Chapter 20

Chapter 20 of 48 · 6-minute read

Transiting Saturn Conjunct Lauren’s Natal Mars

I can’t shake this jittery feeling. Nor do I want to. I lean into it, wallow in it. I haven’t felt this level of strength in the last six months. Hope surges through me, and in it, there is power.

I have plenty of other things to feel anxious about, but I have hope for those as well. Somewhere in a medical lab in the nearest big city, a lab technician is studying tiny bits of tissue from my surgery. It will be at least another day before I hear the analysis, maybe two days. Whether the margins are clear and whether the cells are cancerous is already a fact. But not a known fact. The answer could be happy news, or it could be the beginning of an even bumpier road ahead. For now, I am Schrödinger’s patient, with both very real possibilities ahead that are in direct opposition.

“Universe,” I whisper as I pull into a parking spot, “how much better can it get?”

I know better than to ask how much worse things can get. The Universe has certainly shown me that in the last year, so I’m forcing myself to focus on the positive. This afternoon was definitely a win. Last night was a win. Maybe I should be keeping a scoreboard.

Medical problems. Minus one.

Losing Jesse. A big minus one.

Yeah, not all minus ones are equal.

A servitor stalking me, trying to hurt the ones I love and trying to kill me. Minus one.

Losing the healing center. Minus one.

Christabel’s uncle shooting up their home and almost killing her. Minus one.

My mom telling Quent something innocent that he’s using against me. Minus one.

My car dying on me at its most inconvenient moment. Minus one.

My phone dying on me at the most inconvenient moment. Minus one.

Quent abducting Sonnet from her workplace and yet another attempt to wrestle custody away from me. Minus one.

Re-warding my home. Plus one.

Sonnet escaping from Quent’s grasp and coming home. Plus one.

Explaining to Patrick that my legal name is Hartford, not Matthews. Plus one.

Hearing Patrick curse when he compared my supposed signature—on a bank loan that listed my home as collateral—against the correct one on my driver’s license. A huge plus one.

A turning point. Power begets power. Finally, finally, things are moving in a positive direction.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit!” Patrick’s face had turned scarlet while he paced up and down in my tiny office back at the defunct Center of Light.

I waited politely, hope rising in my chest. I feel as much pressure in my chest as I would with any bad stress, but it’s still exhilarating. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. My mom always says not to get my hopes up and I won’t be disappointed, but I’m thinking now that it’s a horrible way to live. I needed to “manage expectations,” as Jan likes to call it, but that’s just a more businesslike way of saying not to get my hopes up.

I’d sat there politely listening as Patrick made phone call after phone call to the bank to his immediate supervisor, a senior vice-president of lending. Frank was flummoxed. He pulled all the paper copies just to check. Frank remembered me coming in with Jesse and remembered me signing the document, which was duly notarized by a low-level bank employee.

Patrick checked the exact date in March that I had supposedly been in the bank. I had not even been in town that day, nor the day before or the day after. I’d been at a conference. I had plenty of witnesses. The local newspaper had even published photos of me accepting an award at the final event of the conference.

Mistaking my attendance at the conference was simply not possible, given that the whole auditorium of conference goers had sung “Happy Birthday” to me. Jesse was gone by then, I was lonely, Rhiannon was away at college, Sonnet was preoccupied with earning money to buy her first car, and I was thankful to have the distraction and especially grateful to spend time at the conference with my old friend, Belinda.

I can’t explain how Jesse and an imposter faked my identity. I certainly can’t explain why Jesse would be a part of it, assuming the real Jesse was involved. That part doesn’t make sense. Then again, so many things in these last few months don’t make sense. And it’s not exactly like I can just ask him.

“What does it mean,” I asked Patrick, “on the loan?”

Patrick braced himself against my small desk. “It means two things. One, it means that you never signed the loan on a house that only you have the deed to.”

“So, I’m not going to lose my home?”

“There’ll be an investigation. Not just within the bank but the police. Probably the FBI. Depends on what the internal investigation turns up. I’m just a trainee, and I’ve never seen anything like this in our town, but I’ve heard stories at work. If that’s not your signature, Miss Lauren, hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen from the bank. Number two, somebody is going to get fired. Since Mr. Frank is the one who signed your loan—I mean, this loan—I’m guessing he’s the one who will get axed.”

Everything is clearer now. The confusing conversations with Tom. The patronizing and annoying mansplaining from Frank on his last three phone calls, all of them talking to me like I’m stupid or something. Had I not been grieving so many other losses in my life and in such a deep funk, maybe I could have sorted it out sooner. When you’re not the culprit, it’s hard to conceive of the crime you’re being judged by.

I do feel bad for Frank, at least a little. He may be the one who screwed up, but I definitely understand the sense of doom he must be feeling right now. It’s the same sense of doom I’ve felt for months.

It’s the sudden sense of confidence surging through my veins that sent me to this little restaurant for lunch in the middle of the afternoon. Not only am I hungry, but I feel strong enough now to see for myself the man Christabel thought looked like Jesse. My visit here might’ve been a mistake earlier when I was feeling at my lowest, but now, whatever I find here, I can take it. If nothing else, maybe I will see Jesse’s doppelganger and sort through old memories while I quietly watch a stranger.

I kill the engine and sit in the car. This Thai restaurant hasn’t been open very long. I think Jesse and I have visited every Thai restaurant within a fifty-mile radius, but this one still has a fresh coat of paint on its main door. It’s an older house that has been remodeled and its front lawn traded for a gravel parking lot. I don’t recognize any of the half-dozen cars out front.

I move the small box of souvenirs given to me by the Elders from the front seat to my trunk. As I walk toward the restaurant’s entrance, I pause to feel for Jesse’s energy. Not something I often do, but I’ve been in situations before where I felt the energy of someone important to me left on the ground and on the furniture of some place they weren’t supposed to be. I open one palm discreetly to the ground, just in case someone is watching, and wait for a familiar tingle.

Christabel. I can tell that she’s been here. And Sonnet, too. They’ve been here together. If Sonnet saw someone resembling Jesse, I doubt she would have mentioned it to me for fear of adding to my pain. Christabel’s energy is strong, though. She comes here often, probably twice a week. Then again, it’s not far from her classes.

As for Jesse’s energy, nothing. Some murkiness, but nothing of the man I loved.

← Chapter 19
Chapter 21 →

You’re reading Rite of Letting Go free, right here in the Library. Want a copy to keep on your Kindle or e-reader? Buy the e-book direct from me →