Chapter 28
chapter
twenty-eight
SHAY
“How was the conference?” my sister asked the Friday after I got back.
“It was…” I tried not to think of Calder.
It was more likely I’d discover a coherent theoretical framework of physics before dinner than hear from Calder again.
“Good,” I eventually landed on, sitting down at a table with my mom and sister. Icy sunlight streamed in through slatted blinds, on a deck of tarot my mother rifled through.
Every Sunday my sister and I had dinner with our mom, but this Sunday, my mom would be out of town, so we’d chosen Friday.
Salt Lake City was a hodgepodge of architectural styles.
On the same street you could find anything from a bungalow to a Tudor to a Craftsman or Victorian.
My mother’s home, a one-story bungalow with a typical basement—meaning weird angles and a ceiling that touched your head—sat nestled between a Victorian and a mid-century modern brick house.
Four crab apple trees shaded the exterior. In the spring, they would blossom white and transform the front yard into a fairy tale. The petals would fall and carpet the sidewalk, porch, and grass.
“Is the universe telling Lithie she sucks?” I asked, shooting Lithie a look. She rolled her eyes.
“I don’t think this reading is for her,” Mom mused, thoughtful.
For almost two decades, it had been just us three. I never saw my dad. Last I heard, he was starting a new family somewhere. Lithie had stronger memories of him than I did. Mine were like a watercolor left in the rain. The colors ran, the shapes dissolved into one another.
I wasn’t sure if her full memories affected her more than my faded ones. She’d never had a long-term relationship, but I’d only been in a long-term relationship.
“Have you gone on any more dates?” Lithie asked, a tease in her eyes. I shot her a look and glanced at Mom.
She made a noise in her throat, rolling her eyes. “Oh, what, like Mom cares?”
“Date?” my mom asked. “You’re dating?”
“Shay made a profile on a dating app,” Lithie said, eyes glimmering with something sharp. “You should be so proud.”
“Oh good!” My mom clapped her hands together. “Just wait until you get fisted for the first time,” she said, returning to her tarot.
“What the absolute fuck, Mom?”
“I’m kidding, honey. That takes time to work up to. Trust me. My first time, I really needed to stretch the—”
“La la la la la!” I put my fingers in my ears. “I’m not hearing my mother tell me about getting fisted.”
Mom sighed and turned her brown eyes to me, still shuffling cards. “I don’t know where you get your prudish nature from. Is it me?”
“You?” My sister placed a hand to her chest in faux shock. “Never.”
My mother was a trippy, dichotomous combination of sex and structure—a corporate lawyer and sex shadow worker. On the side, she helped people access the “shadow” side of sex, understand what their kinks meant and the traumas they came from, and how not to feel shame.
So, for us, sex was never shamed and always encouraged—safely.
Mom shot Lithie a look. “Your sister doesn’t suffer from the same affliction.”
“It’s not an affliction to be monogamous,” I said.
She went back to the cards. “My wish for you is to have many lovers.”
Most mothers gave their daughters the not-before-marriage talk. But at thirteen, my mother sat me down and handed me my first vibrator. Because you should never rely on someone else for your own pleasure, she’d said.
“It’s my fault,” she continued. “I let you go to that Catholic school.”
“It was preschool, and only four months when I was three.”
“Long enough to imprint on my little girl that her body belongs to someone else.” She huffed. “Complete erasure of Asherah, of the female divine in favor of patriarchy, a religion and world centered on man—”
We both groaned.
We’d heard this rant many times before. It was impossible not to when it was my namesake.
“The idea that man is the creator.” My mother took a deep breath, sifting through the tarot. “With what womb did he create?”
Lithie and I shared a look.
“They don’t need one,” Lithie said. “They had a rib or something.”
“Lilith,” my mother said, shooting my sister a look.
My mother’s witchy, spiritual nature lived in my and my sister’s names. Lithie was named for Lilith. While modern scripture marks Lilith as some kind of demon or succubus, my mother was certain to remind us that Lilith’s only sin was refusing to submit to a man.
“If it’s truly what you want…” my mom said.
“It is—”
“But”—she cut me off—“I worry you’ve internalized the lie that you lose value when deeming your body your own.” Before I could respond, my mom pulled out a card, turning to me. “For you.”
She placed a black-and-white card with a drawing in silver foil, a building being struck by lightning. Burning and crumbling.
The Tower.
“Oooh,” Lithie said.
You don’t grow up with a witchy mom without knowing the significance of The Tower. People unfamiliar with the arcana might ascribe more fear to Death or The Devil, but The Tower? That was the real bitch.
It signified your world was about to get rocked, big time.
The oven dinged and my mom patted me on the shoulder, standing up without a word.
“So,” Lithie said, lowering her voice. “How was your date, really?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He was nice enough. But I can’t stop thinking about Calder.”
“Wasn’t the whole point of no strings attached to not, you know, get attached?” Lithie asked. “And, wait, I thought you didn’t vibe. Why do you care?”
I worked my mouth, not sure how to answer. I’d never felt anything like I did with Calder. Not even with Graham. But I wasn’t ready to say that out loud.
I didn’t want this.
I specifically wanted something casual to avoid this. Avoid spending my nights thinking about someone who doesn’t think about me.
“I lied,” I admitted. “I really like him.”
“Okay, we can fix this.” Lithie stood up, clapping her hands together like a drill sergeant.
“Fix this?” I pushed the tarot card around, watching the silver foil lightning glint in the wintry light.
“It’s Friday night. We’re going out and curing you of your dicknosis.”