The Three Magic Eggs of Kaiteriteri

Knock knock knock, April hears at the front door of the cottage. She peeks through the stained glass hummingbird window. It is a man wearing beige loose pants and a light blue t-shirt. He looks like a farmer. He has grey and light brown hair, and is balding on top.

She opens the door a crack. She recognizes the owner of Kaiteriteri Woods. She’d spotted him when she signed in at the lodge, where he was building a fire in the wood-burning stove.

“Kia ora. Welcome to Aroha.” He shows April an egg crate marked "Neusan’s Organics".

He looks in her eyes with robin-blue egg eyes that look serious and a little sad, and says, with a Kiwi accent, “If you will sit on each egg for five minutes, you will receive a wish from each. A miracle. Oh, and the wishes may not be fulfilled in time...the way you would think.”

“Three wishes?” She raises her eyebrows.

Who is this guy?

“This Tasman district on the South Island of New Zealand is the land above the sacred Maori waters. You’ve come a long way. If it’s not too rude to say, you look a bit worn thin. You deserve good things to happen.”

“Wow!” she says, not knowing how to respond. My stress is that obvious?!

Yet he has pierced a layer of defense. It is as if smog has stretched her out for years into nothing but a mirage that no one can see and now fresh air is gathering her back together.

She walks out the front door in the grey sweat pants and shirt she‘s slept in.

He hands her the egg crate. She rests it on the grey, wooden rail. She peeks, lifting the cover several inches. Lifts out two of the eggs, holds one in each hand, then carefully puts them back in the box.

“Wait,” she says. She walks quickly into the cedar wood kitchen. Grasps from the cedar a basket her daughter Frankie made for her at the recovery center. It holds fluffy pink balls that Frankie crocheted. April sets the basket on the small table near the porch swing, lifts the three eggs from the box, and places them onto the balls.

“One second,” she says turning back. She disappears into the cabin. She opens the closet and lifts a small tapestry suitcase down, unzips it, scraping her hand on the zipper, fishes around, creasing clothes, until her hand feels the embroidery and grabs the rim of Ged’s hat. She closes her eyes and holds it for a moment, brailling the floral and line design from Guatemala. She kisses its top.

Walking out the door she hands it to the man. “Keep warm. You have given me a gift that might change my life.”

“It will.”

I’ll try it. I’m in New Zealand. Maybe this happens here every day. Maybe it is influenced by the Maoris. Or…maybe not.

“Did you come to the Tasman to have a big change?”

“Oh yes!” How did he know?

“Most people do. I practice integrative healing,” he says, his long arms hanging at his sides loosely like Raggedy Ann dolls. Would you like a five-minute healing that you perform yourself?”

“Sure.“ What am I getting into? She opens the heavy door. They walk into the living room, in front of the velvet couch. He looks comfortable, as if he owns the place-- which he does.

“Bend your knees slightly.” He places a hand on her back.

While he may think it is only a hand placed to get her to stand straight, it feels like an electric blanket. Electricity radiates in waves through her. A man hasn’t touched me in seven years.

“Imagine cutting the cords from one stressful situation of the past.” She can hardly concentrate on what he is saying. She tries to focus. She imagines making cutting motions from over the top of her head down her front and up her back, cutting the horrors, disappointments, and betrayals, from her daughter Frankie.

“Now imagine your future self as you want to be. Your true self...who you want to be in the future with that situation.

“Now imagine dancing with your future self.

"Lovely,” he comments. "Are you a dancer?”

April smiles. “Not professionally, but I love to dance.” She opens her eyes. This is all new to her. She hopes it works.

“Rest for about an hour,” he suggests.

Feeling more at ease with the farmer she asks, “How do you sit on an egg without it cracking?” She smiles a closed-mouth challenging smile.

“I’d crouch over it, think of wonderful things like mushrooms and my babies --my sheep Elena and Henrietta, and start counting.

"Have fun.”

I’m gullible, she decides on waking from her rest on the couch. What if I told Christy a man came by and told me to sit on three eggs and I’d get three wishes? She imagines her practical friend Christy who’d told her not to go to New Zealand because the flight is too long.

Christy would shake her head and say, "April, do you really believe that if you sit on three New Zealand eggs they will hatch wishes? She’d shake her head, smiling, and say, "This guy probably tells that to all the guests to make them feel they are in a magical country."

