Averting her deafening gaze, I caved. “I won’t condemn him to live here, with me.” It was a truth I’d never admitted aloud before.
“Oh, sweetheart. You need to trust that you’re just as worthy as Eithan, regardless of your family’s misguided beliefs. A child being cursed, how ridiculous,” she tsked as she stirred honey into her tea.
“Ha, tell that to all the eligible bachelors out here.”
“Don’t deflect, Nyleeria. Eithan and I both love you, and that’s all the proof you need.”
“Stars. He said the same thing to me yesterday. Even made me promise I’d leave if an opportunity presented itself.”
“Good. About time someone talked some sense into you.”
I chuckled, shaking my head in amusement.
“What else did you get up to yesterday?” she asked, taking a bite of the bread slathered in strawberries.
Grateful for the subject change, I filled her in.
After breakfast, we ventured outside through the patio doors off the kitchen. The intricate black-slate mosaic tiles were pleasantly warm against the soles of my feet as I ambled across the patio’s expanse to a small table.
Tucking myself into a chair, I took a moment to drink in the mountainous vista to the east. Spring’s melodious sounds of birdsongs and rustling new growth in the wind enveloped me as I settled in and sank into the recesses of my mind. I picked up a stack of playing cards on the table and absent-mindedly started to shuffle, the hypnotic sound of the cards pulling me deeper into my thoughts.
Disentwining myself from the labyrinth of contemplations, Inoted that the cards were now sitting idly on the table, and my chin was resting on my knees—apparently, I’d stopped shuffling and had pulled my legs in toward my chest.
From the chair beside me, Mrs. E’s soft voice broke the silence. “Where did you just go, sweetheart?”
She’d always had an innate ability to hold space for me when I waded through a different realm.
“Everywhere,” I said, still staring off into the distance.
She sipped her tea and waited.
“Why wasn’t I good enough to be taken in, to be raised with Cassy and Leighton?” I asked. “What kind of person do you have to be to hold a child, aninfant, and declare them cursed?” She continued to sit there quietly, giving me space. “Why is it that, no matter what I do, I’m never good enough?”
Countless more thoughts raced through my mind, but I didn’t want to say them aloud for fear their truth would be too heavy to bear. Eventually, they won out.
“I don’t know how to live without Eithan. I’m afraid I’m going to be alone forever—maybethat’smy curse.” There, I’d said it. The thoughts that had consumed my waking life. The ones I would never burden Eithan with.
Mrs. E leaned back in her chair and gazed out toward the distant forest. The words I shared became heavier with each second that passed in silence. She looked at me intently then, and I had to stop myself from turning away or shrinking back, afraid she might see the sorrow and all the broken bits that made me who I was.
Tilting her head slightly, she said, “What do you think I see when I look at you, Nyleeria?”
The question pierced me. I scrambled to understand, to comprehend what she meant. I searched for her truth in memories and words and histories. How did she see me? How did Eithan? My chest tightened, and phantom tears formed, but I bit them down as unending thoughts rushed through me:Nothing, worthless, poor,destitute, ugly, cursed. Worthless… Nothing… Cursed—the words yearning to jump from my mind to my tongue.
In a strangled voice, I said, “I honestly don’t know,” and the tears were no longer phantoms, now sliding out from their confines.
“I see a girl who has grown into a fine young woman. A beautiful, smart, witty, talented young woman. A woman who is of this place, but not tethered to it. One with a heart of gold, a zest for life, and,normally, an unwavering optimism that shatters the shackles others have tried to bind her with.” Her eyes glittered with tears of her own as she went on. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. To have your entire world shattered in an instant and not know how to go on. I know the heaviness that burrows itself into your heart and taints your soul.” She paused as if the gravity of those truths pressed upon her. “But I also know, Nyleeria, what it’s like to heal from that, to move on, and to craft a life of my own from the scraps that were left behind.”
She stood, walked over to my chair, and enveloped me in a comforting embrace.
I wept. Not just for Eithan, but for the cruelty of my past, the beliefs I was bound to, the deep hurt of my family’s apathy toward me, and for the little girl inside who just wanted to be loved.
After I calmed, she released me, handed me a tissue, poured me a fresh cup of tea from the ceramic tea pot on the table, and returned to her seat.
Nothing in my life had changed in those moments, but expressing my thoughts and letting the sorrow pour through my sobs, released a pent-up energy from within me I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. I rarely let myself have dark thoughts or emotions, locking them away in a vault so deep that I’d forgotten they dwelled there. I was somehow lighter after allowing them to have their moment, and perhaps that was the first step toward keeping my promise to Eithan.
“What game do you want to play?”I asked, shuffling the cards.
She smiled broadly. “Dealer’s choice.”
