The Palm Reader's Daughter

The restaurant was dimly lit, the kind of place where thirty-somethings came to pretend they had their lives together. Maya sat across from him, her thumb rubbing absentmindedly over her own palm—a nervous tic she'd inherited from her mother, the woman who'd read fortunes at carnivals until the cancer took her.

'You have spinach in your teeth,' David said, not unkindly.

She laughed, covering her mouth. 'Classy. Really selling the sophisticated career woman vibe.'

They'd been dancing around each other for months. He was married—separated, technically, living in a different apartment, but still wearing the ring. Still tethered to her by some invisible cable that refused to snap, no matter how many times he said it was over.

Outside, lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the restaurant's windows in brief, violent flashes. The storm had been brewing all day, heavy and suffocating, much like the conversation they kept not having.

'My dog died yesterday,' David said suddenly.

Maya's fork froze halfway to her mouth. 'David, I'm so sorry. Buster?'

'He was eighteen.' His voice cracked. 'She got him in the divorce. I haven't seen him in two years, but knowing he's gone—' He pressed his hand against his mouth, eyes bright with unshed tears.

Something shifted between them then. The elephant in the room—the elephant with his ring still on her finger, the elephant named whatever-her-name-was—suddenly seemed less important than the man sitting across from Maya, broken and genuine and finally letting himself be seen.

'My mother used to say she could see everything in the palm of your hand,' Maya said softly. 'But she was just making it up as she went along. Nobody knows what's coming.' She reached across the table and took his hand. 'We're all just guessing.'