What She Inherits

by Diane V. Mulligan

  “I can’t talk to your mother, but I can tell a lot about you. I might see something that can help.”

  Belle was friendlier now, entreating, more eager, Angela suspected, to make a few bucks, than in actually helping. Angela sighed. How could this obvious fraud help? She hadn’t come to see Belle. She’d come to see Lisette. She didn’t know if she believed in any of this or if it was all nonsense, but she had been willing to trust Lisette because the other time she’d come here, her friends trusted Lisette. Now she had nothing but regret for making the drive.

  “Normally I charge $60 for a reading, but let’s call it $25. Cut the deck.”

  Angela wanted answers. That was the problem. She didn’t know if Belle had answers, but wasn’t it worth a few bucks to find out? She forced all her reservations aside, pulled her chair back in, and divided the deck into two piles.

  “Before we begin, I want you to think of a question you want an answer to.”

  Angela closed her eyes and considered this. She had thousands of questions. Which one made sense for a fortune telling? At last she settled on this one: What should I do next with my life? She opened her eyes.

  Belle flipped over three cards from the pile Angela had created and she set them on the table.

  “This card is the Lovers.”

  Angela nearly tsked aloud. She was paying $25 to be given some generic love advice that she could read in Cosmo? She wondered if she flipped over all the cards, would she find they were a dummy deck, full of Lovers to placate the desperate women who came here?

  Reading her expression, Belle said, “Don’t leap to conclusions. The Lovers, as a card, isn’t all about romance. Actually it suggests that you are feeling a deep ambivalence in your life right now. Often The Lovers appear when someone is feeling torn between what their heart is telling them and what their head is telling them, particularly when it comes to work.”

  Angela bit her lip and tried not to look impressed. Ambivalence. Yes, she felt very ambivalent, not exactly about work, but sort of. Should she go back to college? When she called to formally withdraw, the dean had urged her to take the rest of the semester off as family emergency leave, but not to withdraw completely, and unsure what else to do, she had agreed, so she could go back next semester if she chose. If she could figure out how to pay.

  “This card also raises the possibility of a new relationship or reconnection with someone from the past, only this time the bond will be strong, immediate, and long-lasting.”

  Angela rolled her eyes. That was more like it. More generic, silly, psychic nonsense.

  “What, you don’t believe in love?” Belle asked.

  Angela shrugged.

  Belle tapped the second card she had laid on the table. “This is the Ace of Swords. This card tells us it’s time to be courageous and take the risk we’ve been considering. Whatever it is you’ve been feeling ambivalent about, you really do know what you need to do, and now is the time to be brave and do it. In terms of relationships, it suggests that a new relationship is what you need, and if you are already in a relationship, you may be ready to end it. Cut the ties that bind you and move forward. Does that make sense?”

  This was more forceful, directive advice than Angela had been expecting. In fact it seemed dangerously directive. Make the change. Cut ties. Did people really listen to what these cards told them to do? Angela shook her head a little.

  “Well, only you can know what’s right for you, but if you’ve been thinking about making a change, this card is telling you to go for it. Find your inner strength and be bold.”

  Angela nodded.

  “And this third card is The Tower, but see how it’s upside down? That means it’s the The Tower Reversed. This suggests that people you may have relied upon in the past may not be there for you anymore, or at least for the time being, or they can’t support you in the same ways they used to for one reason or another. Now, this isn’t necessarily as bad as it sounds. It means that things in your life are changing, and you may very well be introducing new relationships into your life to fill the voids left by those that are no longer available to you. That said, when The Tower is reversed, you are likely to have a lot of misunderstandings and arguments with loved ones, or loved ones may be very stressed out and not emotionally available to you. Try not to take it personally, and remember everyone has struggles. For relationships to survive these tough times, you have to work on communication and find ways to compromise or the relationship may be lost forever.”

  Belle sat back and tapped another cigarette from the pack. Angela cleared her throat and then, assuming they were done, began to open her purse.

