I had planned out my spells and set aside just the right combination of crystals to help in restoring my relationship with Mother. The meeting was, of course, uptown, because Mother loved the romance of the train from the Scarsdale station in to the city.

I was betting that she had approved of Dad's choice in lawyers. Snyder and Sons, like so many, split their offices between White Plains and the ritzy end of Manhattan, and Mother would surely always choose to make it a field trip, to travel to the swanky part of the island, somewhere north and east of Central Park.

I had a long and rather convoluted trip ahead of me, that's for sure. Getting from the Village to uptown would be a subway ride for me, but I would have to transfer midtown, then take the Q, which was a little stressful and time-consuming. I was already starting to feel like I owed myself a luxurious candlelit bath, a dinner out, and a bottle of wine.

For now, though, I closed the shop, spritzed myself with some zest of lemon, grabbed my carpetbag, and left a light on for Sedona just in case I was late.


The subway was always entertaining for me. For the most part, it was populated with native New Yorkers, since most tourists leaned on the taxies and Uber. People listening to music, sleeping, traveling in their pajamas, reading. Some of them met my eyes, and these were always the ones who would receive my spells of peace and love. The magical part of it was that I would never be completely sure as to whether my spells worked or not. Whatever their outcomes, the spells made me feel better, and sometimes that's just enough to keep me going.

I came up for air at the 42nd Street Station. Times Square is such a brilliant light on our planet, isn't it? Like an ant hill where sugar cubes have just been discovered. Everyone is carrying things, moving along with the pedestrian traffic, stopping only to pick up more sugar to carry.

I loved to people-watch, and this place was better than anywhere I've ever been. People all painted up, wearing crazy clothes, scurrying off to see a show, people gawking up at the buildings and the flashing neon above, only to run into scaffolding or other people because they weren't paying attention. People shoved hotdogs into their mouths, screamed into their phones, cupped their hands against the wind around vapes or cigarettes or joints.

I couldn't get enough of this if I lived here all of Sedona's nine lives.

The hotdog smell was too much to bear, so I grabbed one and greased it up with plenty of ketchup and mustard. Late or not, you have to feed yourself, that's what I say. Feeling rich, and maybe for the last time, I tipped the vendor with a ten and we shared a moment.

I ducked back down to catch my transfer onto the Q and stood by the tracks to wait.

A little girl stood with her mother next to me, and I studied them while I finished my hotdog. The girl was nine, maybe ten, that age when suddenly you realize you might not want to hold hands with your mom anymore. Her lip was out, like she'd just gotten yelled at or had been involved in some kind of unpleasantness.

In her arms, she held a troll doll, of all things. Like the one I'd just seen in Ms. Esther's apartment, this guy was naked and googly-eyed, but instead of being the size of my hand, this one was at least a foot long and his hair was brilliant pink. My eyes wandered from his hair to his eyes, and for a nanosecond, just a flash, I saw a glint of light coming from them.

I blinked, looked up. Probably the weird lighting down here in the station.

But no, it happened again, almost a crazed wink or twinkle. It was the same feeling you get when you're the only one to see a shooting star; you literally don't know if you can believe your eyes.

"Excuse me?" I said, bending forward at the waist so that I could be more on the girl's level. "I'm wondering about your troll? Are trolls a trend again?" I smiled and looked from her eyes to her mother's.

The girl smiled back at me and nodded.

"Does he bring you luck?" I asked, the whisper of conspiracy in my voice.

She opened her mouth, but her mother grabbed her hand, gave it a tug, and shook her head. Her brow was furrowed. She looked like she'd had enough of the world, like she was about to explode. Or break. Probably both.

As her mother yanked her away and down the platform, the little girl looked over her shoulder and nodded again at me. After shaking myself free of the mother's negative energy, I collected myself and sent the best spell I could think of while I kept her gaze.

May the universe enfold you,
Hold you in protective arms
And whatever angst befalls you
You'll be sheltered with this charm.


Weak, I know. But I was never much of a think-on-your-feet kind of spell caster. I shrugged to myself as the girl and her mother stepped into another car of the train, then climbed in myself and found a bar to hold onto.

I liked standing on the subway. Sometimes I'd pretend to be surfing a huge wave. I'd bend my knees on my board with my eyes closed to feel the rush, take my hands off the pole and balance while the train shuddered along its track. I liked the kid in me.

Except when that kid had to face my mother. My angry mother.


