The Last Palm Reading

Mira's thumb hovered over her iPhone screen, watching the message bubble appear and disappear, appear and disappear. Thomas was typing. Then not. Then typing again. In their kitchen, the spinach wilted in the colander, forgotten.

He sat at the island, uncharacteristically silent. Their marriage counselor had suggested this: a weekend without screens, without the constant cable of notifications that tethered them to everyone except each other. But here they were, thirty-six hours in, and the damn phone sat between them like a loaded gun.

"You're doing it again," Thomas said, not looking up from his coffee. "The thing with your palm."

Mira froze. She'd been unconsciously rubbing her left palm, nervous habit since childhood. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do." He finally met her eyes. "You did it at dinner with my boss. You did it at your sister's wedding. You do it whenever you're about to tell me something, then decide not to."

The spinach hit the counter with a wet slap. Mira abandoned the breakfast prep.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. I met someone."

Thomas didn't flinch. "The bull from logistics?"

"He's not a bull, Thomas. He's just... direct."

"He's an animal who doesn't understand nuance." Thomas stood, his chair scraping against the floor. "But that's what you want, isn't it? Someone who doesn't see through you."

"See through me?"

"You think I don't know about the readings. The palm readings." Thomas's voice dropped. "The ones you do at lunch, in your car. The ones you charge for under the table. The ones you told me were 'just a phase' in graduate school."

Mira's palm tingled. She'd been giving readings for six months, supplementing their income, too ashamed to admit she'd fallen back into the family superstition she'd spent a decade escaping. Not the money—never the money. The admitting that she believed in something scientifically impossible. That part of her still craved the certainty of predictions, of fate, of anything written in stone.

"I was going to tell you," she said. "When the timing was right."

"The timing is never right with you." Thomas reached for her hand, the one with the palm she'd rubbed raw with uncertainty. "That's why you need someone else's lines to read. Because you won't write your own."

Her phone buzzed. Once. Twice.

"That's him, isn't it?" Thomas said, already walking toward the door. "The direct one. Who probably doesn't know you at all."

Mira watched him go, her left palm tingling, the forgotten spinach turning to slime on the counter, her iPhone finally still.