Pall in the Family (14 page)

“This is crazy,” I said, but I was already heading back toward the front door and the closet. I wanted to know what Tish was so desperate to ask the cards, too. And maybe I could find out what had come between her and my mother.

We quietly set out the step stool and I hoisted myself up onto the rickety ladder that dropped down out of the ceiling. Vi's
shh
ing was loud enough to bring the neighbors over to investigate, but the parlor door remained closed. I shimmied through the opening. Vi stayed below as lookout.

Once in the crawl space, I held a small flashlight and carefully made my way toward the parlor area. There had been a time when I could walk upright in the space, but not anymore.

Finally, I got into a good position and could hear voices clearly. Tish was talking.

“I've just been so nervous since she died. I don't know what to do.”

I heard the
rrrip!
of shuffled cards. This was clearly not the same deck my mother had used with me. That deck hadn't made a sound in twenty years. Mom felt very strongly about the transfer of energy to objects like cards. For some reason, she was using her teaching deck with Tish, which made me even more curious about Tish's situation and their relationship. My mother was protecting her favorite cards from Tish, and I didn't know why.

“Why would you be nervous, Tish? You hardly knew Sara.”

The shuffling stopped.

“I know, but I feel like I didn't treat her very well, you know? Maybe she'll get back at me somehow.”

“That's ridiculous and you know it.” I could imagine my mother shaking her head in that
tsk-tsk
way she usually reserved for me.

“I'm really sorry about the trouble I caused her. Honestly, I was just jealous.”

“Jealous? Of what?”

One of the chairs creaked.

“Of her, of what she could do. Of all the time you spent together.”

“But, I was her teacher. . . .”

“I know. I just feel like I've lost my abilities recently. Have you ever given a reading that isn't from the cards, but you know it's true anyway?”

The cards riffled again.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Well, did you ever know something about a client and then do a reading to reflect that knowledge? To tell them something they don't know, but should know, even if the cards don't show it?” Tish said.

“No . . . I don't think that's ever happened. Why are you asking? Have people been saying my card readings aren't accurate?” Mom was likely sitting up straight, ready to defend her honor.

“Oh no. Nothing like that. I just wondered. It's such a gift we have. Sometimes it's a burden, too.”

I played the narrow beam of my flashlight over the small room. A thick layer of dust coated boxes, old blankets, and a child-size teapot that I knew had a chipped spout. My nose tickled and my eyes watered—I quickly buried my face in my elbow to quiet the sneeze.

The room below got very quiet.

“Did you hear something?” Tish asked.

“I don't think so.” I imagined Mom cocking her head like Tuffy, listening. “That's probably enough shuffling. Do you have a specific question for the cards?”

“Just general guidance would be good. I need to know whether to act on something or not.”

I could hear the flick of cards on the table as my mother set them out.

Someone gasped and the table below rattled.

“Don't worry about that card. It just means change. This is not as bad as it looks,” my mother said.

“I can read cards, too, Rose. Danger, threats, and death.” Tish's voice rose with each word.

“Sit down, Tish.” I panicked for a moment, imagining Tish walking out into the hall and finding Vi guarding the closet.

I heard the chair squeak as Tish lowered herself onto it, and then things got quiet. Mom must have been studying the cards.

My ears strained to hear, and at last she took a breath and said, “Let's look at this layout as a whole. The cards have to be read as a group or they don't make as much sense.”

I wished I had a peephole to look at them myself. My back cramped from standing hunched over. The dust tickled my nose and throat. All I needed was a coughing attack and they would know I was just above them.

“Okay,” my mother said. I could tell by that one word that she was steeling herself to give some bad news. “These two in the center indicate how you are feeling and how you are acting. The first one shows a person contemplating the past and former accomplishments. Crossed by the Knight of Cups, it shows you are turning inward.”

I closed my eyes and imagined the Knight on his white horse bearing a golden goblet. The horse's head is bent and is not looking where it is going.

“That makes sense. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately,” Tish said.

“The next two indicate that you have a large burden that has possibly been taken on a little at a time. Along with the Nine of Swords, recent grief or sorrow, it looks as if you've been going through a rough time.”

The Nine of Swords is one of the saddest cards in the deck. A man sits on a bed, head in hands. The nine swords float above his head. I remembered flipping through my mom's deck as a child and that card always made me feel terrible, like there was no hope of happiness. It had shown up a lot in the months after my grandmother died, when I would sit in my room and do my own readings. One of the other cards may have been the Ten of Wands—a man struggles to carry ten large sticks. His back is hunched, and he looks at the ground as he trudges along.

