put the basket down and sat opposite us on the sofa. “Leigh Ann, there’s a difference between having psychic ability and immersing yourself in it.”
“I’m a medium, Mom. I can’t help it anymore than you can.”
“But you can control it.”
“I do, Mother. But Terence has unfinished business on Earth, probably to do with some missing classical compositions he wrote. I’ve done my best to help him find them, and I worded the letter carefully. Not a hint of anything psychic in it. If the letter fails and his lost music doesn’t surface, maybe he’ll be able to let it go. But at least he’ll know I tried.”
“But it’s not your job to find his music. It’s one thing to deliver a message from a spirit to surviving relatives or friends who request that communication. It’s also acceptable to help spiritfolk let go of the mortal concerns that hold them Earthbound. But they have to do the work, not you. You can’t cohabit with them as if they were still physical.” She leaned toward me, both her tone and blue eyes intense. “Trying to balance two dimensions is a precarious tightrope act. You know the psychic’s first rule for emotional stability. Our primary allegiance is always to the living, Leigh Ann.”
I shifted my own gaze away from that sharp maternal glare. I knew I was being advised to set limits, uncompromising limits, on my interaction with spiritual entities. “You want me to impose strict rules on myself. We share similar talents, and you’ve taught me well to measure my experiences carefully and protect myself. But I’m an individual, and our experiences may not be the same or call for the same limitations. Mine may even require an openness in areas yours don’t. You’re going to have to trust me to judge those experiences on my own terms if you want me to learn and grow from them. I’m not a child anymore.”
She slowly shook her head. “Sometimes I wish . . .”
“. . . that I had never inherited your gift,” I finished for her. “Mother, has it ever occurred to you that the gift isn’t inherited, that it comes from a different source? And the reason you also have the talent is to help me over the initial development of my own talent? There is a point where the mother bird has to let its young leave the nest.”
She smirked with all the insouciance a redhead could muster. “But, darling, you have returned to the nest. And helping you to develop does include passing on the wisdom of my own 25 years of hobnobbing with the dead.”
“You need to trust me, Mother.”
“I need you to be trustworthy,” she countered firmly.
“Then give me a chance.”
My mother sighed, then gave me a hard glance that seemed to war between foreboding and faith, before rising and picking up her basket of freshly ironed clothes. “Will you let me have a final say?”
I nodded. “I’m listening.”
“Then a short piece of advice. Keep your psychic encounters firmly separate from your everyday mortal life. Mortal needs weren’t meant to be fulfilled in the nonmortal realm. It can be dangerous, can lure you away from our world. Safeguard yourself. Draw a line. Let no one force you across it.”
“That’s intelligent advice, Mom, and I do intend to follow it. But there may be exceptions to that rule . . . and I may have to extend that line to explore them, for reasons that may go beyond any normal mortal life you and I may want me to have. But I promise you I’ll respect my responsibilities and my needs and not let anything interfere with their fulfillment or their stability.”
She hugged the basket closer to herself, as if its weight might symbolically anchor her to the solid and real. Then she nodded, and I knew I had gained a measure, at least, of her trust. “I hold you to that promise, Leigh Ann. Confide in me or don’t, as you see fit. But remember that this mortal world will always demand at least the illusion of your acceptance of its laws of nature and of the limitations those laws seem to impose. Don’t hurt yourself. Don’t try to make the whole world conform to your visions.”
“I’m not stupid, mother.” I gazed down at Daniel, busily studying the taste and shape of his fingers. “I know how to keep my visions to myself.”
“Then God watch over you, Leigh Ann and guide you to make the right decisions. And I’ll trust you to balance your own life and seek your own wisdom as you live it.”
It took a moment to sink in, to understand the full impact of her concession. My mother had relinquished control, bestowing on me the mantle of maturity, the privilege of my own choices, the responsibility for their outcome. “Thank you,” I murmured. A rite of passage, however subtle its ceremony.
“Now I’m going to unload the ironing before my arms give out.” She headed upstairs. “We’ll prepare dinner when I come down. In the meantime, you might compose your resume for those job interviews. I wouldn’t count on a reward for that music. I don’t know who you wrote to, but unless you luck out, it’ll probably end up in some dead letter box in England.”
I sensed Terence standing by the foot of the stairs, looking up at Mother’s retreating figure. —Was that a joke?— he called after her.
She either didn’t hear or ignored him. I hoisted Daniel up, taking him to the kitchen and setting him in his high chair, while I warmed up his four o’clock bottle and found some paper and a pen.
I held Daniel’s bottle up for him with my left hand, drafting my resume with my right.
For one sardonic minute, I considered putting down gardener and musical detective as past employment, then laughed at my silliness and got down to serious work. I listed the few jobs I had temporarily held; I had last worked as a typist at the certified public accounting firm in New York City until the last three months of my pregnancy. Detailing my minimal job experience as impressively as possible, I added a statement of my employment goals and finished the resume with a one-line listing of my hobbies. I didn’t include psychic phenomena on the list, although I sorely wished I lived in a world in which I could, without fearing its mockery and rejection.
I set the resume aside for later typing, burped Daniel and held him, musing over the nearly irreconcilable difference between my mother’s and my own approach to psychic exploration. Mother treated her own unique talent with an ironclad caution, prepared to protect herself, whether against spiritual evil or the disdain of a mortal world with limited vision. I knew, with a deep gut knowledge, that I would explore beyond the sensible boundaries my mother had erected. I would be the one to extend the barriers rigid science and timid religions laid, refusing to acknowledge the versatility dimensional reality might possess. I would be the one to burst through the mold of mortal denial, to overcome the fear and embrace the universe with a child’s sense of wonder, unafraid of the challenges ahead, welcoming the risks.
I would be the one to chance opening a communication between two worlds—possibly three—since time immemorial closed off to one another.
I had no foreknowledge of how I would work this miracle. I only knew, felt, the pull of a path being laid before me. I would follow it where it led, only certain that the Creator guided me and would help me along the way.
As Leigh Ann Elfman, I would live my mortal life as honorably and as honestly as I could without denying my own uniqueness and vision.
As Leianna, I would seek to repair, and once again hold dear, bonds between loved ones long ago torn apart. I could see the fabric rewoven, a tapestry of souls throughout
