April Dies in March

A psychic told my pregnant mom I would die in March, so she named me April.

But I didn’t know that until last week.

See, every year, while my mom was still with us, she’d get weird around February. She’d shutter up the windows. She’d pour all of the cleaning supplies down the drain. She’d box up the kitchen knives.

On February 28th, she would put together a small bag of clothes and leave on ‘a trip.’ My grandma would come stay at the house. She’d take me to school and cook and clean. My mom would occasionally call to check in, her short breaths punctuating curt questions.

“Are you safe? Are you ok? Please tell me you’re ok.”

And after I answered, she’d hang up. I had no idea why. I just wanted to talk with her. I missed her.

On every April 1st, she’d reappear. She’d knock at the door and then hug me and squeeze me and kiss my cheeks. She’d grab my face with her sweaty hands and kiss my forehead, thanking god and then she would turn to my grandma and thank her too. She’d twirl me around and sing and smile. I missed her smile. We’d have a big dinner, celebrating the start of April- “your month!” she’d say- and then my grandma would pack up and leave.

My mom died on February 28th while packing up the kitchen knives. Her hands must have been shaky. I’m told one must have flipped out of her hand and sliced open her upper thigh. According to the doctors, she bled out within minutes. I found her when I got home from school, lying on the floor, blood around her ankles and hips, her hair matted and split.

That was when I was 16. I moved in with my grandma and we never celebrated ‘my month’ again.

Nevertheless, every year after my mom’s death, I’d start to get nervous around February just like she did. As if I had inherited her nervousness and her freneticism, winter would bring with it the feeling of doom. The impulse to prepare would press into my skull, squeezing me like her hands had done. I’d de-knife my kitchen, pour out my cleaning supplies, and walk more carefully up the stairs.

As my grandma got older, I started to take on more around the house. I did the cooking and cleaning. Then I started helping her with bathing and feeding. And a week ago, I stood next to her in the hospital, holding her hand tightly, trying to squeeze her back to buoyancy. But it wasn’t much working. As she slipped away, she mustered up the air to push out

“April, I have something I have to give you, from your mother.”

She handed me an envelope and then breathed out forever.

I didn’t open it until after I got home, showered, ate. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of any of that after reading what I feared would be a suicide note that my grandmother had kept hidden from me.

Instead, it was just a page ripped out from what must have been my mother’s diary, detailing the day she went to the psychic who told her I would die in March. There was also a business card in the envelope- for a psychic.

All the years of precautions and prayers were a result of this… prophecy, I guess? Did my mother die doing what she thought she had to do to protect me?

Reading the letter felt like when you go from having a nagging suspicion that something is watching you at night to catching its eyes looking back at you in the dark.

Now, I'm sitting here a week later.

Ever since my grandma’s death, the business card has been sitting on the table, staring me down with its yellow eyes and sharp black pupils.

I’m not even superstitious. I don’t believe some random psychic can know when an unborn fetus will die. The fact that I get nervous every February is just because my mom did.

Still, the card is digging into me. I feel ridiculous doing it but I have to look up the psychic shop.

It’s only a couple of hours away. But I would never actually go.

I mean. It’s just ridiculous. None of this is real. But. But this year’s March is only a few weeks away. Maybe I should go talk to her just to get some answers, some closure, some… well to get this weight off of me before March comes. But I can’t bring myself to. How do I even know if it’s the same psychic? Maybe she died years ago.

I wait a week. Pretending I’m doing so out of respect for my grandma. I’m mourning her, of course.

I can’t stop thinking about the psychic.

Ok. I’ll just give her a call and see if it’s still her.

A confident voice, a voice that has lived forever, pushes through the speaker, “Hello, my dear. How can I help you today?”

It’s her. I just know.

I can’t breathe.

Can’t speak or think.

I’m paralyzed, and let the phone slip out of my hand onto the floor, where it smashes against the tile and hangs itself up. She might as well just come and kill me herself.

It’s late February and I have to see her before March. I have to get this over with before March. I have to end this nonsense before March. Before I. Just… before March.

I can’t keep putting it off. There’s only a few days of February left.

I can’t go today.

Or today either.

I can’t go on February 28th, not the day my mom died. I can’t bear that. I can’t.

But, now it’s March.

I never even packed up my knives. I never shuttered my windows. There’s bleach in the cabinet that I forgot to pour down the drain.

Yet what sticks out to me like a dagger in this house is still the psychic’s business card and it's stopping me from being able to fall asleep. I have to go talk to her.

I pack a small bag, in case I need to stay for the night. I’m not actually worried anything will happen, I’m just doing it in case I get tired after meeting with her and want to get a room for the night.

I put some protein bars and water bottles in the bag just in case.