Tish sniffled, and her chair squeaked again.

“These two cards show a possible outcome. It looks like there will be defeat of the plans you have made, and the Queen reversed in the near future shows that you will feel cut off from an important source of communication and will not trust in your skills.”

“This is worse than I thought,” Tish said.

“Let's see what the rest have to tell us. The Moon in the ‘self' position usually indicates a person who is becoming more psychic and who will allow this new energy into her life. I think the reversed Queen is warning you to continue to trust your instincts.”

“Okay.”

“The reversed King of Pentacles shows there is someone in your life right now who will do anything to get what he wants. Death in the ‘hopes and fears' position shows that you are afraid of some major change or decision.”

“If it's in that position that isn't good, is it?”

“It means that your fears are very strong, you're afraid of some major change, and you are fighting it. The Tower in the ‘outcome' position shows a big upheaval will result from all of this.”

I almost choked on the rapid intake of dust when I heard that The Tower was part of the layout. I hated that card. Just looking at it gave me the creeps, and it had caused nightmares as a child. The picture alone was terrifying, a tall tower struck by lightning with people falling from the top. When I learned about fire safety in school, I was haunted by the image of people leaping from a burning building. The sky was black and fire shot out of the windows. Poor Tish. Something big had been going on with her, and the worst was yet to come.

“It's not good, is it?”

“The cards aren't good or bad.” This was my mother's standard spiel to people who have a terrible-looking spread of cards. “They just point you in the right direction and help you make choices. These cards are saying you've made some bad choices recently, but maybe you can fix your situation. You have to trust yourself and your talents.”

Mom didn't like to give bad news and was unwilling to accept that her precious cards would ever put her in a position of having to do so.

“Well, thanks for seeing me. I know things haven't been great between us for a while. You'll never know how much I regret the way I treated Sara over her certificate. I'm sorry it came between us.”

I heard my mother sniffle.

“You just let me know if I can do anything to help,” Mom said.

They were wrapping things up. I had to get out of the attic.

I turned and headed for the trapdoor, but swung my head into a low-lying beam first. After my vision cleared, I continued and nearly fell out of the door onto the step stool. I was starting to fold it up when the closet door hit me in the back as it swung closed, shutting out the light.

“What are you doing out here, Vi?” I heard my mother through the door.

“Oh, nothing. Just on my way to the kitchen to get Baxter a dog biscuit.”

“I thought you kept those in your rooms.” My mother's voice betrayed her skepticism.

“Where's Baxter?” Tish asked.

“In my apartment. Why don't you two go get him while I get his treat?” Vi said.

Suddenly the closet door flew open. My mother stood there, hands on hips, glaring.

“I thought so. You were quieter when you were little. Hear any good readings lately, Clytemnestra?” she asked.

“Clyde? What are you doing in the closet?” Tish asked.

“She's just helping me store some winter coats,” Vi said. She tried to shut the door.

“She's ‘just' spying on us.” My mother rounded on Vi, and grabbed my wrist at the same time.

“You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Acting like children!” my mother said.

“Why would you do that, Clyde?” Tish said in the smallest voice I had ever heard.

Tish and Baxter had stormed out. Even the dog
managed a glare over his shoulder as he left. I tried to downplay the whole episode to Seth, but he was too clever for that. This was due partly to my mother's reiterating her disappointment in my behavior and partly to Vi's persistent questions about what I had heard.

Seth and I finally left the house to visit our clients for the day. Tuffy joined us.

“So it never ends, huh?” Seth asked. He clicked his seat belt and settled Tuffy on his lap.

“What?”

“Parents dragging you down.”

“I guess it depends on the parents.” I hit the gas too hard and sprayed gravel as we pulled out of the driveway.

Tuffy sighed loudly and looked from me to Seth and back again. I made a mental note to schedule a grooming appointment for him. He was starting to resemble a mistreated Barbie doll with ratted hair and a lopsided ponytail.

For the next hour, I wrangled the boy and the dogs and argued with myself over what I should do. I felt horrible. I usually avoided Vi's plots, but I had been so curious myself that I'd gone along with it. Now Tish was mad and hurt and I still didn't know much more than I knew this morning. She had a secret, she was confused about what to do, and now she had animal psychics and ex-cops spying on her. Great.

