Page 45

Emily Bond

Sort of Seeing Someone

The line is not all that long at The Lighthouse, my favorite ice cream shop in the entire country, which is all the convincing I need to visit my second cash-only OB staple of the day.

“What’s good here?” my mom asks me.

“Literally everything. It’s an ice cream shop,” I explain, stepping up to place my usual order, an “OB Flurry”—chocolate soft serve mixed with hot fudge and cookie dough pieces. It’s a cavity in a cup, but I will never get anything else.

“I’ll try Moose Tracks in a waffle bowl,” my mom requests.

“One or two scoops?”

“Two,” I quicklyanswer for her. If a double scoop keeps us here, together, longer—then adouble scoop it is.

Our sweet treats come out a few moments later.

I tip the cashier extra as I can tell she loaded mine up with cookie dough—just how I like.

We find an open patio table outside and take a seat.

Even though we just spent the last forty-five minutes floating around in salt water, I’m remarkably exhausted.

It feels good to plop down on the metal bistro chair.

As I scoot it closer to the table, it grinds against the cement.

I know that sound.

“So you’re here on a field trip?”

“With my sisterhood, yes. This is the kind of thing we do in our old age. Look for vortexes, mine for crystals, attend moon beam meet-ups. I know it sounds kitschy, but it’s fun and it gives me something to do.”

“When do you head back?” I ask.

“Bus leaves at 7am, just after a sunrise yoga session on the beach.”

I ask her to stay longer. I tell her I can rent a car and we can roadtrip back to Sedona. I tell her we can listen to podcasts and pull tarot cards together. I tell her how fun it will be.

“I can’t,” she says. “I’m going back in time tomorrow. The sisterhood is visiting the world’s most respected Past Life Regressionist.”

She can tell I’m confused, so she continues on.

“It’s a form of hypnosis that takes you back to a previous life. It can help to explain traumas or prejudices carried into this life. I wonder who—or what—I once was.”

There’s not an episode of Call Her Daddy that can compete with that. So I tell her it sounds fun and to let me know what the guy says.

“So now catch me up,” my mom segues. “You’re moving back here and opening a shop? That must mean things are going pretty good for you.”

Clearly my mother doesn’t have social media.

“It’s kind of the opposite, actually,” I begin. “And a long story.”

“I have time,” she says—and I barely know how to process that.

Our relationship isn’t perfect, and it’s nothing like any other mother-daughter I know.

It’s riddled with trauma, drama, and some hocus-pocus.

But when she sits across from me in the flesh, and tells me she has time , I know to take her up on it.

Even if it’s time spent telling her about my bad fortune.

“I came across a psychic who said I had met the one, but that essentially he slipped through my fingers, and that I’d have another chance with him.

Turns out, she was a hack and none of that was true.

So I wasted a lot of time and energy with the wrong guy, while simultaneously taking business advice from someone I shouldn’t have ever listened to.

So now I’m here. Not trying to pick up any pieces, but to start fresh completely.

I want to open a metaphysical wine shop in the building that used to be Joe n’ Flow. It’s for lease.”

“That psychic doesn’t sound like a hack to me,” my mom says, taking her side. “Maybe what the psychic was musing on had nothing to do with your love life. Have you ever considered that? You worked at Joe n’ Flow. You loved it. You lost it. But you’re getting it back. You have a second chance.”

This is all so meta, but she has a point. Esther never really mentioned a man...

“Nora gave you my spell book I heard,” my mom interjects before my head has a chance to explode.

“I had asked her to burn it all those years ago. I guess something in her couldn’t do it and I’m actually really grateful she confessed that to me recently.

I loved that thing. And I’m glad it has a home with you now. Do you have any questions?”

Do I have any questions?

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me? About Exexveei. About being special. About the reason you got divorced. About Sedona, your sisterhood, why you never answer the phone. I guess I have a lot of questions.”

My mom anchors her plastic spoon in her softening ice cream and takes a breath. I think she was hoping I’d ask her what her favorite sage is now that palo alto is so hard to come by.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” I backpedal. “I’m just really—”

“Mad?”

“Curious,” I clarify.

Her shoulders relax.

“It’s complicated, Moonie . I knew Exexveei was coming for you, but secretly was hoping it would skip you if we never spoke about it, never practiced it, and if I moved far, far away from you.

Exexveei is magical. But it can ruin things.

Being special is a hard thing to understand in a world that’s not always keen on wanting to understand hard things. ”

“But even if it did skip me, don’t you think I deserved to know just who my own mother is? Who my sisters are? The truth about why my dad left us? Up until recently, I didn’t even know where you really lived. Did you just peg me for one of those people who wouldn’t understand?”

My mind quickly flashes to how things imploded with Ollie.

“I carry a lot of shame,” my mom says. “Something about me is what broke up this family. After that happened, I wanted you to have a shot at normal life. So I did what I thought would make that possible. I created distance. I created an intentional wedge in an effort to protect you. You may have thought I was too busy to pick up my phone, too distracted to come home for the holidays, but that wasn’t the case.

I thought about you and missed you every step of the way. ”

I nod my head. There was nothing in her spell book to guide her as a mother in a situation like this, she was doing the best she could.

“I wish I could have had the confidence you do, Moonie. I would have loved to open a metaphysical shop by the ocean back in the day.”

“So you still think I should lean into this life? Even though it caused you so much shame and Nora and Liv are living happy lives by totally sidelining it?”

“Yes. Go for it. It will be a hit, I can see it now…”

Other parents would suggest making a pros and cons list and a forecasting model in Excel. But as I know firsthand, putting in X doesn’t always get you Y.

We get up to throw out our empty ice cream cups. My mom hands me a crumpled five-dollar bill from her tote bag.

“I don’t need you to pay me back for the ice cream,” I say, pushing her money away.

“This isn’t for the ice cream,” she explains. “I want to be your first sale. Send me an agate crystal when you’re up and running, promise?”

My mind flashes to the crystal book I bought from Angeline way back when this whole thing started.

Agate: a soothing stone that helps in the strengthening of relationships.

“I promise,” I say before pocketing the cash.