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Did she? Why yes, yes, she did. It was a lifelong insult to her older sister that Mary had had the audacity to be born on her birthday.
“Twelve-oh-one on September fourth. I know this because my mom tried super hard to push me out before midnight so my sister Diane—also born September fourth but three years earlier—would have her own birthday. But no.” Mary felt her shoulders rising protectively toward her ears, and she put some effort into lowering them down again. “I sucked in my first breath at twelve-oh-one.”
Mrs. V put her pen to paper, and blue ink looped over the white surface.
“Throughout our entire lives, Diane, my older sister, complained that,” Mary changed her voice to mimic Diane’s. “‘Everything that’s mine, Mary wants, and she just reaches out and takes it.’” Too much information and yet, Mary couldn’t seem to stop herself. If she kept talking, she’d push away whatever it was that Mrs. V. wanted from her.
It honestly didn’t feel like this was some kind of trick to pry Mary’s non-existent funds from her hand. But something was going on here, and weirdly, Mary could feel in her bones that this was it. Her life was about to change in a dramatic and drastic way. “Now granted, what Diane thought was hers wasn’t always. The last piece of pizza. The last scoop of ice cream. The opportunity to lick the bowl after Dad made a cake. Yeah, it was usually food-related.” Mary felt the corners of her lips wiggling nervously as she forced a smile. “Other than food, our tastes weren’t very much alike, and I wouldn’t want her things. She liked playing board games and doll babies. I liked books and more books.” Her mind sent her pictures of her younger self under the covers in her childhood bed with a flashlight and a book that gave her more than goosebumps. They required her to keep reading until the heroine got to safety, which could take all night.
Those books pushed Mary to read faster and faster, hoping to get to the end where the hero and heroine were safe in each other’s arms.
That was how Mary had framed life as a child. A series of disasters that, when surmounted, brought the hero and heroine to their reward, a happily ever after.
Just a silly worldview that her own life trajectory had tried very hard to debunk.
Mrs. V. tipped her head, clearly reading Mary’s discomfort.
Mary swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am, I was born a minute after midnight.”
This scene seemed like it could come straight out of one of her beloved novels. Even Mrs. V.’s response was perfect for the pages of a thriller. “One minute after midnight. And to so many lives, that minute means everything.”
What?
“You’re lonely.” Mrs. V. put her pen back on the pad.
Mary felt tears press behind her eyes. “No, I’m here with my best friend, Deidre. We’ve been inseparable for over twenty years.”
“You’re lonely.” She repeated with a heavy emphasis on the lonely.
This felt like a trap, like she was being coerced into an emotion. “No. I’m an introvert. People exhaust me. I’m a nurse like Deidre. I spend twelve hour shifts in the hospital. Lots of people. Good colleagues. We all get along well. And when I had days off that job, I was training for my certification to become a flight nurse. You know, I transport patients in a helicopter either from one hospital to another or a medical emergency to the hospital. Lots of people. Too many people, really.” And as Mary tossed out her words like ineffectual buckets of water on a raging fire, Mrs. V. nodded along.
Mary’s emotions became a pressure in her sinus cavity, reaching toward her ears and down her neck. She took a deep breath and sensed the inside of her chest as hollow and dark.
And lonely.
Mrs. V. laced her fingers as her elbows perched on the armrests. “I’m sorry for your loneliness. We shall see if there is something in your chart.” She leaned forward to pick up her pen and poised it to write. “And the place of your birth?”
“Cranberry Falls, Rhode Island. It’s just outside of Providence.”
After writing that down, Mrs. V. searched a phone app and wrote out a string of numbers and circles to indicate longitude and latitude degrees.
“Uhm, I don’t live there now. I live in Norfolk, Virginia.”
“The place of your birth helps me to calculate your astrological sign and houses.”
“No, I wasn’t born in a house. I was born at St. Catherine’s Hospital in Cranberry Falls.”
“Yes,” Mrs. V. nodded, a smile in her eyes. “There are different influences on human life on Earth. These include the movement of heavenly bodies. We are interested in learning today how you interact with the celestial movement. Let’s discuss Deidre for a moment.”
Was that ethical? HIPAA really didn’t apply here like it did at work. Still, it felt like gossip.
“Why did your friend wish to know the GPS coordinates of the places she is supposed to be on her birthday?” That question sounded rhetorical, so Mary sat still. “There are three things that people usually ask.” Mrs. V. tapped her thumb to her pinky. “Tell me about my career, prosperity, and wealth.” Her thumb moved to the ring finger. “Tell me about how to fill my heart with love.” Then, her thumb came to her middle finger. “Tell me what the heck I’m supposed to be doing with my life.” It was funny to hear Mrs. V. say heck. “I try to help my clients progress in one of these areas by giving them three coordinates for a place where they can shift their life trajectory. It’s up to them which they pick and if they follow through. I have given three destinations to Deidre, for example, and now she has a specific date and her options. She must grapple with and decide which to take or to leave all three unexamined.”
Mary felt odd. Her stomach was churning. Today had been weird.
Mrs. V. continued. “I look at the different influences and find the place on the globe that best facilitates a choice. Your friend will tell you on her birthday that it is far better for her career to be in Fairbanks, Alaska. But that is a choice. I found in her charts that if she goes there, she will lose the opportunity to experience great love. If she goes to the great love, she will have difficulty throughout her life with her money.”
“Love or money. She should pick love. Unless—don’t you give a third choice?”