* * *

That evening, I
waited on the porch for Mac. I didn't want to go through the whole chatting-with-the-family thing and figured he would be just as happy to avoid Vi's questions. Of course, they weren't subtle about the fact that they were watching from behind the curtains.

When he pulled up in his pickup truck, I hopped off the porch and went to meet him.

“Seems like old times,” he said as I buckled the seat belt. “You never could wait to get out of there.”

“It's better now, but only a little.”

We chose safe topics of conversation on our way out of town. He told me about his time in Saginaw and the drug bust that had gone bad. He'd taken a bullet in his leg and was stuck with a cane until his strength improved. He wasn't sure how long he would stay with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department but didn't want to return to Saginaw. I kept quiet about my own troubles in Ann Arbor, saying only that I had six weeks left of my leave of absence. No talk of murder, séances, or psychics. As soon as we passed the city limits and headed north, I knew where he was taking me for dinner.

Grand Haven was not far, and the Lighthouse Restaurant sat right on the beach. The food was good, but the view was the big attraction. I hadn't been there since Mac and I broke up.

It was obvious that things had changed when we pulled into the parking lot. The weather-beaten sign had been replaced with a carved wooden plaque, and the lot had been repaved and painted with marked parking spaces. As we approached the front door, I saw that the bright multicolored deck umbrellas had been changed for black shades and tables with real tablecloths. Mac and I exchanged a bewildered glance.

Inside, the upscale transformation was even more apparent. We stood by the hostess station and I began to worry my jeans and short-sleeve blouse would be turned away. But this was still Michigan in the summer, and the hostess didn't give us a second look as she led us to a table for two.

We caught up on the past eight years over a bottle of wine and surf and turf. Mac was funnier than I remembered and more relaxed. The wine mellowed us both, and we had veered into remember-when territory. I reminded him of the time we were driving out near Greer's Woods and Etta James's “At Last” came on the oldies station. Mac had pulled off to the side of the road, turned up the music, and pulled me out of the car. We slow-danced in the woods with only the headlights and the moon to guide us. Mac reminded me of the time we had almost started a brawl in a Grand Rapids pool hall. It was the most I had laughed in a very long time.

We reached for the wine bottle at the same time, and when his hand covered mine I caught my breath.

“Well, I never thought I'd see this.”

I turned to see Charla Roberts grinning and standing at our table. I jumped up to give her a hug and knocked my wineglass over in the process. Mac dealt with the mess and then offered Charla a chair.

“Oh, I don't want to interrupt,” Charla said. “I'm having dinner with Dean Junior and saw you from across the room.”

“It's great to see you, Charla,” I said. I secretly wished she'd waited a few more minutes. “I'm in town for the summer—we'll have to get together.”

“I've heard all about you and your summer plans. Tom Andrews talks about you all the time.” She cocked her thumb at Mac. “This one is a bit more secretive.”

Mac cleared his throat and tried to gain control of the conversation.

“I don't have any secrets, Charla. I'm an open book.” He held his hands out to demonstrate.

Charla glanced at him. “Yes, I can see that.” She turned to me. “I can't tell you how happy I am to see you two together. Before Dean died, he told me how glad he was that you had found each other.”

She didn't notice the shift in the atmosphere at the table. At the mention of Dean Roberts, Mac stiffened and his eyes lost their sparkle.

“We're just old friends out to dinner, Charla,” Mac said.

“Okay, have your secrets.” She smiled at me. “I'll leave you
old friends
to your wine.” Charla made her way back across the restaurant.

The drive home was quiet, and there was no more reminiscing. We were lost in our own thoughts. I was ruminating about Tish and the debacle that afternoon, as well as trying to figure out where Mac and I had gone so wrong eight years ago. Mac was presumably remembering his reasons for leaving Crystal Haven. I was glad we had done this, even if nothing had changed. At least now I wouldn't feel uncomfortable when we met. I knew where I stood.

“Thanks, Mac,” I said when he pulled up to the house. “I had a really nice time.”

I reached for the door handle and started to get out of the truck. Mac grabbed my other hand and held it.

“Let's do this again, okay?” His eyes were intense, and I realized I had misinterpreted the situation—again.

My stomach flipped. My hands shook as I pulled the door latch. I nodded and went into the house.