Page 122 of Here One Moment

“She must be very proud of you.”

We smiled and I thought for a moment I might cry. It’s strange how rarely you sit quietly opposite the people you love, without a menu or a meal or a drink between you.

She said, “Is there anything in particular you’re hoping to learn or explore today, Cherry? A question you want answered? A problem you need solved?”

I thought for a moment and then I said, “Lately, I just don’t seem to feel…happy.”

(All these years later, when I listen to that recording, I hear my voice break on the word “happy.” I’ve had the audio cassette recording transferred to a file I can listen to at any time. I press an arrow and there is my mother’s long-dead voice, as if she is sitting right next to me, as if she is still available on the other end of the phone, and then there is my own voice, which sounds absurdly young, high and shrill, but recognizably me; it’s as though I’m a bad actress, putting on a childish voice, or as if I have sucked on helium gas.)

“I can’t see a future for myself,” I said, “I just see a…big blank space.”

“Is there anything you wish you could see in your future?” asked Mum, but I’m going to call her Madame Mae now, because if I’d told my mother I couldn’t see a future for myself, she would have responded with exasperation and loving mockery: “Oh, you can’t see a future for yourself, Cherry, you poor thing, with your university education and your handsome husband and that diamond ring on your finger.”

I said I just wanted to see happiness in my future. Isn’t that all anyone wants?

“So you need to make some changes,” said Madame Mae.

“What kind of changes?”

“You will know.”

In the recording you hear me shifting about in my seat. “How will I know?”

I was annoyed, a little contemptuous. It was as I’d always suspected, Madame Mae was simply a mirror, reflecting back whatever her customers so obviously wanted to hear. An untrained therapist who spoke in generalizations.

She said, “Will you close your eyes, please, Cherry.”

Funny how she said my name now, with detachment, as if I were a customer, not her daughter. No more laughing about my mother choosing my beautiful name.

There was silence. I grew impatient. I opened my eyes a fraction, and saw that she had her eyes closed too. She breathed slowly and deeply, my rings now in the palm of her hand. I watched her for a moment and she spoke without opening her eyes. “Please keep your eyes closed and just breathe. That’s all you need to do for the next little while, Cherry. Breathe.”

I obeyed. I breathed slower, still slower, and I began to feel as if I might doze off. I wondered if any of my mother’s customers had nodded off over the years, and what Mum did in those cases; did she clear her throat or nudge them gently with her foot? This silent breathing had also not been part of her routine when I eavesdropped. It felt as though my mother and I, or Madame Mae and I, went into a kind of meditative state.

There is plenty of research showing the efficacy of meditation in lowering blood pressure and reducing stress, and some believe expert meditators access a universal consciousness and therefore develop what could be perceived as psychic abilities. Is that what was going on with my mother that day?

She said, “I see so many things in your future, Cherry, so many beautiful things. They’re all fluttering about me like butterflies, I hardly know where to start.”

Mmmm, I thought skeptically, in my dreamy state. Pick a butterfly, Mum.

“I see you climbing up a mountain trail. Patches of snow. Glinting diamonds in the sunlight, and you see the spires of a castle, and you’re laughing with somebody who makes you happy, and you…oh, that’s gone…let me see…”

“Is it David?” I interrupted. “Is that the person making me happy?”

Do you see me leaving? Do I see me leaving?

“I don’t know.” A pause. “It’s someone you love.”

Another long pause, then she said, this time with confidence, “You’ve already met the love of your life.”

“So you mean David?” I felt relief. It would be convenient for all if my husband was the love of my life.

She paused and when she spoke again, she said, once more, a little uncertainly, “You’ve already met him.”

Could she mean Jack Murphy? But what would be the point of telling me my deceased boyfriend was the love of my life? Didn’t she always say, “They come for hope, Cherry. They should leave feeling happier and lighter than when they walked in my door.” “Lighter in the wallet,” Auntie Pat would say.

“I see a notebook. I see many notebooks.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye out for notebooks.”

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