Palm Reading at Coney Island

The old woman's shop smelled of dried sage and secrets. Her own palms were upturned on the scarred wooden table, lines etched like riverbeds. The woman across from her—part tattoo artist, part sphinx—studied them with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

"You've been holding onto something," the woman said, her voice gravel-deep. "See this break in your heart line? You let go of what you thought was your future."

She thought of David, of the baseball diamond where they'd met in college, of his left-handed swing like poetry in motion. She thought of the lightning in Colorado last summer, how it had illuminated his face in their hotel room when he told her he couldn't do this anymore, couldn't be with someone who wanted more than he could give.

The woman traced a finger along her lifeline. "You're approaching a crossroads. The cards say you already know what you need to do."

Outside, thunder rattled the shop's single window. Summer storm approaching, fitting. Her phone buzzed in her pocket—David again, three messages since yesterday. She'd been reading his old baseball glove in his apartment last week, the leather worn smooth where his palm had rested through a thousand practices, and found herself weeping over something as simple as a signature inside: "To my favorite catcher, always. Mom."

She'd slipped the glove into her bag before leaving. Theft, really, but she needed something tangible to hold while she figured out whether to keep waiting for him to grow up or finally grow past him.

"The sphinx riddles you," the woman said suddenly, as if reading her thoughts. "But you already have the answer. You just need to trust yourself enough to speak it."

She paid the woman and walked out into the humid air. Lightning cracked the sky open, and for the first time in months, she reached for her phone and typed: "I'm done waiting. I'm done being your maybe."