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This was it. We were married. But this was only the first step.
Now we had to start knitting.
Decca
If I’d had toimagine my wedding night, it would probably involve a midnight flight to somewhere tropical, a swanky hotel room, frilly white lingerie.
Okay, maybe notmywedding night. Only in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to marry. In fact, sitting here alone at Granny’s kitchen table, in Granny’s house, wearing Granny’s gown, seemed about right for any wedding night image I could conjure now.
And I wasn’talonealone. Not anymore. I was only taking a moment for myself before my life changed into something I couldn’t recognize. A life of togetherness. Partnership.
Gus was out back, waiting for me to light the bonfire and bring out the tea and cakes I’d made. I couldn’t quite bring myself to join him yet.
The tarot cards filtered through my fingers again and again as my glazed eyes stared straight ahead. At nothing. At the warped seam of the plastic laminate countertop under the sink. At the refrigerator magnets, recognizing their familiar shapes and colors but not really seeing them.
The fridge kicked on, its electronic whir drowning out the echoing tick of the old clock behind me. Each tick mocked me, counting down the moments before everything would change.
Or nothing would change. Because we still didn’t know what this arrangement would look like. These moments could be life-changing. Or they could be entirely forgotten in a few days.
I shuffled again.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
I loved the waltzing beat of the cards, the soft flip of the cardstock, the feel of their worn surfaces skating off each other.
I could zone out to the muscle memory as my fingers caught the paper edges and knew how to move without my telling them. It required no concentration or focus, allowing my mind to soften and just be here.
Nothing jumped out at me this time, urging me to stop and draw. I kept going. At least the busyness of my hands gave my head something to focus on.
One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Finally, one card stuck out from the middle of the deck, calling to me. I pulled it and shuffled again, my eyes as unfocused as my thoughts. Two cards stuck together, tripped up on their path back to their friends. I pulled them both and set the rest of the deck aside.
I flipped over the Fool. The first card in the cycle of the Major Arcana.
Of course. I’d have bet anything I’d pull that card tonight. It was the card of new beginnings. The start of a journey. It signified spontaneity and taking a blind leap of faith.
Wasn’t that what this whole venture was? A fool’s errand that I’d placed an uncanny amount of faith in? Wasn’t that the card I pulled the night I asked Gus if he wanted to do this?
The Fool told me I was still on track.
I turned over the next two. Shit. Judgement and the Four of Swords. Both reversed.
Oh, Four of Swords, reversed, you judgmental bitch.
“My eyes are not closed. I’m not avoiding anything,” I said to the woman lying in her tomb with the swords pointing at her body. Except maybe I was avoiding what was waiting for me out on the patio. Or up in our bed.
But no, he said we’d wait before we added the physical side. I didn’t need to bereadyready. Not tonight.
If the Fool was the first card, Judgement was the penultimate, and it basically showed me what I already knew about myself. That even though I was nearing the completion of something, I was reluctant to move forward.
Story of my life.
None of these cards predicted the future. That wasn’t what tarot did. Not for me, anyway. They were just pictures, really. Art. Like a Jackson Pollock painting, but prettier (no offence to Pollock) and much easier to glean knowledge from.
