gently but insistently pressing an ice cube to the base of his spine.

Chapter 5

I have been told I pointed at passengers while repeating these four words: “Fate won’t be fought.”

I was always taught that pointing is bad manners, so I was skeptical about this, until I saw the photo, the one that eventually appeared in the papers, where I was most definitely pointing, in a rather theatrical manner, as if I were playing King Lear.

---