I HAD FINALLY GOTTEN used to the voices. Now I was seeing and smelling things as well. Doves in a giant birdcage; a cat that looked like my stray; the scent of vanilla. Good thing Veronica and I were visiting Maya today. I needed a diversion to get my head back on straight.
The familiar hum and cut of my Jeep’s engine drew my attention to the back driveway. A door slammed and minutes later Veronica walked into the kitchen waving a stack of papers. I hadn’t even known she was gone. “I went back to the library for information on the Guidepost Treatment Facility where Maya works.” She swept the kitchen counters with her gaze, as if expecting a plate of freshly baked cookies to replace the one she’d wiped clean during our talk about the upstairs studio and cat. No go. Baking wasn’t on my priority list right now.
“The Guidepost is headquartered in an old Victorian like this one,” she said. “Just think, Anne could set up a similar substance abuse program here.”
Anne, nurse, caregiver, and witch doctor, helping the weak and defeated. Right up her alley. “And we could help her,” I said, knowing this wasn’t an option.
“Sick people don’t bring out the best in me,” Veronica said, “especially when their illnesses are self-inflicted.”
Veronica’s comment about alcoholism being self-inflicted was harsh, but, yes, drinking was a choice, at least until addiction set in. To argue otherwise would mean our father was powerless to overcome his dependence.
Veronica wiggled the papers in her hand. “You’ve got to hear these testimonials. Some addicts sounded just like Dad before they turned their lives around. Do you think it’s possible?”
“For Dad to turn his life around?”
Veronica read from one page, “‘In twenty-eight days, I achieved sobriety, which is now leading me to the road of recovery and back to joyous living.’” She dropped her head and zeroed in on the ceiling, the muscles in her neck working as if fighting a private battle. She cleared her throat and said, “Hell, what am I thinking? Dad would never check into a facility like this. Too proud.” She folded the papers and put them into her bag. “Plus, he likes drinking too much.”
“Let’s forget about Bob for now,” I said, “and concentrate on Maya. Do you know how to get there?”
“Yeah, though the place may be off limits for drop-ins, to protect the identity of its patients.”
“Let’s ask for Maya and see what happens,” I said.
“Won’t know till we try.”
❂❂❂
The Guidepost Treatment Facility appeared open and accessible, not at all the prison-like edifice I’d envisioned it to be. Plenty of parking, which meant visitors were likely encouraged to stop by to look up family and friends. The main house was as Veronica had described it, a large Victorian similar to Anne’s, with a wraparound porch, even a turret.
“No wonder Maya likes it here,” I said.
The grounds were carpeted in lush grass, edged by trimmed hedges and dotted with deciduous trees and evergreens. Pink and red camellias added to the mix, signaling “Welcome” more effectively than a sign ever would, no matter how well-crafted and lettered.
When Veronica and I entered the front office, the receptionist and people clustered around her desk stopped talking and stared. “Well, I’ll be,” said a man in tan shorts and a blue polo shirt. “I finally get sober, and I’m still seeing things.”
“Oh dear,” the receptionist said. “Oh dear, oh dear. I’m seeing the same thing, Pete, and I’ve been a teetotaler all my life.”
“Are you Maya’s sisters?” asked a meticulously dressed and coiffed woman. She reminded me of my adoptive mother, only more cheerful.
Veronica and I glanced at each other and smiled.
“Heck,” said Pete. “What a question. Not only sisters, but triplets. Good God, three Maya’s. I call that hitting the jackpot.”
“You sure are pretty,” someone said, “Just like—”
“And, heeeere’s Maya,” Pete announced, imitating Johnny Carson’s jovial sidekick, Ed McMahon.
Maya worked her way through the crowd—hugging, patting backs, and kissing cheeks—before greeting us with a wide grin. “What took you so long?”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t, not with that giant boulder in my throat. If Maya were running for office, she’d be a shoe-in. No one here seemed to notice—or care about—Maya’s so-called disfigurement.
“You must love your job,” Veronica said, sweeping her hand to include the room and all its occupants.
Maya considered the growing crowd and frowned. “Well, sort of.”
Her fans booed, and my heart filled. Maya appeared to love, and be loved by, the folks at the Guidepost Treatment Facility. Unconditionally. How good was that?
“Could we talk in private?” Veronica asked, her voice raspy. “Or do we need to make an appointment?”
Maya scratched her head. “Guess I can make an exception for the two of you this once.” She turned to the receptionist and sighed. “Would it be possible for me to take my lunch break early, Laura?”
Laura chuckled and waved her on. “Silly goose. Go on. Have a good time.”
Maya led us through a side door into a small garden featuring a gazebo with two concrete benches. “Welcome to our facility.”