  “The first thing I notice when taking these cards together,” Belle said, “is that you feel like you haven’t been being true to yourself. You’ve been letting other people tell you what you should do and then doing it. What you want and what others think you should want don’t mesh. Am I right?”

  Angela froze and looked up at Belle. So there was more than a recitation of the meaning of the cards. That was a surprise, and Belle’s words rang true, too. She bit her lip and nodded. Belle’s description was spot on to describe her college experience so far. She hadn’t ever wanted to go to a traditional college. She had wanted to go to art school, but she did what her mother thought best. Once she got to St. Katherine’s, the only things she liked were her art classes and Molly and Nicole. Even though she hadn’t come here to think about that, she was interested now.

  “Maybe,” Belle said, “this wouldn’t be a problem for some people—some people don’t need passion to be content, they can watch TV and go on vacation one week a year and that’s enough—but it’s not enough for you. Your loved ones have been trying to help and guide you, but they’re holding you back. You have some ideas in mind to get on the track you want. You need to take the first step.”

  Angela shifted in her seat and studied the three cards, trying not to give anything away, because, despite her doubts, she had to admit how accurate Belle’s assessment was. Her mother had always pushed her down a safe path, and she’d always felt constrained by it. Molly and Nicole, too, were always trying to talk her out of following her passion and pursuing art professionally. She knew they were acting out of love, but she felt smothered by it. She didn’t want to be practical; she wanted to be true to herself.

  “The other thing is that you’re going to get some help with living your truth. There’s a new relationship, or a rekindled one with someone from your past, waiting for you to make the first step forward. I may be wrong, but I do really think it’ll be someone you already know but who you haven’t seen in a very long time—either an old friend or maybe some estranged family member. Be open to this person. Accept them and see what they have to offer.”

  Angela frowned. This sounded more generic, clichéd, empty. She had no estranged family, for one thing.

  “Do you have any questions?” Belle asked.

  “This person, do you know if it’s a man or a woman?”

  “Give me your hand.”

  Angela stretched her arm across the table and Belle took her hand, palm up, in both of her own. She closed her eyes and after a moment spoke before opening them. “You have a lot of people around you who care for you and who wish to help you. They mostly mean well. I can’t say for certain, though, which of the many the card is pointing to.” She opened her eyes and dropped Angela’s hand.

  Angela shook her head. She pushed her chair back and opened her purse, pulling out two bills. Then she stood.

  “So we have these candles,” Belle said, gesturing to a built-in cabinet where a display of candles and crystals sat. “I would recommend—”

  Angela cut her off. “No thanks. I’m good.” She set the money on top of the cards and showed herself to the door without waiting for Belle to rise. That last bit about all the people around her—what total crap. She told Belle her mother just died. Of course there were loads of people offering help at this terrible time, but they were acting o
ut of pity. Most of them hardly knew her. That one bit of the fortune had debunked the entire thing for her. What a complete and total waste of twenty-five bucks and a tank of gas. She was halfway to her car when she heard Belle calling behind her. She turned and saw Belle in the doorway, waving a business card.

  “If you want to contact a medium,” Belle said.

  Angela hesitated. What would be the point of wasting more money on this foolishness? Belle was a phony. How could Angela take a recommendation from her seriously?

  Belle came down off the porch with the card outstretched. Angela took it with a sigh. She glanced at the name—Calliope Savidos, Psychic Medium. Below that it said, “Your loved ones are waiting to speak to you.” Angela looked back up at Belle, muttered an insincere thanks, and shoved the card in her pocket.

  “Sorry if I gave you upsetting information,” Belle said.

  “No,” Angela said, “nothing upsetting. Not much that rings true in my life.”

  Belle pursed her lips and shook her head. “You know, when you’re grieving the truth can be hard to hear.”

  Angela didn’t answer because she knew that if she did, she’d say something rude. How dare this complete stranger suggest her grief was making her irrational? Hell, Belle didn’t even know she was grieving until Angela had told her. Some brilliant psychic she was. Angela stalked back to her car and pulled out of the driveway with needless haste, gritting her teeth in frustration. The truth. What did that fraud know about the truth?

