“Sure, honey.” I reach for my purse. I always carry a little plastic shaker of sprinkles in the back pocket of my purse nestled next to the wet wipes and an airsickness bag I swiped from a flight years ago, just in case of sudden vomit. As a mom, you can never be too prepared for…well, everything, really. The sprinkles are a big part of my mom kit, an essential I always have with me. We are BIG fans of sprinkles.
It’s something Gus and I started when my dad was in the hospital during his long, slow, last decline. I’d take Gus every few days to visit Dad, and we’d stop and get frozen yogurt before going to the hospital, a way to gird ourselves for the hard task of watching Dad slowly slip away from us. Gus would always ask for sprinkles on his vanilla swirl yogurt. Somehow—I don’t even remember who started it—we began calling them courage sprinkles, pretending that they gave us special powers to do hard things. It was a silly little tradition, but it helped us both. It made the hard stuff a little easier. Bolstered by the courage sprinkles, Gus would walk bravely into the hospital to see his favorite person on earth, my dad, as he grew ever more frail and wasted. Now we use courage sprinkles for all sorts of potentially scary things—first day of school, standardized testing days, jujitsucompetitions, trips to the dentist—you name it, we put sprinkles on it so we can have courage to face the hard things in life.
“Are you feeling like you need some courage sprinkles, buddy?” I whisper to Gus. He peers at me through his round blue glasses, then nods.
“What’s bothering you?” I ask.
“The vastness of the universe is a little scary,” he says solemnly.
Can’t argue with that. I fish the container of sprinkles out of my purse and shake some over his waffles, which are already smeared with cloudberry jam.
“There.” I press a kiss on the top of his head. “Now you can face the vastness of the universe.”
He tucks into his extra-sugary waffles happily.
We eat our meal leisurely. A few more customers trickle in, and the golden light sinks lower on the horizon. Finally I push away my plate of meatballs, unable to eat more. I’m too nervous. It’s almost time for dessert. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for with half dread, half hope all year. I was so disappointed last year, and the year before that. But maybe this year it will finally happen for me.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Mom reaches across the table and squeezes my hand as though sensing my conflicted feelings. Dot and Dani are engrossed in exchanging small-town gossip, and Gus is listening in on their conversation and embellishing his black hole picture with fireball comets streaking across the paper.
I just shake my head, not even sure what to say. “I’m afraid to hope,” I admit finally.
“Don’t worry, Emmie,” Mom says softly. “It will happen when it’s supposed to happen. Just because the women in our family usually get their visions before the age of thirty doesn’t mean that all of us will. My aunt Eileen didn’t get hers until she was almostfifty. You’ve got plenty of time. You can’t rush your peek at destiny, no matter how much you may want to. And you know the rules. It always happens. And it’s always right. Just you wait and see.”
I nod reluctantly. “It’s getting harder to wait each year. I just want it so much.”
I know Mom is right, but it’s tough to be disappointed year after year as I wait for my one chance to finally catch a glimpse of my purpose in life. It’s a special gift given to every woman in our family. We each get the chance, just once in our lives, to see a vision of the future that shows us our true destiny.
I’ve grown up listening to the stories of past visions. At nineteen, my great-grandmother Signe, who was the first one of us to see a vision, glimpsed herself surrounded by children in an apple orchard. She later met and married her husband Joseph, who had inherited his family’s apple orchard. They welcomed five strong sons and adopted the orphaned children of a neighboring farmer, ending up with nine children in all. And they tended the apple orchards of Joseph’s family until they both passed away within a week of each other at the age of ninety-three.
Signe told my mother that she never doubted her purpose in life after seeing her vision. She knew why she was on this earth, and she never wavered from that single-minded goal. At twenty-two, Mom saw a vision of herself and Dad opening their fudge shop on the main street in Poulsbo. When he proposed to her, she said yes, with the caveat that they stay in Poulsbo and open the shop, just like she saw in her vision. It’s been the same with all the women in our family. Each one of us waits to see the vision and then spends her life bringing it to fruition. It’s our destiny.
The visions are a gift, much anticipated by each of us. But I’m still waiting for mine. Year after year I blow out the specialNorwegian birthday candle that Signe handcrafted long ago, make a wish to see my true purpose in life, and see…absolutely nothing. After so many years, I’m so tired of being patient, of waiting every birthday, hoping and praying that this will be the year. I want to finally see where my life is headed, to have all the disconnected pieces at last make sense.
I long to see my true path, to see my purpose, to not just feel stuck in the day-to-day toil of keeping a business going, caring for a parent in failing health, trying to be a good mommy to a small, worry-prone human. More than anything, I want to know that there is some overarching, grand unifying purpose for my life, to finally see why I’m here and to know in what direction I should go. It’s the only thing I want every year for my birthday.
“Please let this be the year,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut and saying a little prayer for it to come true.
Chapter 4
“Here’s your cake, Emmie.” I open my eyes to see Freya sliding my special-order birthday cake in front of me. It’s a prinsesstårta, a gorgeous layered cake covered in a smooth pale pink dome of marzipan and decorated with little rosettes. The Longboat has been offering these cakes made by a local baker for years, and Mom has ordered this cake for my birthday every year since I was a child. Freya hands around the plates, then slices the cake, revealing the layers of soft sponge, raspberry jam, and pastry cream mixed with whipped cream beneath the marzipan topping.
“Ooh, it always looks so elegant,” Mom sighs happily.
“Maybe this will be your lucky year, Emmie,” Dot says, giving me a hopeful wink. Dot and Dani know about the visions. Not many outside our family do. We tend to keep the birthday visions a secret, but Dot is Mom’s best friend and Dani is mine, so they’re in the circle of trust but sworn to secrecy.
“I hope so.” I glance down at my generously portioned slice of cake. I’ve been disappointed too many times but still I’m hopeful.
“Baby girl, we’ll cheer you on if it works this year and cheer you up if it doesn’t,” Dot tells me, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand. I squeeze back, grateful for the solidarity.
“Here’s the candle.” Mom takes a small wooden box from her purse, opens it, and carefully unwraps the length of muslin that enshrouds what is inside. She sets the object on the table and we gaze at it for a moment. A beeswax candle about five inches tall and two inches wide, it is decorated on every side with beautiful gold swirls and starbursts. I reach out and carefully run my fingers lightly over the pretty patterns embossed on the deep golden surface.
This candle has been used for generations. Signe brought it with her all the way to Poulsbo when she emigrated from Norway. And ever since, each woman in our family has used the candle on their birthday until they are given their vision; then they pack it away and pass it along to the next woman in line. It is more than a century old, but only an inch or so has been burned. We only light it for a few seconds each year.
Mom gently presses the candle into the smooth pale pink marzipan rind on my slice of prinsesstårta. The kind of birthday dessert you choose doesn’t seem to matter. My great-aunt Tilda is diabetic and she chose a big slice of triple cream Brie as her birthday treat the year she saw her vision. It’s the candle that holds the magic, not the food.
“Ready?” Mom asks. She shoots me a sympathetic look. I take a deep breath and nod. It’s time. Freya appears with a box of matches with the Longboat logo on the cover. She lights the candle and steps back. Everyone at the table sings a slightly off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” to me, a few of the other patronsjoining in. I shiver a little, eyeing the candle flame, heart beating fast.Please please please let this be the year, I murmur silently. I shut my eyes and make the same wish I do every year.
Please let me see my purpose in life. Please show me what is true and real and good.
