As he settled the bill, I grabbed my purse. My drink had a few sips left so I gulped them down, careful to avoid choking on the pearls at the bottom. As I chewed my last piece, I pulled out the straw, tearing open the plastic sealing the top.
I gripped the table to steady myself as my stomach knotted. My father placed his arm around my shoulders.
The prophecy formed in my mouth, larger than anything I had ever experienced. It crackled with energy. A taste of Himalayan salt, with a dominating bitterness of burnt garlic, assaulted my palate. The pressure pushed against the bones in my head until it felt like someone had rammed a rod through my right temple in an aborted attempt to release the tension. My hands wrapped themselves around my stomach as I held my breath, willing myself to stay silent.
“Brendan will have a heart attack during the fourth inning of the Angels baseball game. He will die in your arms.”
Dad’s glasses fogged over. Cupping his hand over his mouth, he sobbed. The gesture did little to muffle his anguish.
He had known Brendan for over forty-five years. They grew up on the same street, played on the same softball team, went to the same high school and college. Uncle Brendan was Dad’s best man at my parents’ wedding. They went on annual fishing trips. He was more than Dad’s friend: he was family.
Dad lowered his hand and wiped the condensation from his lenses. “He took up running. He finally started to eat right. It was so important to him to change.” His voice cracked. “He became a grandfather this winter.”
Three tears slid into the deepening lines of his pale face.
My heart broke.
I made my father cry.
In the engulfing silence, all that lingered was the sorrow the prediction bore.
“Dad, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I repeated my apology over and over as if my words could mend the wound, could take us back to before the damage—before my father cried.
He enveloped me in a tight embrace and kissed my hair as my tears soaked his shirt, mingling with his own.
When learning to roller-skate, I took a hard fall on the pavement. My father ran to my side and carried me back to the house. He comforted me well after the tears had stopped even though it made him late for an important appointment. He placed me above all else.
A sharp, invisible screwdriver slammed into my right temple. My stomach reeled, convulsing with rising nausea. I slumped against my father as my legs buckled.
Dad held me steady. “Are you all right? Vanessa?”
I winced, keeping my eyes closed. “I think I have a migraine.”
He rubbed my back and waited. When the intense pain subsided to a more tolerable level, I stepped back. A backdrop of nausea, and the persistent throbbing in my head, remained.
“Migraines don’t run in our family. Have you seen a doctor? Has it happened before?” he asked.
“The last one was at Cynthia’s wedding. Before that, when I was out with Uncle Michael and Auntie Faye. I’m probably just tired or overstimulated. It’s not a big deal. I’m more worried about you and Uncle Brendan.”
A shadow crept over my father’s dark eyes as he tightened his jaw. “Death is unavoidable. But knowing when it’s coming can be a blessing because it gives you time to come to terms. I know you think this is your fault, Vanessa, but it’s not. You need to understand that.”
I wished I did.
* * *
* * *
I had never predicted death in such a blatant manner. Death had only ever been implied as the final verse to a tragic poem. This, though, was visceral, as though I, personally, had condemned Brendan to death.
My hands trembled before spreading upward until I shook like I was shivering from the cold. Dad held me until the shaking subsided into minor tremors. He took my car keys and called Ma to pick up his car while he ushered me into my car and drove me home.
As he drove, my dear father continued to console me. “It won’t stop me from trying. I’ll call Brendan to check in on him tonight. Vanessa, this isn’t your fault,” he repeated.
I remained silent. My hands gripped the handles of my purse while my breathing came in shallow waves. I had no control over what I predicted—I was a menace. My fingernails cut into my palms. It wasn’t fair that he had to comfort me. Years of wishing the predictions would end had not amounted to anything.
“When I’m upset, I calm myself by figuring out my next steps,” Dad said softly as he turned onto the Oregon Expressway.
“I’m so miserable, Dad. I don’t want to feel like this for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I’m tired.” I drew a pattern on the passenger window. “Aunt Evelyn is in control. I’m a helpless mess.”
“Those lessons she tried to give you when you were younger never ended well. You want to try again?”