“You’re quite appreciated here,” I said.
Maya’s eyes took on the sheen of brilliant cut sapphires with liquid inclusions. “Some patients come to us near the point of suicide and are so inebriated they’re hallucinating and having black outs. Others...well, you get the picture. Every time one of them gets well, it’s like a small miracle, for which we’re forever grateful.”
Neither Veronica nor I spoke, letting stillness do the talking as it does so well. I closed my eyes and took in the scent of mown grass, ocean air, and coastal flowers.
“Would you like to attend one of our workshops?” Maya asked.
I lifted my shoulders and let them drop. Anything, if it meant getting closer to our sister. “Sure, why not?”
“Isn’t there an issue of privacy involved?” Veronica asked. “I wouldn’t want to piss off any of your patients.”
You’d think we were seated in a cave rather than a slatted gazebo, the way Maya’s laugh bounded and echoed back to us. “Are you kidding? Seeing double, even triple is nothing new to them. Plus, you may be healers. Genetics, you know.”
Veronica tossed her hair over her shoulder. “That would be a new one.”
Maya stood. “Come on. You can help me set up.”
❂❂❂
I stared at the cards spread out on Maya’s desk with a sense of déjà vu. “These look just like the Nessa’s Soul Cards.”
“Nessa?” Maya shot me a highbrowed look that reminded me of Veronica in her detective mode. “Did she tell you where I—”
“No,” Veronica said after a quick glance in my direction. “She said we’d have to find you on our own.”
Maya’s laugh sounded like the ringing of bells announcing something sacred about to happen. “Remind me to thank her later.” At our frowns, she added, “People often become more motivated in their search when information is withheld.” She looked at Veronica and winked. “It brings out their detective skills.”
“Our love for you is motivation enough,” I said. “So please, don’t hold out on us again. We’ve missed out on twenty-nine years together. Let’s not waste another minute.”
Maya frowned, but before she could express what was on her mind, a monarch drifted into the room through an open window. It landed on a Soul Card of a smiling woman, arms raised, as though releasing her will—and destiny—to something higher than herself. An angel in the illustration hovered above the woman, veiling her with its golden light.
“Soon you’ll see monarchs all over Pacific Grove,” Maya said, as though there were nothing out of the ordinary in what we were witnessing. I knew better though. I’d learned to look for messages everywhere. The trick was translating them into a language I could understand.
That’s how the earth journey had been going for me, a journey I didn’t instigate or relish, but continued to travel hoping to find a reason for being here, or at least a meaningful destination. Messages bombarded me from all directions, but in most cases, I lacked the ability to interpret them, except through hindsight when it was often too late. So, I wasn’t about to let this butterfly’s message go unheeded, as it appeared Maya intended to do. At least not without trying to crack the code. “Maya,” I said in a low voice, so not to startle the butterfly. “What does it mean?”
I expected an evasive answer, similar to the one Nessa had given us when we’d quizzed her about the Soul Cards. Instead, she said, “Many profound spiritual experiences are highlighted by natural events.”
“So, you, too, sense that the monarch’s appearance means something.”
“Open to individual interpretation, of course.”
“Of course,” I said. The butterfly lifted and fluttered back out through the window.
“It probably coincided with something you were thinking,” Veronica said.
This from my cynical sister? “Are you calling it a coincidence?”
“Not a coincidence,” she qualified, poking me in the arm. “I have learned something during my hibernation in the basement. What were you thinking just before the butterfly landed?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You said we’d missed out on twenty-nine years together,” Maya said, “and not to waste another minute.”
Veronica looked pleased. “Therefore, something about the butterfly must represent time.”
“In what way?” I asked.
She scratched her head in pretense of deep thought. “Let me see now. The monarch larva starts out as a tiny caterpillar that eats until it’s too big for its own skin. Then it sheds its old skin four or five times, growing bigger and bigger and sheaths itself into a cocoon which melts away, and then voilà! A butterfly.”
“Thanks for the science lesson,” I said. “So how does this bring us any closer to figuring out the butterfly’s supposed message?”
Veronica looked at Maya and shrugged. “As Maya said, it’s open to individual interpretation.”
“In parts of Mexico,” Maya said, “people believe the spirits of departed loved ones come on the wings of monarch butterflies. And the special places in which the butterflies gather, where the temperature is warm, and the butterfly is sheltered from the cold and the wind, are called ‘magic circles.’ We have two of our very own here in Pacific Grove.”
Magic circles? I thought of the labyrinth and the medicine wheel and felt a surge of understanding well up inside, followed by hope.
At the sound of conversation and laughter in the hallway, Maya looked at the clock. “Oh, oh, almost out of time, and we still need to roll out ink for the touch drawings.”