  Chapter 10

  Devil’s Back Island, Maine

  When Rosetta had first suggested the idea of opening a café, Casey immediately refused. She didn’t know the first thing about running a café, she was no baker, she wasn’t fit to be anybody’s boss—she could think of dozens of reasons. But there was only one real reason: She didn’t want to do something so public.

  At the inn, she helped out with housekeeping and busied herself baking little batches of this and that for breakfast and tea time, and she had no interaction with guests at all. That was just as she liked it. She didn’t see them, they didn’t see her. Her role was entirely behind-the-scenes. If she could be the baker and stay hidden in the kitchen, she could probably be very happy at a café, but that wasn’t at all what Rosetta envisioned. She wanted Casey to be the face of the café, the way Rosetta was the face of the inn.

  Rosetta, in that way of hers, figured out what Casey’s hang-up was and refused to let her hide behind it.

  “In over two years here, how many people have you run into from home?” Rosetta had asked.

  “I might have cleaned the rooms of a dozen for all I know,” Casey had replied.

  “It’s not as if your mother will ever set foot on this island again,” Rosetta had said.

  Casey knew as well as Rosetta did that when her mother made up her mind, however irrational, she didn’t waver. She hadn’t gone so far as to cut off all ties with Rosetta—she had contacted her every few years to bring news such as Ed’s death—but she had not visited Devil’s Back since 1991.

  Casey had spent that summer with Rosetta, as she had done every year since she was 11, shortly after Maureen had married Ed. Before her mother remarried, Casey had only been to Devil’s Back twice, during her mother’s stints in the hospital. But Casey and Ed didn’t get along. Right from the start, there were problems. Casey didn’t trust Ed. Her intuition made him suspect, and, as she would later understand, that intuition was right. Her youthful lack of social graces led her to blurt out her opinions at inopportune times, a habit that put Ed in more than a few awkward circumstances, both because it did not look good for his stepdaughter to call him stingy, stinky, crabby and worse at places like church and crowded restaurants, and because he firmly believed children should be seen and not heard, if they even had to be seen.

  Never in her life had she been grounded before they moved in with Ed. She didn’t even know what it meant to be grounded. But she learned, and quickly. She was constantly being sent to her room, often without dinner, and God help her if she set foot outside her room again before she was officially released, which was usually breakfast the next day, although a few times Ed “forgot” about her in there and did not let her out even at breakfast time. On several occasions she actually missed school on account of being grounded, because, as Ed was fond of saying, “Grounded is grounded.” After the second time she was left in there from afternoon one day until dinner the next, she had started to hide food in her dresser drawers, and after that, it wasn’t so bad. She had her own en suite bathroom—Ed’s house was new and modern, and every bedroom had the luxury of its own bathroom—and as long as she had a few snacks, a few books, her cassette player and headphones, she didn’t mind the solitude.

  When Ed realized Casey had come to enjoy being confined to her room, he moved on to other forms of punishment. His favorite was giving her big cleaning projects and then making her redo them over and over until they met his absurd standards. She still recalled the way her arms and shoulders ached and her eyes stung after the weekend she spent cleaning the grout lines in the master bathroom shower. The walls and ceiling were tiled, and though the house was only a few years old, already the white grout was stained and showing spots of mildew. Whatever virtues Maureen had that made her an attractive wife to Ed—Casey suspected it was primarily her relative youth (she was seven or eight years younger than he) and good looks (and everyone agreed, Maureen was stunning)—housekeeping wasn’t one of them. Casey scrubbed and scrubbed, all the while wondering if her mother had ever so much as sprayed a cleaner on the walls. She doubted it. When she had scoured every blessed line of grout, Ed had inspected her work, found it lacking, and left her to scrub some more. It took three tries before Ed finally sighed, accepted imperfection, and told her to go to her room for the rest of the day.

