Chapter Twenty-Eight Nora
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nora
I call forth my wild,
From the earth,
From the sky,
From the trees,
I call forth the sparrow song,
The song of the flowing stream,
So that they might flow through me,
I am in the wild,
The wild is in me.
—A spell for reclaiming your wild heart
Aggie was especially pleased that their inaugural tarot night would fall on Beltane.
But that meant Nora, Soraya, and Daisy had some extra errands to run.
Not that Nora minded. She needed distraction right now more than anything.
Was it weird that not having Sam in her life was a bigger heartbreak than losing Ben?
It made sense in a lot of ways. It definitely reinforced her instinct to keep Sam in that box.
Being sent on an errand up into the woods to forage flowers, sticks, and greenery for flower crowns and homemade witch’s brooms was a gift.
As was the burgeoning warmth in the air, following a couple of false starts to spring that had happened already.
That, at least, made her feel a little bit less grim. A little bit less dark.
Soraya was the one who suggested they all wear dresses.
“It’s a cute adventure,” she’d said.
She wasn’t wrong, really, though Nora only had a black dress that fell to mid-calf, which did look quite witchy but was a bit out of place with Soraya’s white and Daisy’s green.
As the sun washed over her and the breeze caught her hair, she had to acknowledge that perhaps she had underestimated the healing power of nature.
It was tempting to squirrel herself away at her house, to binge-watch TV shows or reorganize her closet, anything to disassociate from the present moment.
She hadn’t realized that the present moment might be the key to healing.
The sun on her skin, the sound of the birds around them, the scent of pine and warm earth.
Daisy had taken them to a hiking trail that she liked to walk with her kids, which Nora did her best not to take personally, but the implication was clearly that Nora was best suited to a trail that was friendly to children.
She could take that on the chin, because it was true.
Soraya was in the front and spun in a circle, looking up at the trees.
“You seem improved,” Nora said.
“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of my life. Not like I wasn’t thinking about it before, but since I had a total breakdown after David’s house burned down, I’ve been thinking about it in a different way.”
“Sure.” Nora shrugged.
“One of the things they always said in our church was that you had to be a fruit inspector. Because every action has a consequence. It’s like the branch of a tree.
Our pastor used to ask us if someone’s actions were bearing fruit.
” She turned to look at them, a confidence in her eyes Nora hadn’t seen before.
“David’s fruit is rotten. There’s a lot of rotten fruit at our church.
I had a feeling about that far longer ago than this past year.
But I had also been taught that all the answers were in that church.
I don’t mean the faith, but the physical church.
I’m looking at the fruit, and it’s rotten.
I’m doing exactly what I was told, and I’m seeing clearly.
I agree that the three of us need to turn our focus to helping rather than hurting, even if these men deserve it.
Their actions will catch up with them; their fruit will remain rotten, whether we curse them or not. ”
“Amen.” Daisy lifted her fist.
“True,” Nora agreed.
“I’m also paying attention to what’s growing in my own life.
” Soraya reached up and lowered a branch filled with blossoms toward herself.
She inhaled the scent and smiled before releasing it again.
“I’m happier. I have a different relationship with my kids, and it might even be better than it was before.
One where I can be honest, and not a hypocrite.
Aggie said something to me, too, that made me think.
She said it was okay for me to do things because they felt good.
I realized I don’t actually know how to do that.
I have attached guilt and worry to just about everything.
I don’t want to do that anymore. Not because I don’t care about being right.
I do. I care so much about doing the right thing and not hurting other people or inconveniencing them.
But somewhere in there, I lost myself. Or maybe I’ve never even found myself before. ”
Daisy stopped walking for a moment. “She asked me when the last time was that I was wild. What happened to the girl I was, who used to scream and growl and howl at the moon whenever she wanted to. Spin in wild circles. It’s weird, because one day you do stop doing that.
It’s not a decision, but you get some kind of awareness—shame, I guess.
That thing that tells you what you’re supposed to want, supposed to do. ”
“And look where it got us,” Nora said. “All that civility, all that shame, for what? All that need to fit inside a box. I don’t think I was ever carefree.
