On the Divinity of Second Chances (28 page)

“Are you awake?” he whispers.

“Mmm,” I answer.

“I met Peter Lemonjello tonight.”

Now that got my attention. I hope Forrest wasn’t too frightening for him.

“He slipped and told me about Nisa . . . well, not everything.”

This isn’t happening. “And you believed him?” I murmured. “Peter Lemonjello has spent the last thirteen years in self-imposed solitary confinement.” I really don’t want to have this discussion.

“He told me you found him in the middle of nowhere.”

I don’t reply. Rule number one: It’s okay not to tell the truth, but it’s not okay to lie.

“It got me wondering if I even know who you are.”

“You haven’t known me that long . . .” in this life anyway. “How well do you expect to know me at this point?”

“Your brother says you know things,” he says.

“Yeah, big deal. You know things, too. He knows things. Everyone knows things.”

“Jade, why won’t you just be honest with me?”

“I haven’t lied to you. I never lie.”

“That’s not the same as being completely honest.”

“I just lost Aretha, Josh. I don’t want to lose you, too.” What’s the point? I think I already have.

“Why do you think you’ll lose me if you’re completely honest?”

Well, he would have found out eventually and when he did, he would use his free will to opt out of our agreement. It’s out of my hands. I might as well come clean. “Okay. Fire away. Ask me anything.”

“Tell me all about Nisa.”

I break away from Josh and lie on my back. I miss his arms around me already, but I might as well get used to it, starting now. “Nisa was like a sister to me.”

“Nisa was a girl?” See, I’m rocking his world already.

“Yes. We sat on a hill looking down at a village of huts below. We were African and wore lots of beads around our neck and not much else. I don’t know what tribe that is. Nisa told me her father arranged for her to marry a man from the south, which meant she would be moving. She told me she wished one of us was a man so we could marry and never be torn apart like this. I asked her who would be the man, and she volunteered.”

“And why do you think I’m her?”

“You have the same eyes.”

“How do you know that’s not just chance?”

Shit. Do I tell him about Grace? “Look, Josh, I really don’t see why this is so important. It’s today, this lifetime. You always have free will. You can always think this is too much and get out of any agreement you’ve made. You can believe in past lives or not believe in them. It won’t really change the present. This is real, right now, you and me. And the sense of connection we have is real. Does it matter why we have it?”

“Did you really find your brother in the middle of nowhere?”

“Yes, and if you were lost and needed help, I could probably find you, too. And if I needed help investing, you could help me. The stock market is way more complicated and mysterious than finding people.”

“How did you know where to find him?”

I look at him, defeated. I wish so much he would stop asking questions for which he’s really not prepared to hear the honest answer. I’m going to miss him so much. I waited so long for this reunion. “Does it really matter?” I ask.

“I want to know,” he answers.

“There are a couple ways I know things other people often don’t. Other people could. It’s not like this information is only available to me. I don’t know why I seem to be the only person listening. First, I can feel yes and no in my body. Yes feels like strength. No feels like weakness. It’s as simple as that. Like when you’ve eaten lots of brownies, but you love brownies, so you go to eat another, but just holding it makes you feel weak. Your body is telling you no. Or like when you eat something healthy you’ve been craving and it makes you feel stronger. Your body is telling you yes, thank you, it needed that, and yes, that was a good choice.”

“And the second way?”

I wince. Grace appears and sits behind Josh where I can see her. I look at her, and she nods at me. Okay, here it goes. “Ever since I was a little girl, I have been able to see my spirit guide. She tells me things.”

“Spirit guide?”

“Right. All of us who come directly from Heaven into this life, whether we recognize it or not, have a spirit guide. It’s a friend from Heaven who floats between the Heaven dimension and the Earth dimension to advise us, protect us, and help us keep our agreements.”

“What does she look like?”

“A person. Black, cornrows.”

“What kind of things does she tell you?”

“Um . . . she tells me about problems my massage clients have mostly and helps me to help them more. She often tells me if I’m in danger. She tells me to stop burning my food, but hey, who doesn’t? She told me where Forrest was, and she told me I was going to have fun with you. I thought it was going to last longer than this, though.”

“Can you see my spirit guide?”

Oh, God, let this end. I look over at Grace, who has her arm around a short, smiling Japanese man. He waves at me. “He’s a short Japanese man. I just saw him for the first time. He smiled and waved.”

The little Japanese man speaks to me. “When he was little, he stole his brother’s red toy car. He never told a soul he did it. He hid it in the kitchen, in a punchbowl. Tell him I said to give it back the next time he’s home.” He laughs as if this is fun.

Oh, shit. “Okay, your guide says you stole your brother’s red car and that you hid it in the kitchen in a punchbowl and he wants you to give it back the next time you’re home.”

Josh looks like he has seen a ghost. Yep, this is going exactly the way I thought it would. This bites.

“I need to go,” Josh says.

I close my eyes for a second, then look down instead of at him. “I know,” I say, more than disappointed—crushed. I really liked him.

He gets out of bed and lets himself out. I lie on my side and Grace sits next to me as I cry myself back to sleep.

Jade on Massaging Lana Jones and Dreams from Other Lives
(August 4)

I stand on Lana Jones’s doorstep. I know there must be security guys watching me, so I go ahead and ring the bell even though I’d like to just stand here for a minute and try to center myself. I’m not up for this. I’m totally not up for this. I hear pitterpatter footsteps approach from inside, and then her daughter answers the door.

“Hi!” She greets me with a big smile. She’s about ten with great brown curls. She’s followed by a small black dog with short hair and a long nose. She guides me back to a quiet room, where I unzip the bag around my massage table, unfold the table so the legs pop out, and lift it upright. “What’s your name?” she asks me.

“Jade.”

“I’m Elle.”

“Hi, Elle. I like your dog.” Elle is sweet. She has a nice spark. I take extra padding and some sheets out of the pocket of my bag. I unfold the pad and put it on the table.

“Do you have a dog?” she asks.

“My dog just died,” I answer. My eyes start to water, but I hold back my tears.

“I had a dog that died once.”

“It’s hard,” I say.

She nods. “It’s hard.” She studies the pad on my table. “That’s really old.”

“Yep. It’s been with me a long time.” I put on the sheets. The dog begins to bark.

Lana walks in and puts the dog on the massage table. The dog stops barking. “She gets really excited about massage tables,” she explains with a dazzling smile. “I’m sorry I’m running late. I’ll be right with you.”

“No problem,” I say.

“Elle, may I please speak to you in the other room?” Elle follows her out and gets a hushed scolding for not finishing her homework.

Lana returns. “I’m ready,” she says with a deep exhale. She looks me right in the eye. I recognize something about her. I step out to let her get on the table in private and return when she calls me.

“Will you open that cupboard and hit the play button?” When I turn the music on, I hear the beautiful voice of Ayub Ogada. I get a flash of a memory where I’m fishing in a boat with my little sister, rocking with the lapping waves just off the shore. I take a good look at the little sister. She’s dark black, almost purple-black, with hair cut very close to her head, and she has Lana Jones’s eyes. She holds a little black dog in her arms. We sing in harmony at the top of our lungs. Little sister, good to see you again. I want to sing along with Ayub Ogada loudly now to see if Lana will sing with me again and remember me, but I don’t. It would be bad for business. Instead, I just enjoy listening to the beautiful African music in the presence of my beautiful sister, whose dog now sleeps between her ankles. Grace appears and sings along loudly. She notices Lana, recognizes her, and jubilantly begins to shout greetings in Swahili. Grace must have been in that life with us, too. I silently thank my sister, Lana, for reminding me death is not the ending we think it is. Such a beautiful soul she is.

I come home, lie in Aretha’s gravel hole, look at the stars, and fall asleep.

In my arms, I hold the body of a rottweiler I loved in that life. In the distance, I see a castle. I work for the people who live there. This dead dog belonged to them, but I was the one who loved her. I lay her down in a trench I dug and take a few moments to touch her fur for the last time. Tears drop from my eyes into the dirt I shovel onto her. I am a man, and thankful to be alone grieving for a friendship few would understand.

I wake from my dream and recognize the dog in the dream as Aretha.

I’m alone. It seems Josh moved me indoors and decided not to stay. I didn’t even expect him to move me inside.

I miss my dog. I miss my dog so bad. I want her back. I yell it at God: “I want my dog back!” I am so incredibly not pleased with God right now.

I’ve had enough dreams about Aretha, dreams from other lives, to know our friendship is as old as time, and that we’ll always weave in and out of each other’s lives, but I don’t want her back later. I want her back now.

I feel extra sorry for myself tonight because I don’t even have Josh anymore. I have nothing.

Anna on Painting Jade
(August 5)

Jade opens her door. “Hey, Mom,” she says.

“Hey, baby girl,” I say back, and stroke the hair out of her face. She starts crying and rests her head on my shoulder. I put my arms around her and kiss the top of her head. “It’s going to be okay,” I say. She tries to put her arms around me, but my backpack is in the way.

She doesn’t reply.

I’ve never seen her like this, so distraught. I hope getting her out among the trees will help pull her out of this.

“Hey, would you help me with an artistic vision?” I ask.

“I don’t like raisins,” she says.

“I’m moving on from raisins,” I assure her.

“Okay,” she agrees. “I have to work at six tonight.”

“We’ll be back before then,” I tell her. “I’m just going to photograph today. I’ll paint the photos another day.” I motion for her to follow me.

We walk toward the Rails to Trails path and follow it south until we reach a little creek. “Follow me,” I say, and she does. “Watch your step,” I say. I’m always so afraid she’ll get a stick stuck in her foot.

“No worries, Mom,” she says.

We follow the creek uphill until we reach a grove of aspens. When we reach a spot far enough off the path, I take off my pack. “Go ahead and sit for a few minutes.” I reach in and get my spool of wire, needle-nose pliers, and rubber bands. “These trees remind me of you,” I say.

She looks down and her eyes well up again. She nods. “They remind me of me, too,” she says.

I smile. “Because you look like them in autumn with your white skin and copper-gold hair?”

She shakes her head. “Because of their interconnected root system.”

I don’t get it, but smile and nod, and pretend that I do. “I want to do some paintings where I make you look like or blend in with the aspens in the autumn. I know it’s summer now, but I can change the leaf color when I paint.”

“Okay.”

I figure I just better say it. “So I would like to style your hair so that it looks like branches and leaves, and then I’d like to photograph you in the nude.”

She shrugs. “Do what you need to do, Mom.”

“Your hair is going to be pretty big, so do you mind taking off your shirt now?” I clip a few lengths of wire about three feet long.

She takes off her T-shirt and holds it over her front.

I comb out her hair. It takes me back to when she was just a little girl. I comb her hair a little longer than I need to, simply because it is such a sweet moment. Then I take a section of hair and braid it over half of the length of the wire. I leave about six inches of her hair unbraided at the end and slide the wire back so that it extends just a half inch or so beyond where I rubber-band the braid. On the other side of her head, I braid another section of hair over another wire. Each braid will look a little like a branch. When I finish, she has eight branches sticking out from her head. I tease the ends wildly.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Sure,” she says unenthusiastically.

“How about this?” I say, and I walk over in between two nearby trees, stand sideways and twist, reaching up. “I want them to be tasteful.”

She takes off her pants and stands nude in the position I was just in, and with my digital camera, I capture her from a few different angles.

“Now, how about if you just stand there?” She puts her arms down and untwists. “Go ahead and look down a little.” I take a couple pictures from different angles. “Now look up a little.” I take a few more shots.

“What if you did something like this now?” I stand behind a tree and embrace it with one arm going up and one arm going down.

She walks over and does the same. I feel I’m photographing my daughter embracing me. I have a feeling that one will be my favorite.