  In their second summer living with Ed, Maureen, in a rare moment when her meds were well balanced and she was feeling good, came up with the idea to send little Casey, who didn’t mean to be a bad girl but who gave Ed so much grief, to Rosetta for the summer. They all needed a break.

  The five summers Casey spent with Rosetta were her true childhood. She was free to roam the island, scrabbling over the cliff rock and splashing in the water that was still too cold for any real swimming when it was time to go home in August. She played with the other kids who summered there, rode bikes with them on the gravel paths, held stone-skipping contests in the cove, sat around campfires in the evening watching the fireflies and sharing scary stories. Those were, without a doubt, the happiest days of her life.

  But it all ended when she was fifteen, which was when things started to go really wrong with Ed. Maureen had showed up at the end of August to bring Casey home, staying for a couple of nights as she always did. The day they were to leave, Rosetta took Maureen aside, words were exchanged, undoubtedly concerning Casey, and when Maureen left the inn, her face was red with anger. She walked so fast to the pier that Casey had to run to keep up, and once they were on the ferry, halfway to Portland, Maureen told Casey that they would never set foot on the island again. She’d been half right, Maureen never did return, and if it weren’t for Rosetta’s stubborn insistence, Casey wouldn’t have either.

  Which was why, in the end, Casey relented and went along with Rosetta’s scheme to turn the cottage into a café. Rosetta had always seemed to know what was best for her in the past, so maybe she was right in this, too.

  For the first couple of years, Casey was constantly afraid she’d look up to take a customer’s order and see someone she went to high school with, someone who would go home and tell everybody they wouldn’t believe who they’d seen on their summer vacation, and then word would spread on the Internet, and then… But it never happened. Rosetta was right. Devil’s Back was a small, out-of-the-way place, and the odds of any of her old acquaintances stumbling upon it were slim.

  And anyway, would anyone from high school even recognize her? Back then she was a scrawny little thing, all elbows and
knees but with a soft baby face and chin-length, light-brown hair. She had long since grown out her hair—the short bob had been her mother’s idea, simple, low maintenance, flattering to her tiny frame—and for years she’d been dying it red, not ginger red or strawberry blond, not brown with rich auburn tones, but bright cherry red, nothing natural about it. The day she did it, in the filthy bathroom of the apartment of the tattoo artist, she had looked in the mirror and for the first time in a long time felt like she was finding herself. She subsequently lost herself, and only when she returned to Devil’s Back did she begin to locate herself again, but the hair color, for whatever reason, was key. And of course there was also the tattoo, the big, beautiful, tough tattoo. Who of those who knew her when she was a teenager ever would have predicted she’d someday have a tattoo like that one? Nobody, which was at least half the reason she got it. And then there were the natural changes of aging—her face was more angular, her figure softer.

  For all she knew, some of the visitors to the café were from her old hometown in Massachusetts, people who had gone to church or school with her, but neither party had recognized the other. She wasn’t worried anymore, not most days anyway, that someone would walk through the door of the café and disturb her quiet life here.

  When a hipster couple entered the café on that quiet morning in mid-September, Casey hardly gave them a glance. Kim, who worked at the counter part-time as cashier and barista, served them while Casey rotated the items in the pastry case, pulling out day-olds to bag up and sell at a discount, subbing in the freshly baked ones. As she worked, she could feel the woman’s eyes on her, but this was not unusual either. Her tattoo drew stares, it always did. But as Casey was taking the tray back into the kitchen to wrap up the day-olds, the woman said, “Do I know you?”

  Casey stopped to look at her. She was plump, with long, glossy blond hair artfully fanned around her shoulders in gentle waves, and long side-swept bangs falling over the dark plastic frames of her glasses. She wore a dark plaid button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, a big gray scarf around her neck despite the fact that the day was not cold, dark skinny jeans with a narrow roll at the cuff, and topsiders. Hipster á la J. Crew, manufactured cool. Casey shook her head.