“I love you like a soulmate,” Becky said.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Britt said. It was the most they’d talked about Britt’s mother’s death since that day.
Britt wasn’t sure Becky would know what she was talking about, but without missing a beat, Becky said, “I know you are.”
Britt clung tighter to Becky, felt the tears slide down the side of her cheek before landing on Becky’s shoulder.
“It was an accident,” Becky said. “You didn’t mean for it to happen like that.”
Britt had been over the event so many times in her mind. It was true that she’d had no conscious intention of hurting her mother, but had her subconscious been in charge? She thought back to that drive with her mother to the motel:I wish you were dead.
“Did you tell your mom?” Britt asked.
“I tell her everything,” Becky said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I figured you had.”
“It doesn’t change how she feels about you. You know that, right? We both love you.”
Britt started to cry more. Becky turned over so they were both facing each other, their knees pulled up toward their chests, bumping against each other.
“I don’t know where I’d be without you and your mom,” Britt said.
It was true, she really didn’t know. In all likelihood, she would have bounced around the foster care system, escaping reality via more pills until she was a full-fledged addict, just like her mother.
“We don’t know where we’d be without you either,” Becky said.
Britt had never considered that her existence was beneficial to someone else’s. She rested her forehead against Becky’s forehead until they fell asleep in that position.
Rainbow began holding more and more gatherings at her apartment—not just name ceremonies, but also meetings of like-minded seekers, as she called them, looking to further their spiritual growth outside the confines of conventional religion. Every Friday evening, people came—a handful at first, then twenty, then thirty. Eventually, they moved the meetings to a nearby park because the apartment was too small to accommodate so many people.
Rainbow performed short sermons and then welcomed people from the congregation to speak their thoughts on what she’d shared. The sermons were about love—how to cultivate it within oneself and then extend it to others. She spoke of how humans were designed to come together and help each other evolve. “We are all walking each other home,” she liked to say.
Britt was enthralled. She took notes in a spiral-bound notebook during every sermon, though Rainbow said that wasn’t necessary. “I canjust give you my own notebooks. I write down all my sermons before I share them,” she’d said. Britt liked the act of note-taking, though. It helped cement the learnings in her brain.
On a rainy Friday evening, the biggest crowd ever was gathered to hear Rainbow, undeterred by the weather. She did a sermon about how world peace starts with our individual actions, specifically having compassion for ourselves and those in our lives. “We are all threads in a beautiful tapestry. The more we ensure we are not frayed internally, the more we can strengthen our bond with our adjoining threads. In this way, humanity is a work of art.”
“Your mom is magnetic,” Britt said.
“She is,” Becky agreed.
They watched as Rainbow finished and people formed a line to come forward and share their own thoughts on the topic. Most of the sharing was praise for Rainbow, gratitude for her wisdom. Britt was in awe, overcome by not only love for her surrogate mother, but also a desire to be something like her one day.
Britt stayed with Rainbow and Becky through high school. Both girls graduated with their diplomas. Britt knew she never would have been able to do it without the support of Rainbow and Becky. She would have been a dropout, like her mother had been. When the girls turned eighteen, Rainbow said it was time for their name ceremonies.
They decided it would be intimate, just the three of them. Rainbow wanted it to be special, not a show for the whole congregation, which had grown to more than a hundred regulars at that point.
It was a Saturday evening, a thunderstorm outside, which seemed to add to the feeling of this being a special occasion. They sat in a circle in Rainbow’s living room, as they had for the name ceremonies Britt had witnessed in the early years, before Rainbow started holding them at the park.
“Okay, my loves, let’s hold hands and take a big inhale,” Rainbow said.
They closed their eyes, held hands, and took deep breaths in. They pressed their lips together and hummed. Rainbow said the vibration of the humming awakened something within.
“Thank you, Spirit, for joining us here today,” Rainbow said.
Britt could feel it—the attendance of Spirit. There was an electricity in the air around them.
“Dear Becky, what is the name that Spirit is giving you?” Rainbow asked.