Oh my goodness, April thinks. Let’s focus on three wishes. The thought comes to her, could he be teasing me? But I’ll play along. What can I lose?

She daydreams about her 24-year-old daughter Frankie who lives in Redondo Beach. She hasn’t seen her for eight months. Before that a few years of hell.

Then images drift to her mind of her clients at the Pacific Counseling Center. I don’t miss work or the freeways!

April snuggles towards the back of the couch, telling herself all the doubts you would have if a farmer knocked on your door and told you to sit on the egg that would hatch miracles in your life - three miracles that you had been longing for.

But I should make the wishes, she thinks, before my time runs out here. Just in case.

One: For the daughter who’s been in so much distress since Ged's death, who I love more than life itself, to be happy and use her best talents.

Two: To finish my novel that I’ve been working on for twenty-two years.

Three— dare I ask? That I might meet a spiritual, affectionate man, someone who gives service to humanity, is healthy, she emphasizes, who likes God more than tuna fish, she adds, joking. Tuna is her favorite childhood food.

Are these my best wishes? If I had four, I’d wish for good health, and five, to live in a beautiful rural area like this surrounded by flower blossoming in different stages each day.

Now that I’ve decided on three wishes, she thinks, maybe if the cushion rests on this egg, and I sit on the cushion, it will be as if I sat on the egg.

She gets one egg from the Frankie basket and lifts it with three fingers, as if she is playing staccato piano notes. She strokes the shell tenderly as if there is a little chick in it, holds it to her chest, then places the cushion on the egg’s slightly bumpy, speckled side. She scrubs the light lavender velvet of the couch with her right hand back and forth and takes a deep breath.

She thinks of a photo she has of Frankie when she was one, with a yellow bonnet on. Imagines the white box containing her novel draft.

From underneath the couch pillow, she hears a whoosh sound. She thinks it means “Noooooo.”

Have I wished for the wrong thing or things, she wonders?

She sighs, lifts up the velvet cushion, and with thumb and forefinger removes the questionable egg. Or is is me, my thoughts?

She puts the egg back in the Frankie basket.

The next time she has to go to the bathroom, two hours later, she ponders as she sits on the toilet, maybe I can try again and use towels to cushion the egg, and sit on the egg on the toilet seat.

A day without eggs, that’s what I need. At 7:30 am she joins the van going to Motueka, and takes a bus to Abel Tasman National Park. The path into the park opens to a green-turquois clear stream with rocks you can see at the bottom spelling "LOVE", and "SIMON AND KAY".

April meets visitors from Austria, Germany, and Boston as she walks among fern pronds and bushes and trees on both sides on the narrow path.

The following day she bicycles through the town of Upper Moutere, dipping into a view of the white St. Paul Lutheran Church and its steeple, padded by acres of greenery nestling tiny houses. She walks into a cafe in town, and sits at a small white table reading magazines about New Zealand’s history while sipping coffee and eating a meat pie. Afterward she mulls through the Bartlett and Gold Gallery, enjoying the whimsical, vividly colored vases, ceramic purses and shoes, and having a lively conversation with the co-owner..

She wakes the next day remembering something the farmer said. “You deserve a magical time with all you’ve been through.” That part sounds true! What if it is true and my wish will come true? I should give this a chance.

She stands over the toilet, closes her eyes, and exhales skeptical thoughts. Then she opens the wooden cabinet with the crystal knob, takes out five hand towels, and stuffs them around her underpants. She pulls down the last three bath towels, covers the toilet seat with half of them. Holding her breath she places the basket with one egg on one half of the bath towels, and covers the basket with the other half.

She crouches, with much caution, thinks of a white mum she’d loved that lasted forever, and of her first full-body massage decades before. Mmmmmm…

The towels in her pants are lumpy and she feels like a big diapered baby. If Christy could see me now. Five times sixty is three hundred. She counts out loud: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten--" She stops to read the quote she notices hanging on the wall above the toilet paper roll: "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein

Hmmmm… She shifts the towels in her pants. Very uncomfortable.

"Eleven, 12, 13, 14, 15… "

At 254 her “diaper" shimmies and rises. She clutches at the towels at her sides and tries to stay balanced.

