Only Love, Part 1
Wouldn’t it be fabulous if you could rewrite a heartbreaking event in your life so it would turn out the way you wanted it to happen?
This short story is based on true events described in my murder mystery romance memoir, “Angel Hero, Murder in Hawai’i, A True Story,” but fictionalized to have a happier ending. The episode at the beginning with the clairvoyant palmist actually happened. The episode at the end could have happened if the hero hadn’t…well, I shouldn’t give the ending away. For a tantalizing taste of the book, subscribe on my front page to download the first chapter for free.
I titled this short story “Only Love.” It’s too long for one blog post, so I’ll share it in five consecutive posts.
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Tacked to a peeling front door in Chinatown, a purple-lettered sign announces Aurora, Clairvoyant Palmist. Longing for a little magic, I enter the candle-lit shop. A kind-faced, white-haired woman in a billowing purple muumuu floats to a wooden spool table. I sit across from her, the woodsy scent of sandalwood incense wafting over me.
Clairvoyant, huh? Sure. But she makes a believer out of me the moment she touches my right hand. Her touch zaps me like an electric current, waking up intense grief I didn’t know was hibernating inside me. Stunned, I feel pain tearing through me. My heart throbs painfully and I sob so convulsively I hiccup for air. Oh my god. I’m having a nervous breakdown.
“Ah, I see you’re sensitive, Goldilocks. It’s just past life sorrow, dear.” She runs a purple fingernail lightly across my palm, stares at me with luminescent blue-green eyes. “See the cross connecting your life line and your heart line? That’s a psychic cross.”
I sniffle, nod. “My mother called me her little witch Lizzy.”
She studies my right hand. “Was your father present when you were a child, Liz?”
“When he wasn’t flying B-52s for the Air Force, or working long hours.”
Aurora points to a dimple where my second finger meets my palm. “See this? The lack of a mount tells me you lacked a supportive male role model growing up.”
I start crying again. I just can’t help it. “You got that right. I never knew when Dad would explode in anger. I walked on pins and needles around him, and woke up sweating from nightmares about men chasing me, screaming.”
The woman says softly, “You still carry heartbreak in your aura from longing for, but lacking, a man’s love.” She tells me I carried the heartache into this life from a prior lifetime. “You loved a married man. He asked you to be his mistress, as was the custom of the times.”
She went on about how the thought of unsanctified sex had terrified me. How I escaped by becoming a nun, and made spiritual gains through prayer and meditation. “Hence your psychic ability now. But you hurt yourself withdrawing like that.” Aurora frowns. “Such a retreat is a kind of suicide. God wants you to say yes to life, not hide from it.”
But how do I say yes?
As if she could read my mind, Aurora said, “If you can break out of your shell, and learn to speak up for yourself, you’ll experience an exalted spiritual relationship with a man in this lifetime.”
“Really? You suppose assertiveness training would help?”
She smiles, her blue-green eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight. Then her smile turns into a frown. “But be careful not to fall for angry men like your dad, lest you perpetuate the heartache that has plagued you so long.”