While driving, I can’t stop thinking about all this. How’d my mom even end up there? It was hours from our house in a city she never lived in. She never mentioned going to psychics before. I could die any moment. For what? Because a psychic said so. A psychic whose prophecy killed my mom. A psychic who pointed at the pregnant woman sitting across from her and said her child would die?

I gasp for air, not realizing I hadn’t actually breathed in a while, and then turn up the radio to help bring me back into the real world. My hands had been squeezing the steering wheel so hard that they were shaking and weak. I loosen my grip and breathe fully now, tapping my left foot on the rubber mat.

The sun is dipping. I turn the radio up more. My eyelids are dropping and not rising as quickly as they normally do. But I have to keep going.

After about 40 minutes, I start to get hungry so I pull over. I can use a sandwich. I need something to chew on other than the idea that I could die at any moment. I never let myself get ham and cheese because it’s too childish. Today, I’m getting ham and cheese. Chips too. 

I hadn’t eaten all day before that, before driving for hours. What was I thinking? Was I even thinking? I wasn’t.

I’ve had worse sandwiches before.

That’s my exit.

That’s the road.

and… that’s the psychic shop.

It looks like nothing. Like every psychic shop. What makes her so special? A dim neon sign reads “Walk-ins Welcome.”

The door raps against a set of bells as I open it and I’m engulfed by a burst of incense smoke. The space is dark and as my eyes adjust, a tiny woman walks out of the back room.

I want to hit her. Slam her against the wall. Squeeze her face and shove her to the floor. I want to kill her like she killed like my mother. Like her prediction was trying to kill me.

She smiles at me and asks, “How can I help you, my dear?”

“I… I have some questions.”

She waves me over to a table and motions for me to sit down.

I try to speak. But I can’t. I can’t even think really.

I pull out the ripped page and place it on the table and slide it to her. She picks it up and reads it, but only for a second.

“I remember this perfectly. Your mother, I assume?”

I still can’t speak. I just nod yes.

“So you must be April then.”

I nod again.

“and what brings you here… during March of all months?” She practically whispers the last part.

“You killed her with this prophecy. Prediction. Whatever you want to call it. You killed her. Drove her to madness. Every year, she’d panic. She’d try to protect me from what you told her and it killed her.”

She waited, not breaking away from my eyes but tilting her head, as if to see what I was really getting at.

“I just read the cards, April. And the cards told me that you will die in March.”

“The cards can’t say that.”

Her voice gets a bit coarser, slightly agitated. “I am happy to answer your questions but I have limited patience for someone coming into my shop and telling me how to read cards and I am not particularly interested in you blaming me for the passings of this world either… and as I see you are getting worked up yourself, I feel I must assure you, what I read was not some kind of self fulfilling prophecy where you were doomed to work yourself into a frenzy and die by some horrid accident in an attempt to protect yourself. It’s not that simple.”

I could kill her right here at this table.

“That’s what happened to my mom.”

“My dear, I read about what happened to her. I am sorry for your loss. But my prediction was not about her. She asked me to read the cards. and I read them.”

I stand up, my body stopping me right before deciding whether to fight or flee.

She stands up too and then shouts. 

“You could go skydiving in June and swim with sharks in May. You could parasail and rock climb in December but you are here. In fucking March. I mean look at you. You drove here late at night, you look terrible. You wanted answers? PFFF. You’re not fooling anyone. You want this prediction to kill you. I can feel it.”

She gnashes her teeth back and forth.

“I gave you a gift. I gave you a gift of 11 months of safety, of freedom. And what do you do? You focus on March. We are ALL going to die. And guess what. Most of us don’t have any idea when. But you do. And you squander it.”

I sit back down. She does too, still gnashing her teeth.

The flashing of the restaurant sign across the street casts a warm glow on her face. She never looks away, though I wish she would. Her teeth gnashing turns into softness. My heart starts to slow down and I yawn. Then suddenly I burst out into tears. I cry and cry. I miss my mom, my grandma. I miss when my mom would run around the house preparing for March- I had no idea why. and I miss our April celebrations with her and grandma.

I lay my head down on the table and my tears soak into the old brocade tablecloth, wheezing and gasping.

"I want you to have that life. I don't want you to fear March. I want you to embrace it."

She leans over, softly rubbing my back in circles, like waves. I resist her, but can feel them calming me down anyway.

I awake to the crash of bells. I blink and look around. She’s standing at the front door, holding it open. I stand up, nearly falling as I realize my legs are numb. The tablecloth’s pattern is pressed into my face. I must have fallen asleep and now it’s day time. It's sunny.

She pats the back of my neck as I walk out of the shop and when my foot hits the sidewalk, she closes the door gently behind me.

I start my car, the sandwich wrapping from yesterday is on the floor, surrounded by stray lettuce, banana peppers, and chip crumbs.

I start driving home.

I think from now on, my month will be March.