And here I was finally, up from the station and standing on the corner of 86th and Lexington, my heart suddenly racing and my bag feeling extra heavy. I whispered a little prayer to the goddess Rhea, for her gentle mother's touch, and the comfort that my human mother might never again be in the position to give me. Then I marched myself past the doorman with a tense smile.

Off the elevator, the smell of leather mixed with some men's cologne hung heavy in the air as I swept open one of the double doors to Snyder and Sons. The receptionist sat like a spider, front and center, and she peeked out from behind an oversized vase full of fake, I mean silk, flowers. I waited for her to say or ask something of me, but realized she had no intention of initiating conversation. I tried to give her a good afternoon kind of smile, even as I felt my positive energy being sucked out of me a mile a minute.

"Hi! Madeline Bridges. I'm a bit late, I'm afraid. I have a 4:00 with Brian Snyder? My mother is Sarah Bridges?"

She looked at me like she was just waking up, her squinting eyes jumping from my gaze back down to her calendar.

"Oh, sure, here you are," she said, like her second cup of espresso had just kicked in. "Whew, Mondays!" She shrugged. "Mrs. Bridges is already here. I can take you back to the conference room and get you all set up. Water? Coffee?" She stood up like she'd been programmed to do so. I found myself desperately wanting to do a reading on this one.

"Tea," I said, realizing her stare was fixed on me. "Hot tea would be wonderful, if you have it?"
She kind of gave me an eyeroll, or maybe it was just my internal settings realigning in preparation for being in the presence of my mother. Either way, I got the feeling from this woman that tea was just a bit more work than she'd signed up for today.

"Sure thing," she said. "Follow me."

Mother was reading, as always. Some of my strongest memories of her involve me trying to get her attention away from the book on her lap and onto me. I usually lost.

She did look up from this book, though.

She was a straight-up kind of woman, my mother. Perfectly straight posture, shoulders high and proud, even when she was just sitting with a book. The book, The Yellow House, was a memoir that had gotten all kinds of awards and prizes. Mother made it her mission to read every black writer from every country of the world. She immersed herself in her race, except for that part of her that insisted on living amidst almost exclusively white neighbors, buying from almost exclusively white merchants, schooling her child in almost exclusively white schools.

I hope I don't sound resentful. I had an interesting time growing up, but sometimes I felt like it was all affectation, like maybe she had some kind of chip on her shoulder and just needed to continually make the same point.

I never quite got that point, but I had long ago stopped trying to get her to explain.

Today she wore her beautiful hair, maybe a wig, maybe extensions, in braids that fell well past her shoulders, almost to the middle of her back. Her makeup was meticulous, her lips a warm shade of burnt orange that perfectly matched her ten perfectly manicured fingernails. Her smile, as always, showed her perfectly aligned white teeth, as well as her lack of sincerity.

"Madeline, Darling!" she said as she rose from her chair, her arms open for an embrace.

I went along. "Mother, you're looking beautiful as always."

She gave me a final squeeze and held me back to look at me.

"Oh, wow, I can tell that money is already working wonders for you, Love. Look at this, uh, handbag?" Her eyebrows did a little dance up and down as she silently made fun of my carpetbag. "And the wardrobe!" She took her time assessing my black yoga pants, ripped at the hem, and my beautiful muumuu, all swirls of royal blue and purple and red. "Stunning, as usual!" Her eyes moved away from me and I sighed with relief, knowing Brian Snyder must have just come into the room behind me.

"Brian, Darling!" Mother said, moving around me and starting her Hello Show all over again. I turned, waited for it, shook his hand, and took the chair across the table from Mother. After surfing the subway and running around on the Ms. Esther case all day, I welcomed the chance to just sit.

Brian cozied up to her nicely, and I admired him for it; he could have bypassed the song and dance that she loved so much. But of course, he could continue setting up meetings way out into the future, building on his hourly billings, and the longer our mess took to settle, the more he would reap the rewards.

He was a compact, efficient, white man, dressed and groomed and smelling of deodorant soap. He sat down at the head of the table with no paperwork, not even a pen, and clasped his hands, looking from one of us to the other.

We all watched in silence as the spider receptionist delivered my tea, which was weak, watery. I tried to turn my lifted lip into a gracious smile.

"So?" Brian said, "What's to be done, here?"

I bit my tongue, literally, and waited while breathing deeply and focusing on Calm. Today, I would speak softly while still, hopefully, carrying the proverbial big stick, and Mother would either hear me and walk away with some level of dignity and hope, or anger would plug up her ears and she would dig in her heels about her place in this world.

In which case she would leave here with some hefty bills to pay.