Although Mayra had some very clear and solid memories of her mother, most of what she knew about Adina came from the stories her father used to tell. Of course, she was only able to properly hear the stories after the debilitating grief of her mother’s death had abated, after the many counselling sessions, and when she was finally able to cope, when she became afraid she was forgetting her mother, she hounded her father to repeat the stories over and over again and bless his heart, he did so despite the pain it caused himself.

“Adina grew up with her mother in a single parent household,” her father said. “Some men aren’t meant to be part of a family, so her father left as soon as the pregnancy was announced. Your grandmother kept a full-time job and took on extra work to help make ends meet which meant your mother had to fend for herself around the house. Her relationship with her mother was mostly good, they were more like sisters than mother and daughter but as work slowed down, money became tight and job offers became scarce, her mother started to drink and that put a strain on the family income and their relationship.

“Your mother was a little older than you are now when she had to get a part-time job after school and when her mother’s drinking problem got worse, school was no longer an option as she had to start working full-time in order to pick up the slack. Then, because misery loves company, your grandmother met a guy who liked lonely women who liked to drink. He moved in shortly afterward and suddenly there were three people living in a one-bedroom apartment but only one and a half of them were working. Her mother’s new boyfriend somehow became the man of the house without actually bringing home any of the bacon. He never got fresh or raised a hand to your mother but just because he wasn’t physically abusive, that didn’t make him a good guy. He was a passive aggressive prick—”

“Dad!” young Mayra chided.

“Sorry, kiddo, but some things you just can’t sugarcoat. He was a prick, and I never want to hear you using that word.”

“But you just said—”

“Never mind what I said, and quit interrupting unless you want me to stop telling the story. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Mayra wanted to prove her point but wanted to hear the more so she gave in.

“Okay, so he was a loser, is that better, a jerk who was quick with a snarky comment or a put down that sucked every iota of positivity out of the room. After an exhausting journey of maneuvering around the adults’ rocky relationship, and after an argument that was an aggregate of all the pettiness that had occurred between them since the day they first met and after her mother sided with the prick over her, your mother packed her belongings and left home and never looked back. Years later, when she learned of her mother’s death, she regretted not having the strength to stay and force that loser out of their lives and help her mother sober up. Of all the regrets in her life, that was the biggest.”

Then Mayra’s father told her about convergence points but her young ears at the time heard it as virgin points and she thought that it had something to do with the Virgin Mary because that was the only association she had with the word at the time so she thought virgin meant holy. Years later, even when she realized what her father actually said, she still thought of them as virgin points because some names just stuck. Her father believed that things like fate and destiny weren’t stored in people because there were simply too many variables involved within a human being and their free will. He thought fate actually ran beneath the surface of the planet like ley lines or energy and purpose that connected at certain spots just waiting for a collision to occur in order to activate a destiny.

He firmly believed that the 22-year-old Adina, with a battered suitcase in her hand and nowhere to live stepped on and activated one of those virgin points when she ran into a childhood friend she hadn’t seen since she left school to work full time. After a bit of a catch up and explaining her situation, her friend said she was sharing a place with two other childhood mates and offered Adina a place to stay until she got back on her feet. It was a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx and after some hemming and hawing the roommates gave the okay. The two roommates shared the bedroom while Adina and her friend took the pull-out sofa. They all worked at a temp agency and got Adina a job there as well. They were scratching and surviving, just barely able to make rent and bills.

“Then one day your mother had her hands full with bags from some greasy takeout joint, not looking where she was going and she bumps into a man…”

“And that man was you,” Mayra chimed in.

“Say, have you heard this story before?’

“Only a bazillion times.”

“I can stop telling it,” her father teased.

“No, pleaseeeeee.”

“So yes, your mother bumps into me and she drops the take-out food she bought with the last of her money and just stares at food scattered all over the pavement and began laughing until it turned to tears. Naturally, I offered to replace her meal but your mother wasn’t big on the idea of accepting handouts so she turned me down. It took me a good fifteen minutes to convince her it wasn’t a handout and there were no strings attached and that I’d feel terrible if she didn’t allow me to make up for my mistake.”

“But you said she bumped into you.”

“Sometimes being kind is better than being right, you’d do well to remember that. Reluctantly, your mother let me take her to a diner that was close by and there was a Help Wanted sign in the window. The place was packed, filled with angry customers trying to get the attention of the overburdened waitress on staff. So, your mother, still not totally sold on accepting anything from a stranger, marches up the owner and offers him a proposition. She offered to work a shift immediately in exchange for a meal for herself and for me and if she didn’t screw things up royally, he’d take the sign down from the window and she gets the job. All it was going to cost him was two meals so of course he accepted, and watching your mother work and handle the irate customers with patience and kindness, that’s when I knew I was going to do everything within my power to marry that woman. And you know what, kiddo? It turned out the very spot we bumped into one another was the same place she ran into her childhood friend. That’s when I knew convergence points existed.”

But Mayra knew virgin points hadn’t always brought about good luck for that very same spot was where a taxi hopped the curb and ended her mother’s life while she was on her way to work.

***

Mayra bit down on her lip and her voice quivered as she said, “Mom?”

Adina, translucent in the light of the diner, turned around slowly, cocked her head slightly, her eyes registering a familiarity she couldn’t quite place. Mayra realized that she was only a little girl when her mother last laid eyes on her.

“Mom, it’s me, Mayra.”

Adina’s expression brightened and her kind smile broadened as the recognition came.

“This is bad,” Bethany said, approaching Mayra from behind.

“You’re wrong. This is great,” Mayra replied. “I’ve got my mom back.”

“No, you’re not thinking this through. Your mom being here, all those other spirits being here means we have proof that Heaven’s gone. What does that mean for us? If there’s no Heaven, what happens when we die? Are we going to get stuck wandering Earth for all time?”

Bethany’s concerns were lost on Mayra, whose total concentration was on her mother. She reached out to touch her mother’s face, and suddenly everything went wrong.

To Be Continued…

©2017-2020 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys