Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (9 page)

Okay, so: Am I more interesting with this secret? The cards in my hands are entirely mine—Kayla doesn’t know about them, my brother doesn’t trust them, and the rest of my family would believe it’s a sin for me to sit here on my pink carpeting with these bits of plasticized paper running through my fingers. I spread them out on the floor, pushing them in circles. I remember my earlier glimmer of an idea—the tarot reading column in the newspaper. I sit up straight, my fingers tingling. I actually want this. Like, I want this, for
me
.

I wonder if the church would care, if they would protest a tarot column like they’re protesting the Winter Carnival, like they protested the Gay-Straight Alliance or when Ms. Ross wanted to teach an elective class about Gothic literature. Would it get the newspaper in trouble if they did? Would they find out it’s me?

Okay, so maybe I could make it a step or two removed from the school. Like, a secret message in the newspaper that would lead people to me. Lead them to me, but anonymously. What about the stupid side column ads I spent my whole lunch period perfecting? There are spaces left over where Annika instructed me to stick in snowflake clip art and hearts for Valentine’s Day, stuff like that. I could put something into one of those squares, some way for people to get their questions to me. I could make an email address, maybe, and then they could send their questions, and I could write up a weekly column in the paper based on certain questions. Except … that’s still leaving the newspaper open to criticism from the church for using the occult. Plus, at the newspaper, there would have to be at least one person who knew who I was, and assuming that at least one of those people would be Annika or Britney, it wouldn’t stay a secret for long, even if I used a fake name. I let my fingers trace the path of the long river of blue starry-backed cards as I think.

My brain runs through possibilities of tarot reader names as I gather the cards into piles on the pink carpet.
Esmeralda. Zenubia. Clairvoyant Clarissa.
Okay, so the names need some work, clearly. Oh,
shit
. I was supposed to be channeling Eric!

I close my eyes again, centering myself on his plight rather than my advice column idea, and then I pull the cards together, slowly stacking them in my hands, mixing them up more and more until it feels like enough. I hear a footstep in the hall and freeze, my pulse quickening and my nerves on edge. I listen intently, but it’s only Dicey passing by on her way to the bathroom. No big deal, but I wait, my hand holding the deck inside the garbage can, until I hear the flush and the footsteps retreating back into her bedroom at the end of the hall. I wonder if she saw the light shining underneath my door.

Pressing my ear against the door one more time, I make sure the hall is empty, then I quietly unfold the reading map that came in the guidebook and follow the diagram for a ten-card spread. The first card I turn over, what my book calls the querent’s “present position,” is called the Queen of Wands. I study the card: a woman in a yellow gown with a wand and a sunflower scepter. At her feet is a lovely black cat. The card is pretty, but I have no idea what it could mean in relation to Eric’s present position.

The card crossing her is all full of wreaths and a guy riding a horse. Looks happy, sort of. Maybe that’s Gavin? Or Eric himself? I flip the next card, the one that will go at the top of the reading and represent the “goal or destiny.”

Whoa. In some ways, there couldn’t be a happier, more perfect card—a beautiful couple and their dancing children. A rainbow of wealth above them. A home and land ahead of them. Does this destiny include Gavin? I mean, I know plenty of gay men have children, but what if this card means the opposite—that Eric will change or deny himself, like the church would want him to do, and marry a woman and have two kids and this thing that looks like a perfect life? What if it
is
a perfect life? And yet, what if it’s not, and in this future my brother is living a lie, not truly himself?

My stomach twists. There’s no way for me to know what these cards mean, which interpretation is truth. There has to be truth here, somewhere, or at least some kind of guidance, some kind of insight.

I love my brother for who he is. I see how happy he is with Gavin. Heartache sweet. Still, I can’t help but want life to be easier for my brother. I can’t bear the thought of him being a target for every small-minded person on earth. And then there’s the way his faith tears him apart, the way he wrestles daily with his belief and his identity. My stomach sinks. What if this card means that Eric changes for the church?

I flip the next few cards quickly. King of Cups, Two of Wands, and in the “future influence” spot a really interesting-looking card called Temperance. An angelic, robed figure pours water between two cups. There’s this enormous set of blood-red wings and a large triangle on the figure’s chest and a glowing circle in the center of its forehead. There’s something paradoxical about the card, something about the way the water seems to float between the cups, the angelic halo of white around its head contrasting with the dark red of the wings. Creepy but also sort of reassuring, like.

The next four cards are supposed to stay face down until I finish reading the first six, so I slap them down on the carpet and look up the meanings of the first six cards in my little book, but it’s frustrating. These lists of words could mean everything. It’s like I’m missing a key to understanding, some code-breaker that will make the whole alphabet shift over and match up just right.
Victory. Conquest. Hopes Accomplished.

Hopeful words. But hopeful for what?

I pick up the Queen of Wands, Eric’s present position. The black cat is so dark in the otherwise yellow-dominated artwork, an inky familiar to this powerful woman. Sunflowers grow all around, even on the queen’s crown. Who is she, and what part does she play in my brother’s life?
A loving companion. Pure
. I study her face—it’s powerful and chiseled, a face of strength. When I hold my hand over the bottom half, over the word “queen,” the face is genderless.
A kind and caring friend
.

Oh. This card
is
Eric, and the boy with the wands on the horse who is crossing him has got to be Gavin.
Victory.

I listen carefully before going back to my guidebook, but the hall behind the door is quiet. In the corner, Nutmeg and Pumpkin peep softly. I want to figure out this reading before Eric gets home tonight. I look up the meaning of the Ten of Cups—the happy perfect family under a rainbow of golden goblets. There’s so much peace and love in the meanings, the card may as well be wearing tie-dye. So who is that happy family of Eric’s destiny?

Family is difficult. I don’t mean, like, the kind of difficulty you struggle through and then feel a sense of achievement when you surmount it. I mean the kind of difficult that goes on and on. But that feeling, like you’re all working hard together to make everything work, it’s sort of like happiness. Right? And love. And home.

Next comes the King of Cups—the book says the card represents a person in Eric’s life who is educated, religious, and wise. The king in the picture has a kind of stern look, or maybe he’s just world-weary. His hair is cut close to his head, and gray. His throne seems to be on a small stone square in the middle of a sea, and he has a heavy gold fish necklace. Could it be Pastor Fordham? Eric isn’t all that close to him—not like he was with Pastor Jake Marshall, who was sort of a role model for him. And since the card is in the distant past position in the spread, I wonder if it could possibly have something to do with Pastor Jake.

A few years back, Eric went through a period of time where he thought he had a calling, like to be a minister. Despite my own lack of faith, I can envision that calling being important to him, but Eric hasn’t mentioned the idea for a long time. Maybe not since that awful fire in the church that took the life of Pastor Jake’s wife. Pastor Jake and his daughter never came back to the church; it was like they vanished into their grief. Eric grieved, too, at the loss of his mentor.

I flip through the pages, checking out the Two of Wands and then reading about Temperance, a card that very clearly seems to support my feeling that Eric should wait patiently until the right time to act. Yeah. This is exactly what I needed to see.

I’m thinking about how I’m going to tell Eric about this when a sharp rap on the door at my back makes me jump and lunge toward the cards. I try to scoop them up in silence. “Just a sec!” I call, hoping my voice doesn’t betray my panic.

What about the last four cards? Their starry sides taunt me, cloaking the answer in mystery. It’s probably Eric at the door anyway. I drop the rest of the cards into the garbage can and pick up the last row carefully, keeping them in order. I have no pockets, nowhere to put the cards in my hand. I shove my hand into my pajama bottoms, tucking the cards into the waistband of my underwear at my hip and pressing my arm against them to hold them there.

“Eric?” I open the door, but the face that looks down at me is not his. My father stands framed in the doorway instead, his brows gathered in the middle of his forehead.

“He’s not in here?”

“What?”

“Eric. He’s not with you?”

Something screwy happens to my heart, like a twitch or a spasm, and my hand presses into my hip, hard. “I … I haven’t seen him since after dinner, when he and Gavin left for the library.” The library closes at eight, but Gavin and Eric often go up to the top of the iron mine dumps, to Plath’s Lookout. The overview is technically closed; they don’t plow the road up, but Gavin drives up to the gate and parks, and the two of them either hang out there in the car or hike up to the top if it’s not too cold.

“I’m worried about him.” Dad looks so perplexed, so uncertain. I’ve never seen him like this. Worried about Eric? That seems so impractical, for my dad.

“It’s not even curfew.” I squint at my alarm clock. “It’s barely eleven.” Eric’s usually home by now, but that doesn’t mean anything.

“My heart is uneasy,” he says. “My prayers. I keep … ” He shakes his head as though he’s embarrassed. “It’s probably nothing, you’re right.”

“What is it?” Eric’s okay. We’re close. If he weren’t okay, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I? I think about the tarot, about how happy everything was in the reading. What if the last four cards were totally different? What if they got into a car accident on that awful hill? Kids have been killed on the lookout, though not since they put the guard rail up when that whole carful of teenagers slid over the edge a few years ago. “Dad?”

“It’s just that … ” He shakes his head. “All right. I thought I’d check with you. I’m sure he’ll be home by curfew like always.”

He closes my door behind him without saying good night and I lean against it, my hand on the cards at my hip. My heart races. I spread the cards out, a compact fan in my hand, and my first look at the pictures gives no hint of tragedy. I slide the rest of the cards back into the box and hide it before taking out the guidebook to check the meanings of this final run. My fingers are cold and tentative. Where is my brother right now?

The first card is the questioner, or his current perspective. The Knight of Swords.
A courageous and heroic youth
. Sounds fine. I skim the meanings for the next three cards, all of which refer to love and support and strength—good companions, wealth, business, and respect. How could anything be wrong?

The numbers on my clock glow red. No Eric.

I return the deck to its hiding place and tiptoe out into the living room, where my dad sits in his armchair in the dark.

“Dad?”

“I can’t pray,” he says.

“What do you mean?” He’s always praying. “Just say, ‘Hey, God, what’s up? Where the heck is my son?’”

“Cassandra.”

“I didn’t say ‘hell.’”

He looks at me, his eyes narrowed, but he doesn’t push the matter. Which is when I know something is seriously wrong.

“Dad, what do you mean, you can’t pray?”

He folds his hands and bows his head. “Lord, I honor you and I ask y-y-y … ” He takes in a quick breath and lets it out, squaring his shoulders. “I ask your b-b-b-b … bl-bl … ” He shakes his head. “I can’t. It’s like when he was a little boy.” My dad’s eyes are bright in the dark living room, reflecting like distant stars off the spill of light from the tiny bulb above the kitchen stove. I’ve never seen my dad cry, not even when the baby died. Crying, in his view, doesn’t accomplish anything.

“Dad, nothing happened to Eric. Have you tried his cell?”

I can hear him swallow, as if he has to push the words past the lump in his throat. “No answer. No ring, actually. I called Gavin’s phone too, and Gavin’s mom. She doesn’t know where he is either.” His shoulders heave up and down, and his hands come unfolded and hang off the arms of the chair, uselessly. “It’s so inexplicable, Cass. I have absolutely no idea why I’m feeling like this, why I’m worrying about him, why I’m stuttering every time I try to ask Jesus to look out for him. Stuttering like he did when he was a little boy. Do you remember it, Cass? Do you remember the way he would get so angry?”

I nod. Of course I remember.

“You’ve got to tell me where you think he could be.”

Is it terrible of me to feel—for an instant—a tiny happiness? Not about Eric, but about the fact that my dad is talking
—talking to me, like this? I don’t want him to be miserable, and obviously I care about my brother, but this is the first real conversation my dad and I have had in forever.