Page 123 of Here One Moment

In the recording you can hear my impatience. I wish I hadn’t spoken like that.

“It’s important you remember this: a marriage can change in ways you can’t imagine, Cherry.” Was that Mum or Madame Mae? A little acerbic. Could have been either. “You can bring it right back from the brink, if that’s what you both want. And it can get better and better. Honestly. Better than you imagine.”

Back from the brink. I saw again that image of the couple sitting on the edge of our apartment rooftop, backs to inky-black sky, falling into nothing.

“I see you moving, all the time, so much moving.”

“Moving where?”

“Everywhere. On big planes and little planes, a train crossing a ravine over an arched bridge, a gigantic hot air balloon, a tiny car, driving along the coast, singing; I wonder where you’re going? Back and forth, back and forth, here and there, but you’re so happy.”

“I’m going to become a travel guide?” I was being smart.

She said, “I do see a career change, yes. More learning. Late nights. Very, very hard. You will think you can’t do it, but you will do it. You’re very clever. A successful career. A little bit like mine, different from mine, of course, but there is a kind of…similarity. You will say, I’m like my mother, I’m a fortune teller.”

“Really?”

“It will be a kind of joke. I don’t understand the joke. But I know this career will make you very happy. Proud. Well done, Cherry.”

Her voice became quieter. She was tiring. I opened my eyes again and she looked exhausted, her shoulders slumped, my rings still held loosely in the palm of her hand.

“Will I have a family?” I asked. “Children?”

Another long pause.

She said, “I see a little girl. She will come on a plane.”

That would have been so impressive if she hadn’t already known about the potential adoption.

“She will come. Just when you need her the most. Her first name begins with…”

A long pause.

“It doesn’t really matter, Mum…Madame Mae,” I said. I always found the predicting of initials to be so pointless. A chip on the roulette table. You never know! If they get the initial right, everyone is amazed; if not, no one is that worried.

“B,” said Madame Mae. “Her name will begin with the letter B.”

“Wonderful,” I said.

There was another pause, and when she spoke again, her words became garbled. It frightened me. I was worried Auntie Pat would be cross with me for suggesting she give me a reading.

“The little girl won’t stop the pain, terribleterrible pain nothing like it, IknowIknowIknow hurts so much, it’s unfair, it’s unbearable, can’tstopithurtingdarling…but she will help, she will be a reason to get up, likeyourlittleface gave me a reason, you just need a reason to get up, look for the notebooks, if there is a way, promiseIwillbethere keepbreathing keepbreathing that’s all you can do.”

She stopped.

Her face looked terribly old. There were beads of sweat on her forehead.

She opened her eyes, shook herself slightly, flicked “Stop” and “Eject” on the cassette recorder, and handed me the tape. She said, “That will be fifty dollars, Mrs. Smith.” Her eyes lost their spooky glaze and she grinned at me. Madame Mae was gone. It was Mum again. “Only joking, you know I always collected payment upfront. Did you find that helpful? Do you feel more hopeful?”

She looks tentative and vulnerable, as well as spent. “I know sometimes people wish I could be more specific, more prescriptive, but that’s not…that’s not the way it works, of course.” There was something so defensive about her, as if I’d come backstage to meet her after a performance.

And was it a performance? That’s what I still didn’t know.

I thought of all the books she had continued to borrow from the library; she’d taken her ongoing professional development requirements as seriously as a chartered accountant. I thought of the times she’d mentioned a new technique she was trying, and how she had always taken half an hour at the end of each working day to write a little reflection, I guess you’d call it, about her day’s work.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you, Mum. That was wonderful.”

I didn’t know what I felt.

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