Chapter Fourteen Soraya #3
She really meant that. She meant more than just what she deserved from her husband.
She deserved better than friends who didn’t believe her.
Who didn’t listen to her. Who didn’t think it mattered that her husband was unfaithful.
Who thought she should choose a concept of morality that her husband wasn’t choosing.
That she should be held to a different standard.
She did want her family back. She wanted her sons back.
On her terms. She wouldn’t be blackmailed by her cheating husband.
“We’ll help you get your things moved in tomorrow,” Nora said. “Sam said he would help.”
“I don’t even know Sam.” It was incredible to Soraya that someone outside the church would help her. For no reason. Which said a lot about what she’d been led to believe about people outside.
“It doesn’t matter. He said he would help.”
A door slammed out in the hall, and the three of them jumped. Then they heard heavy footsteps down the hallway.
“Are there other units up here?”
“Oh yeah,” Soraya said, feeling breathless. “Aggie did mention that. There are two other units that go with the other stores on this strip.”
“I just thought maybe we summoned a ghost.” Nora put her hands up like claws, and there was still a slight tremble in her fingers, even as she tried to be funny.
Soraya pushed her shoulder. “Don’t say that. I have to stay here.”
She was still holding the tarot cards in her left hand. Nora took the pack out of her hand.
“You really are turning over a new leaf.”
“I found them.” Soraya’s cheeks got warm.
“Do you want to draw a new card?”
Soraya shrank back. “I think I’ve dabbled enough for one night.”
“You don’t seem like you’re freaked out.”
“I feel like . . . I’m tired of letting everybody else tell me what I want or don’t want. What’s wrong and what’s right. I feel . . . I feel like I’m okay.”
She kept thinking about what Aggie had said, that this didn’t require her to turn away from her whole belief system. It wasn’t turning away from God. But of course she would have told Aggie that her beliefs were wrong.
Aggie was less judgmental than she was.
A shock to her, since she’d been told it was people like Aggie who wouldn’t accept her.
“I’m doing it. I’m giving you a reading.” Nora started to shuffle the deck in her hands. She cut it three times and then pulled a card off the top while looking at Daisy. “Six of Wands.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll have to look at the book.” Nora set the cards down on the table and pulled out the guidebook. “Victory. Success. Bringing out the best in others.”
“That’s better than the Tower,” Daisy said.
“No kidding.” Nora cut the deck again three times, looking at Soraya. “Queen of Cups.”
“I have no idea what that is,” said Soraya.
“Romance.” Nora raised her eyebrows. “Seduction. Focusing on what moves the soul. Slow and deliberate pleasure.”
Soraya blinked. “Could not be me.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re going to have a fling.”
“Save me. I can’t do witchcraft and fornication.” She was sort of kidding, but just saying that made a zip of something go down her spine.
“Why not? Your husband was doing it.”
“I’m not really worried about sex.” After the explicit clip of Nora’s husband, Soraya didn’t think she’d be aroused for . . . a while.
“I kind of am,” said Daisy. “I’ve been celibate for two months, and our sex life was garbage for a year before that. It sucks.”
“Sorry.” Nora didn’t look sorry. “The Wands didn’t say anything about seduction.”
“What about you?” Daisy asked.
Nora took a breath. “Okay. Do me.”
Daisy frowned when she looked at the card. “Two of Wands.” She picked up the guidebook. “The choice between your comfort zone and new adventures.” She shut the book.
Nora scowled. “It doesn’t really feel like an adventure.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really wanted to be adventurous,” Soraya said. “I feel like this is why. It’s kind of scary.”
“I didn’t think I was going to be doing a whole . . . new life.” Nora picked at her nail polish. “I thought I would get over this bump in the road.”
“Well,” Daisy began. “You are separated. Maybe he intended to come back and have whatever happened during the break be . . . not a thing.”
“The problem with that is we didn’t discuss sleeping with other people. I look like we might, but we don’t have an open marriage.”
“What do you mean you look like you might?”
Nora shrugged. “There’s a polyamory thing. They kind of have the look. I’m a septum piercing short. But that’s never been our thing. Maybe if he would’ve talked to me, I . . .” She swallowed hard. “I wanted something normal. I wanted it to last.”
“Well, it still could. If you want to forgive him.”
“Oh no. Forgiveness is not my thing.” Nora looked back up at the candle. “My thing is revenge.”
Soraya would have said forgiveness was her thing, that she didn’t want revenge. That was before she had been hurt. That was before her husband had tricked her. Before he had turned her own children against her. “You know, Nora, I think we have a lot more in common than I realized.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and Nora smiled.