I always felt like my passion, my feelings, were a burden, and I alternated between embracing it, being that burden, angry and difficult to deal with, and then trying so hard to be normal.
To be the wife Ben needed. I’m so tired of it.
Maybe I’m difficult. A lot of people are. Don’t I deserve to be?”
“Not difficult,” Soraya said. “You’ve been through a lot, but you are a deeply passionate person. Creative and kind. You were there for me when I needed you, even though you didn’t like me, and for good reason.”
“Daisy was there for you. I was just kind of along for the ride.”
“That’s not true.” Daisy was vehement.
“It’s a little bit true,” Nora said. “But also, Soraya, even though I had some complicated feelings about you from high school, there’s a reason that we stopped for you.
Because you are the kind of person who cares deeply about doing right by others.
Because even when you hurt my feelings in high school, I know you meant well. ”
“Yeah, I guess so. But you know, so much of a belief system that rigid is wanting to believe that you’re protected.
I wanted to believe that as long as I did good things, nothing bad would happen to me.
But you can’t control the world that way.
At a certain point, you have to surrender. I’m working on that.”
“I think we’re all working on that,” Nora said. Control and desire were definitely at the root of her issues with Sam. Hell, it was probably the root of all the issues in her marriage.
Her inability to let go. To put herself in harm’s way. To make herself vulnerable.
They came around a curve in the path, and there were wildflowers growing in bright-green patches of grass beneath the trees.
They took their baskets and walked off the path, picking bunches of flowers, finding leaves, twigs, and grass to make the brooms. Aggie had explained to them that a witch’s broom was used to clear negative energy out of the house, and by making one out of local grasses and flowers, it could be infused with extra magic.
They wandered farther and farther from the path, the sun beginning to beat down on them.
Daisy stopped and suddenly flung her arms wide, threw her head back, and screamed.
Then she started to run, her basket flying behind her, her other hand holding her skirt up, trying to keep herself from tripping.
Soraya and Nora exchanged looks and then ran after Daisy.
Soraya shrieked, and Nora kept quiet, concentrating on not falling on her face as they careened over the uneven ground.
When they reached Daisy, she was standing on the edge of a body of water.
“Swimming hole,” she shouted on the breeze. “I’ve taken my kids here before.”
“Daisy,” Soraya said. “It’s the end of April. That water has to be freezing.”
Daisy set the basket down, took her glasses off and placed them in the basket, and gathered her skirt in her hands.
“I don’t care. I stopped singing. I stopped dancing and acting and being silly.
I stopped screaming and running. I lost myself.
Never again.” She flung herself off the bank and into the water.
For a moment, she was gone. Completely disappeared beneath the surface. She popped back up a breath later, sputtering and shrieking. “Oh my God.”
“How is it?”
“Terrible!” she shouted, swimming farther away from the shore. “You have to jump in.”
“I’ve never given in to peer pressure in my life,” said Soraya.
“First time for everything,” Daisy shouted back.
It was Soraya’s turn to set her basket down, though she muttered the entire time she did it about caving and compromising.
She took a deep breath and scrunched up her whole face, along with a handful of her dress, and ran toward the shore, screaming the entire way until she flung herself into the water.
“You’ve lost your goddamned minds!” Nora yelled from the relative warmth and safety of the shore.
“Be free!” Daisy shouted.
“Be freezing, more like,” Nora said.
“Be in nature.” Soraya moved a little closer to the shore and spun with her arms hitting the surface of the water.
“You all look silly.”
“We don’t care.”
Nora couldn’t argue with that. She set her basket down, gathered up her skirt, and went to the very edge of the swimming hole.
Before she could think better of it, she leaped off the ground and plunged into the water, the impact of it so intense she got an immediate brain freeze when her head went under the surface.
When she came up, she was screaming. “This is awful!”
“And brilliant,” Daisy said.
This was something they might’ve done in high school.
Maybe that was why it felt brave. Maybe that was why it felt revolutionary.