“I need to.” I curled my hands into fists. All my life Aunt Evelyn had tried to help me, and I always fought her.
I couldn’t any longer.
* * *
* * *
My condo was at the edge of Midtown and Charleston Gardens, about an eight-minute commute to work and ten minutes from my parents’ craftsman home in Crescent Park. As Dad pulled into my street, I saw a familiar white Tesla Model S parked before my building. The car’s owner waited at the doorway.
Aunt Evelyn.
Six
Aunt Evelyn and I stood in the kitchen of my 1,200-square-foot condo. For the first time in a while, we weren’t arguing. Instead, a strident silence stretched between us, a still lake teeming with unspoken thoughts.
Dad had stepped outside to call Ma. I muted my phone. I didn’t need any outside distractions. The only person I needed now was with me.
“I saw a death, not some oblique reference to dying: it was one of Dad’s closest friends.” I met my aunt’s steady gaze. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to live like this. It’s too hard. It hurts too much. Please, I need you to help me find some measure of control.”
Aunt Evelyn opened her arms. I stepped into her embrace and buried my face into her perfumed shoulder. Tears trickled onto her cashmere sweater, soaking the light yellow silk blouse underneath.
“When I saw my grandfather’s death, I felt the same.” Aunt Evelyn rubbed my back in small circles. Her peony perfume soothed me as the sobs subsided into silent hiccups. “I was thirteen. We were sitting at the heart surgery clinic together, waiting for his appointment. Ye-ye was recovering from a triple bypass. He was the type that, if he thought no one was watching, would eat all the skin from a crispy, roasted pig. He loved salty and fatty foods. Thankfully, Aunt Charlotte was with us. I couldn’t stop vomiting. The emotions we feel are so intense. Death is the hardest, more so when it concerns those we love.”
“Can you help me, Auntie?”
“I can. But why did you avoid lessons all these years?”
I began lessons with Aunt Evelyn the week following my third birthday and was, at first, a keen student. However, in my last weekly lesson, I had a graphic prediction of a car accident involving my librarian from first grade, Mrs. Chiang: a transport truck T-boning her car, her right arm and leg amputated, the taste of half-cooked beef liver, metallic.
The vision was intense, and I could not comprehend its details except that Mrs. Chiang wasn’t at school the next day, or the following week, or the rest of the school year. Soon, kids in the schoolyard spoke about her with immature callousness and a fascination with the gory details. Only then did I understand the gravity of my words. I vowed never to return to prophecy lessons: they forced me to see visions with a clarity I never wanted. Without my aunt’s guidance, my predictions returned to a preferable vagueness.
“I had a vision I didn’t want to see. It terrified me,” I replied. “But now they’re worse. I need your help.”
She squeezed me tight. “Come with me to Paris.”
“What?”
“You need to be where I am for me to help, and I have to leave for France tomorrow. No one else understands what you’re going through.” She reached for her satchel purse and pulled out her phone. As her fingers danced across the smooth surface, she smiled. “It’s done. I bought you a first-class ticket on the same flight. Being away from everyone and everything is ideal.”
“But what do I tell my parents? The aunties? The family? The firm?” I asked.
“Your father is inviting your mother over. We’ll have dinner and I’ll explain everything.”
I frowned. “Leaving tomorrow is so sudden.”
“You want my help, don’t you?”
“Yes, but . . . you’re asking me to put my life on hold and fly halfway around the world. I can’t just drop all my responsibilities to take prophecy lessons. I’m not one that resists change, but I’m still trying to process the fact that I saw one of Dad’s friends die and I’m expected to go to Paris tomorrow. I don’t think this is the best time.”
“The time is now,” she replied, patting my arm. Returning to her phone, she sent another flurry of messages. “I invited Michael. Between us, we’ll figure out what to tell the family.”
She opened the stainless-steel double doors to the fridge. My fridge was as empty as my cupboards. Auntie Faye and Ma had helped decorate my kitchen to make it appear like it belonged to someone adept at cooking. They had created convincing window dressing. Dinners were spent at my parents’, relatives’, or out at restaurants with cousins. Ma and my aunties were excellent cooks, but I never learned. I was too busy eating.