Page 52 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

“Maybe another time.”

She walked away, but he knew he would have to figure out why he was here eventually. The reasons he’d thought he was staying had disappeared, replaced by the woman in the back room.

Sera had her legs tucked under her and a cup of Earl Grey steaming gently on the small table. She’d worn leather leggings to work because she’d woken up feeling sexy. She had paired them with a long top made out of tulle and put a sweater-vest over it. She’d always loved contrasting textures and styles.

The day had started out well; it wasn’t until she’d turned on the register and the date had popped up on the machine that she’d started spiraling. No matter how much therapy she’d been to or how many times she’d tried to figure out her parents in her own personal journals, she couldn’t. She didn’t understand how they could have had a child when their own lives were so messed up.

She didn’t blame them, as she knew that everyone was dealing with some kind of crap. It all boiled down to certain people handling it better. She was nowhere near ready to have anyone relying on her other than herself. Not a pet, not a man and certainly not a child.

How had her parents not seen that about themselves?

Her father had been an orphan like her, and her mom the only child of much older parents. But Sera didn’t know anything else about them. Her dad used to sing to her when he tucked her in, and her mom cut her sandwiches into shapes with a cookie cutter. That was it. That was all she had of them.

And the horrible truth of the way they died.

She couldn’t even remember their faces, which most days didn’t matter, but today...she’d like to. They were buried in Lake Wales, Florida. A smallish town south of Orlando, in the middle of the state where they’d both grown up. Sera hadn’t been back since she’d left for college in Maine.

She didn’t want to go back. In Florida she was the product of her parents’ deaths and all those foster homes.

Here she was just another girl on her own. No one knew the sordid details or the emotional turmoil. She should have asked Wes for advice on how he kept all his emotions about his family inside. She could use a little of that emotional constipation he did so well.

“Hey, want some company?”

She glanced up to see Liberty in the doorway. She was idly shuffling a deck of tarot cards.

“Maybe.”

Liberty smiled. “That means yes. Do you want to talk, or be distracted?”

“I’m not sure?”

“Want me to read your cards?” Liberty asked.

Sera thought about it for a minute. She was of two minds when it came to tarot. There was pre-Liberty, when she put as much faith in them as she did the Magic 8 Ball, and then post-Liberty, when she learned that the right person could find the words to help her.

“Yes,” she said. Shifting her legs out from underneath her, she smiled at the sound of vegan leather rubbing together.

Liberty sat down next to her. “Parents or Wes?”

How like Liberty to realize it wasn’t just one thing unsettling her. “Parents first. I want to know why they had me. They were so messed up. I’m not sure your cards will give you the answers to that.”

“I’ve taught you well. Ask something about yourself and them,” Liberty said gently.

“Will I ever forgive them?”

For the first time, she allowed herself to say it out loud. She’d always made the most of her circumstances—that was simply the way she was—but in her heart she’d always hated them for leaving her alone. And at six that had been okay, if only because she couldn’t fully understand it, but at twenty-six it felt wrong.

Confronting her feelings about her mom and dad scared her. She wanted to just leave them in the past, but there was an emptiness inside her she was tired of feeling. She’d thought she’d dealt with the loss of them, but Ford’s death was bringing it all back home.

“I’m going to do a spiritual council spread from my Seasons of the Witch Samhain Oracle deck,” Liberty said. “I need you to pick three cards. Let’s see what your ancestors have for you.”

Sera took the cards from Liberty. She liked the thought of a spiritual council, but had never associated herself as someone with ancestors. Which was ridiculous; she might not know them, but they existed. Someone had come before her.

She shuffled the cards and reached out in her mind to them. She asked for understanding and a way forward. So that every year she wasn’t catapulted back to her six-year-old self.

She stopped shuffling and spread the cards out on the table, drawing three cards that spoke to her as she moved her hands over them.

Then she sat back as Liberty flipped them over one by one. Liberty didn’t say anything, but it didn’t take a genius to realize the answers weren’t going to be straightforward. When was tarot ever that linear?

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