Learning

Sarah pressed the Hierophant card into Bridget’s hand. “Start with this one since you had a strong reaction to it.”

Bridget looked at the pompous man in red with the sycophants at his feet and said, “I had a strong reaction to that moon card, too. Can’t I start with it?”

Sarah smiled at her niece and said, “No, it will be your last card, one to look forward to as you make your way through this deck, one card at a time. That’s the best way to learn them.”

“So what should I do with it?”

“Study it closely, look at it, and ask yourself why you don’t like it. Make a sketch of it–drawing it yourself will help you focus. First, draw it as it is, then draw variations on it, make it your own. We’ll discuss it and I’ll look at your sketches before we move on to the next card.”

Bridget nodded, and Sarah handed her a sketchbook and pencil. “I doubt your mother would approve of this, so let’s just let it be our little secret, okay?”

Bridget, delighted at the idea of having a secret of her own, beamed up at her aunt and clutched the sketchbook to her developing chest.

When Sarah hinted that she could use a nap, Bridget tucked the card in the back pocket of her jeans and set off for the creek with the sketchpad and a pencil.

She found her spot about halfway down the bank, a small hollow cradled by river birch roots. Bridget nestled into it, leaning back against the clay of the bank, and pulled the card out of her pocket. She sketched the pillars flanking the hierophant's throne first, then the bald men at his feet. The doves were next. Although Bridget wasn't much of a giggler, she had to suppress one when she noticed how much his headdress resembled Mama's centerpiece on the dining room table, where they ate special occasion meals. Bridget hated the dining room with its cold, unused air, table always set but no one eating.

While she was sketching, she saw the woman Brax had followed. She was walking through the woods with a basket, stopping here and there to cut a growth of mushrooms off a tree or pick some berries. Bridget watched with such intensity that the woman felt her eyes and turned her attention to the creek. When she saw Bridget nearly camouflaged into the bank, she approached her.

"That's a great spot to sit and sketch or write, or whatever. Which are you doing, sketching, writing, or whatevering?" A mischievous smile teased the corners of her wide, pink mouth under a freckled nose.

The adrenaline prickling Bridget's everything subsided when Bridget saw the smile, the good-natured crinkles at the corners of her eyes, fine lines of mirth rather than crevices of grief put parentheses around her mouth when the smile abated.

"I'm Jane," the woman said, sweeping a mane of auburn hair over her shoulder. "I hope I'm not intruding." A jackrabbit skedaddled out of the brush at the top of the bank when she approached.

Bridget smiled back. "You're new here, aren't you?"

Jane nodded. "Just getting settled, haven't met much of anyone to speak of."

"My Aunt Sarah just moved back. I bet y'all will be good friends."

Jane smiled at the child's idea that this was enough common ground for grown women to build a relationship on, but who knew, maybe this Sarah would turn out to be a kindred spirit. "Do you know where I live?"

Bridget nodded.

"Why don't you bring her over for tea Sunday afternoon?"

Bridget agreed, and Jane continued foraging for mushrooms, herbs, and berries. When she disappeared, Bridget returned to her sketch.

Sunlight streamed through the open curtains in the living room Sunday morning when Mama woke everyone for church, fussing that they couldn't be late today of all days: what would the new pastor think?

Bridget waited until time to go to put on her stockings. Mama insisted on them for church and said they would be required on any dates Bridget thought she might be going on. It wasn't exactly a chastity belt, but every layer of clothing between her daughter and those nasty boys was a layer of insulation against pregnancy, and it was strictly enforced.

Once, Bridget took off her tights in the bathroom when she got to school and forgot to put them back on before she came home. The repercussions were severe.

When they arrived at the Methodist church, Mama quickly inventoried the cars in the parking lot before carrying a poundcake into the fellowship hall for the reception for the new pastor.

They took their seats in the fourth pew from the front on the groom's side of the church. Pew hierarchy wasn't as strict and rigorous as in the Baptist church, but Mama prided herself on always knowing her place, even if she was wrong half the time. The fourth pew was close enough to the front to be respectable, but safely behind the scrutiny that first trilogy of pews was subject to. There was a difference in making yourself seen and opening yourself up to the judgment of the congregation. Bridget peeled away from her family in the narthex and took a seat in the back with the youth group.

"Who's your mom's friend? She's HOT," Paul whisper-shouted into Bridget's ear as soon as she sat down.

Bridget elbowed him in his flannel-sheathed ribs. "She's not her friend, she's her sister. That's my Aunt Sarah, and she's waaaaay out of your league, even if you were old enough. Stop being a prick and swap seats with Lucille."

Soon, the opening chords of the first hymn sounded from the piano, and the choir, behind the pulpit as this church lacked a proper loft and pipe organ, belted out the first verse of "How Great Thou Art" and the procession began. The new pastor was vested in red, and when he took the pulpit, Bridget gasped.

Braxton leaned forward from the pew behind her and whispered, "He looks like that man from Aunt Sarah's devil cards without the fancy hat!"