Because life had intervened and made them afraid.
Because it had taken the things they loved and turned them into trials, it had taken joy and sharpened it into a fine point, a weapon rather than a gift.
She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped being able to act without worrying that it exposed her as a feral foster child.
She’d married Ben and had been so beset by the feeling she didn’t belong with him or in his life that she’d done everything she could to make herself seem normal.
This day wasn’t normal. Maybe none of them were.
Maybe they were better than normal.
She rolled onto her back and floated there, looking up at the sky, looking up at the sun, letting herself feel everything. The parts that were too cold, the parts that were just right.
They only lasted a few minutes in the frigid water before they got out, their dresses sodden, and stood there on the bank wringing out their skirts as they gathered their baskets. They were laughing, out of breath.
“That was dumb.” Daisy laughed as she stumbled back down the path toward the car.
“You were the ringleader,” Nora said.
Daisy smiled. “I was. I didn’t plan it, and it wasn’t for anyone else. I didn’t care about looking stupid.”
Maybe that shouldn’t have been revolutionary.
It was, though. They skipped back through the field, soggy now.
Nora howled as they got into her car soaking wet.
Everyone had parked at her house, with the idea that they would go back there and make some of their flower crowns over charcuterie boards and wine.
Nora had a firepit in the backyard, and it was the perfect time of year to fire it up.
If she was honest, Ben had a firepit in the backyard, and once he got out of the hospital, she was going to have to deal with the fact that it wasn’t going to be her firepit anymore, or her house.
She was in the process of making the very difficult decision to not pursue any kind of support from him. She would miss the house, but she would rather disconnect from him. Not have any kind of tie to him anymore. Including his money.
She didn’t need to think about that right now. It was a vacation rental, in many ways. But then, it had been for quite some time. A place where he was represented, but not her.
She did love the firepit, though.
They turned the heater on high in the car, and when they got back to Nora’s house, she got blankets down from the closet and then pulled the meat and cheese boards out of the fridge and brought them outside to the lovely backyard area, where she lit a fire.
The flames exploded, reached up for the sky, and cast a halo of warmth on them as they sat in the Adirondack chairs placed around the firepit. They began to weave twigs together to make the bases of the flower crowns.
They added blossoms and ribbons, little things Aggie had given them for the project.
“Zach is offering to sell me his part of the construction business,” Daisy blurted as she wound a ribbon around her crown.
“Seriously?” Nora asked.
“Yes. But I’ve been hesitant to say yes because it feels . . . wrong. He’s the one who invested his money into the company.”
“But you spent years helping to keep it running,” Soraya pointed out.
“True.” Daisy started to weave in a second ribbon.
“You have to take it,” Nora said. “You just have to.”
Daisy looked into the fire, and a slow smile crossed her face. “Okay. As soon as he’s out of the hospital and back in the office, I’ll let Jonathan know. If you’ll help me with my hostile takeover.”
Nora clapped her hands together. “Oh, Daisy, I was born for hostile takeovers.”
When Soraya completed her first crown, she put it on her head and stood up, twirling in a circle, her damp dress and ribbons swirling around.
Nora finished hers and stood up, joining Soraya, spinning and twirling in front of the flames.
They were shortly followed by Daisy. They grabbed each other’s hands and spun in a circle, the flame serving as a backdrop, until they separated and flung their arms up in the air.
Nora felt exhilarated. She felt brave. She felt like she had shed twenty years’ worth of baggage today.
She could still laugh. She could still be a fool.
Maybe for the first time, she could believe she was magic.
I have the love I deserve.
She felt it. Coming from the earth, coming from the flames, coming from her friends.
There was love all around her.
She wasn’t alone.
With Ben out of her life, she wasn’t alone.
With Sam angry at her, she wasn’t alone.
She was surrounded by friends. By their strength.
Their support.
Their joy.
They collapsed into their chairs, laughing, breathless, and Daisy picked up her glass of wine and held it up. “The next time Aggie asks when we were wild, we can tell her it was today.”