The Lines We Cross

The neon sign flickered above—MADAME ZORA'S, in urgent pink letters that seemed to beg for belief. Elena hated it, the way she hated the cable-knit sweater she wore to look respectable, the way she'd hated everything since David left three months ago.

"You're not listening," the woman said, spreading her hand on the velvet tablecloth. Her palm was lined deep, like a map of somewhere she'd actually been. "I need to know if he's coming back."

Elena looked at the hand—soft, expensive, the manicure fresh. This woman whose name she didn't know paid eighty dollars for hope. Elena's job was to manufacture it, assembly line style, palm after palm after palm.

"I see..." Elena began, then stopped. A single hair—dark, coarse—had fallen on the woman's wrist. From a man's arm, or chest. Elena thought of David's hair against her pillow, how she'd cried into it that last morning.

"You see what?" The woman's voice sharpened.

"I see you already know the answer." Elena surprised herself. "This line here—it branches. Like you're standing at a crossroads."

The woman pulled her hand back. "That's not what I came for. I came for certainty."

"Certainty's expensive. Eighty dollars buys you probability."

The woman laughed, startled. "You're terrible at this."

"I know." Elena thought of the baseball games her father took her to, how she'd loved the statistics, the possibility baked into every pitch. David had hated baseball. Called it boring. Another small thing she'd overlooked.

"My father," the woman said, "used to say palm reading was for people who couldn't face their own hand in front of their face. But he's gone now, and I keep—" She pressed her palm to her chest. "I keep hoping someone can tell me something I don't already know."

Elena reached across the table. Not to read. Just to touch.

"He's not coming back," Elena said. "But you already knew that."

The woman's eyes filled. She didn't cry. Just nodded, once, like something had finally clicked into place.

"Eighty dollars well spent," she said, dropping the money on the table. "Thanks for the truth."

After she left, Elena turned off the neon sign. In the quiet, she looked at her own palm, the lines branching, branching. Picked up her phone. David's number was still there, thumb-smudged from all the times she'd almost called.

She pressed delete. Then called her father. The baseball season had started. Maybe they could catch a game.