There’s a little room at the back of the house, where Ma likes to seat them. The room is dim and gloomy. I never go in there unless I’ve got a client.
When I do a reading I have to focus on the forehead of the subject in question, and the numbers themselves are always the same: kinda small, less than a half an inch in size. They’re black and thin but perfectly etched, like you’d see printed in an obituary. They hover over the foreheads of everyone I see—even in a photograph or video, they’re visible to me. It’s why I don’t like going to the movies or watching a lot of TV. I know when every star in Hollywood will fall.
Because the numbers themselves are small and thin, I need to be within four or five feet of a person to clearly see their numbers, but if someone wears a hat, or has bangs or very dark skin, I need to be even closer. Beyond five feet, the dates get fuzzy and start to look like wispy dots—unsightly smudges on otherwise unmarred faces. When I walk the halls of my high school those smudges are a constant reminder that death is a mere squint away.
I try not to think about the people who don’t have a lot of years left. But it’s really hard. I’ll pass them in the halls at school, or see them around town, and I want to wince when they go by; their numbers flashing over and over again in my mind like strobe lights at a traffic accident, daring me to walk past them and forget what I’ve seen.
It can be pretty hard to deal with, so, a few years ago I started a notebook where I’d write down all the deathdates for everyone I know or meet. I add about ten to fifteen names a month—all my clients get listed, and it helps me cope.
When I first started seeing the numbers—these deathdates—they ran together as one long stream, but now my mind puts in the dashes.
6-28-2021. That’s Ma’s. I grew up knowing I’d be twenty-three when she died. Twenty-three is too young to be an orphan.
Still, it’s not like Ma takes care of herself. She smokes, she drinks, but mostly she doesn’t care. Not since Dad died.
A year after we lost him and moved from Brooklyn an hour and forty minutes north to Poplar Hollow, I began telling everybody I met what their deathdate was. I was a little seven-year-old on a mission to save anybody I could. Not surprisingly, I didn’t save a soul. Instead, I got sent home with a note from my new second-grade teacher, Mrs. Gilbert (7-18-2006). She had cancer and died the following summer, but she didn’t care to know that it was coming, and a few of the kids’ parents had complained. After that, Ma told me never to tell anybody their numbers unless she said it was okay.
My neighbor, Mrs. Duncan—her number’s coming up really soon. 2-28-2015. She doesn’t know it yet, either, but I’m tempted to tell her. She’s a sweet old lady who likes to redecorate her house every other month just for something to do and someone to talk to. I think she’d like to know that her time is almost up. I wouldn’t even charge her, which might not make Ma happy if she found out, but business has been pretty good lately, and Ma said she’s thinking of upping the price for a reading from fifty bucks to seventy-five.
With Ma and me on our own with only the money from my dad’s wrongful-death settlement to pay the bills, most of what I bring in goes to cover extras like repairs to the house or food or booze for Ma.
She’s been drinking a lot lately, which is why I’m hoping that business slows down. But that’s not likely. There are plenty of people out there who’re curious or desperate or they simply want to prepare. Lots of my clients come to me with a list and a stack of photos, and they’ll ask about everyone in their family except themselves.
Others ask only about themselves. Most people want to know if they can change the date, if they can get more time. I tell them I don’t know. And that’s what kills me. It’d be easier if I knew that the dates couldn’t be changed, that they’re set in stone as solid as the gravestone they’ll be printed on. If I knew for sure that a deathdate couldn’t be changed, I think I’d feel less guilty about my dad.
Then I look at my mom, and I see her leaving me in only six years, and a weight settles onto my chest that makes it hard to breathe.
So I wait and hope for a day when a client sits down in front of me, and I tell them their date, and then a miracle happens: I’ll see the date change. Simply by the act of revealing their deathdate I’ll get to witness them getting more time. Then I’ll have solid proof that there’s hope for anyone whose date is too soon. And I’ll finally be more than just the messenger.
FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW, I saw the mercedes pull up next to our house and realized we were about to have company. Not many Mercedes found their way to our side of town.
“Maddie?” Ma called from downstairs. “I think we have a client.”
I closed my Algebra II textbook with a sigh and lay back on the bed where I’d been plodding through equations for the past hour. Mr. Chavez (8-9-2039) had given us a ton of homework and, ironically, I really struggle with math.
“Maddie?” Ma called again. “Honey, are you up there?”
“Coming!”
I rolled off the bed and took a minute to pull my hair back and shrug out of my sweatshirt, trading it for a sweater.
When I got to the landing, Ma was at the bottom of the stairs waiting on me. “She’s in the back,” she said after I’d made my way down. Smoothing her hand over my ponytail she added, “She seems like a nice lady. She said she only needs one date, so I think this one will be easy. Also, I’m keeping your dinner warm in the oven.”
I could smell the pizza from the kitchen. I am so sick of pizza I could scream. Ma rarely cooks anymore, so all we ever seem to have are Hot Pockets, microwave pizza, chicken nuggets, or something else right out of the box. “I have to go to the store for some milk,” Ma said as I made my way toward the back of the house. “But I’ll wait until you’re through.”