Carte (Card) Blanche
Our grown children had flown the
coop, so I took their place as my supportive husband's financial
dependent. I quit my job. Daddy Few Bucks let me skip from weekend
warrior writer to seven day a week writer.
We were used to living at poverty level while raising our family. Unfortunate then, it was helpful now. Since accustomed to living frugally, one
income worked. But when the writing game
became harder than I thought, panic turned up the heat in my firy acid
reflux.
That week I'd found inconsistent
data when doing research on psychic read of playing cards. My great-grandmother had used a typical deck
to give family and friends peeks into their futures. She considered this a spiritual gift. I wanted to use this intriguing ability in a
story and needed to know its history. Great-grandma didn't do anything with cards around me but play games. But I did remember my mother commenting that
people in great-grandma's time believed her gift was witchcraft, and my uncle
forbid her to read cards in their home.
Meanwhile when my husband and I went
to the notary in the mall to get papers signed for a consolidation loan with
lower interest, we found it closed, so we went to our bank. The notary there looked familiar, especially
the red hair. The badge on her blouse
introduced her by her first name. I
added this before the last name after "Mrs." on her desk plate, and
confirmed who she was. I hadn't seen her
in forty years, just before my father died.
We signed our papers. She stamped them, and I said, "I know
you. You're married to my father's best
friend." I told her my mother's
name.
"Oh, you look like your
mother," she said. She asked about
my family, and said she tried to contact us, only to discover we moved. "Your grandmother read Mark's cards
before I met him, and told him he would marry a red head. He was dating a girl with brown
hair."
I went home, called my mother and
told her who I saw. Before I said
anything about the conversation in the bank, she said, "Great-grandma read
her husband's cards when he was dating a brunette. That girl was crazy over him, but he didn't
go for her. He broke it off and then met
his wife."
I hadn't told my mother about the
research or story idea. I wasn't sure
she would approve, since our older relatives might read the story.
The fuzzy connection to my childhood
I had experienced in the bank became defined assurrance with that phone
call. It silently reprimanded me to stop
doubting I should be writing full-time.
When frustration over what to write hits, I
get out a worn deck of cards. I shuffle
and play solitare to quiet my adult brain when it overthinks possibilities. Handling the smooth game pieces opens up
child-like belief in an unfinished project and gives a peek at its future.
