Leaving Time(13)

I wanted to tell her we shouldn’t jump, but I also wanted to keep my best friend, who knew nothing about my Gift. So I stayed silent, and when Maureen counted to three and went sailing through the air, I stayed put on my swing and closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to see her fall with her leg pinned beneath her, snapping clean in two.

My parents had said that, if I didn’t hide my second sight, I’d get hurt. But it was better that I get hurt than someone else. After that, I promised myself that I’d always speak up if my Gift helped me see something coming, no matter what it cost me.

In this case, it was Maureen, who called me a freak and started hanging with the popular girls.

As I got older I got better at figuring out that not everyone who spoke to me was alive. I’d be talking to someone and would, peripherally, see a spirit cross behind. I got used to not paying attention, the same way most of you register the faces of the hundreds of people who cross your path daily, without actually looking at their features. I told my mother she needed to get her brakes checked before the light went on in the dashboard signaling something was wrong; I congratulated our neighbor on her pregnancy a week before the doctor told her she was expecting. I reported whatever information came to me without editing it or making a judgment call about whether or not I should speak up.

My Gift, however, was not all-encompassing. When I was twelve, the auto parts dealership my father owned burned to the ground. Two months later, he committed suicide, leaving my mother a rambling apology note, a picture of himself in an evening gown, and a mountain of gambling debts. I hadn’t predicted any of these things, and I cannot tell you how many times since I’ve been asked why not. Let me tell you, no one wants to know the answer to that more than I do. But then again, I can’t guess the Powerball numbers or tell you which stocks to follow. I didn’t know about my father, and years later, I didn’t foresee my mother’s stroke, either. I’m a psychic, not the Wizard of Freaking Oz. I’ve replayed things in my head, wondering if I missed a sign, or if somebody on the other side didn’t get through to me, or if I’d been too distracted by my French homework to notice. But over the years I’ve come to realize that maybe there are things I’m not supposed to know, and besides—I don’t really want to see the whole landscape of the future. I mean, if I could, what’s the point of living?

My mother and I resettled in Connecticut, where she got a job as a maid at a hotel and I dressed in black and dabbled in Wicca and survived high school. It was not until college that I started to really celebrate my Gift. I taught myself to read tarot and did readings for my sorority sisters. I subscribed to Fate magazine. Instead of my schoolbooks, I read about Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce. I wore Guatemalan scarves and gauzy skirts and burned incense in my dorm room. I met another student, Shanae, who was interested in the occult. Unlike me, she couldn’t communicate with those who had passed, but she was an empath and would get sympathy stomachaches every time her roommate had her period. Together, we attempted scrying. We would set candles in front of us, sit down before a mirror, and gaze into it long enough to see our past lives. Shanae came from a long line of psychics, and it was she who told me that I should ask my spirit guides to introduce themselves; that her aunties and her grandma, who were both mediums, had spirit guides on the other side. And so I formally met Lucinda, the elderly black woman who used to sing me to sleep; and Desmond, a sassy gay man. They were with me all the time, pets sleeping at my feet that would wake up, attentive, when I called their names. From then on, I spoke to my spirit guides constantly, relying on them to help me navigate the next world, either by leading me or by leading others to me.

Desmond and Lucinda were the best of babysitters, letting me—a virtual toddler—explore the paranormal plane without getting hurt. They made sure I didn’t encounter demons—spirits that had never been human. They steered me away from asking questions with answers I was not yet meant to know. They taught me to control my Gift, instead of letting it control me, by setting boundaries. Imagine what it would be like if the telephone woke you up every five minutes, all night long. That’s what happens with spirits, if you don’t set up parameters. They also explained that it was one thing to want to share my predictions as they came, but another to read someone unbidden. I’ve had it done to me by other psychics, and let me tell you, it’s like having someone go through your underwear drawer when you’re not home, or being in an elevator, unable to get away when someone invades your personal space.

I did readings for five dollars during the summer up at Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Then, after I graduated, I found clients through word of mouth, while supporting myself at various odd jobs. I was twenty-eight, working as a waitress at a local diner, when the Maine gubernatorial candidate came in for a photo op with his family. While the cameras were flashing on him and his wife with plates full of our signature blueberry pancakes, his little girl hopped up on one of the counter stools. “Boring, huh?” I said, and she nodded. She couldn’t have been more than seven. “How about some hot chocolate?” As her hand brushed mine to take the mug, I felt the strongest jolt of black I’d ever felt; that’s the only way I can describe it.

Now, this little girl didn’t give permission to be read, and my spirit guides were broadcasting that loud and clear, telling me I had no right to intervene. But across the diner, her mother was smiling and waving for the cameras, and she didn’t know what I did. When the candidate’s wife ducked into the ladies’ room, I followed. She held out her hand to shake, thinking I was another voter to charm. “This is going to sound crazy,” I said, “but you need to get your daughter tested for leukemia.”