She reaches for the ceiling with the flat of her hand. But she lets go as she is lowering downward. She clutches terry cloth at her sides, then tumbles onto what feels like legs and pants. The farmer?

As she untangles her arms and legs she sees that under her lies….the most beautiful young woman, with grey hair tinged with purple.

“Frankie! Excuse me.” April climbs over her daughter, trying not to kick her face. She hugs her. “I can’t believe you are here!"

Frankie laughs. She reaches out her hand to show her mother a sparkling ring, with a smile sparkling too.

Oh, it is s good to see her smile!

“I am so happy Mom, I have found a wonderful partner. And I’ve been hired as an imagineer at Pixar.

"Mom, I love you. I am so grateful for all you’ve done for me. I know I’ve made many mistakes. And I’m sorry.”

April is shocked in a wonderful way to hear thanks and an apology!! In the back of her mind she wonders — did the egg bring her here?!

“I love you, too. Apology accepted. Let’s sit in the living room.”

April wonders, is her partner a man, a woman, someone non-binary, or trans?

“Tell me about your partner and new job. It sounds like just the type of work you like to do.” She pats the lavender cushion beside her.

Frankie sits and points to the ring. “I designed it,” she says. "This is lapis lazuli, with fire opalsmm” Frankie continues, “and flecks of carnelian here."

“Gorgeous.. tell me about your….partner.”

“Armand.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He almost ran me over,” she laughs. “I was crossing the street to get bagels and coffee at that little shop "Nothing Much" by my house, when his Volt just missed hitting me by an inch. A man pulled over, got out, and apologized to me.”

“A Volt - one of the new electric cars.”

“It’s been around a while.”

Did Frankie beam in like on Star Trek? But she doesn’t want to interrupt Frankie.

“I was shook up.”

“I can see why.”

“Armand asked if he could buy me coffee.”

“He held the door and I felt tiny beside him.”

April nodded. “Tall?”

“And skinny. He walked over to the glass case. There were jalapeño cheese bagels, everything bagels, garlic, cinnamon buns, chocolate croissants, and little lemon chiffon pies. He asked me what I like.

“I said, ‘It’s hard to decide. I like them all.’ He brought me three pink boxes with one of everything, and their version of Starbucks ’Iced Vanilla Macchiato'.

“He was carrying a large black portfolio.

“I asked what was in it. He showed me the animation he’d drawn for a film for Pixar. Then he got me a job there, after we were married.”

She pulls up photos on her phone. “This is our wedding ceremony at The Wayfarers Chapel.”

April’s heart thuds. Married - without me there? But my daughter looks so content.

“You look so happy…and beautiful! He is handsome.” And tattooed.

She smiles. “I am happy. How are you, Mom?”

“First, congratulations!” April isn’t sure she should tell Frankie. “This man came to my door a few days ago and gave me three eggs that he said were magical. He said I could have three wishes…if I sat on each for five minutes.”

“Mom - really?“ Frankie stares at her. “You must be smoking some amazing stuff.”

April laughs. “Well you know I don’t smoke." I sit on eggs. "Your coming here is one of the wishes - come true!"

Frankie looks skeptical.

"The man that came by seems honest. And has a cute accent." She doesn't need to tell Frankie about his muscular arms.

“Well, it’s good that you are enjoying yourself, Mom.”

Frankie yawns.

“You look tired.” April makes up a bed in the back bedroom, with the white goose-down quilt.

It has been a long, amazing, and at times scary day, April muses.

The success April had with the egg bringing Frankie to New Zealand, makes her want to make her second wish. I will be the optimist who, like Einstein, considers everything a miracle.

She arranges plastic bags over her bedspread, sets egg number two on a washcloth, covers it with a towel, and squats on the mattress, her heels sinking in. The Creator, who made me, can manage miracles.

She thinks of mangos, and of a special morning writing "Estuari Diary" when her heart felt like it was playing golden violin notes.

My second wish: To finish editing my novel! She counts: "One, two, three…

"… Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four," crack!

What a mess! April pours the bowl of marbles into the side table drawer. With her hands she tries to scoop up every slimy bit of yolk and egg-white and plops it into the bowl. She shakes her head. Washes her hands.

After clearing off her bed, she changes into her sweats.

I didn’t sit on the egg for 300 seconds — but will I still get some part of the wish fulfilled? Should I go get the last egg and use it for wish number two?

What do you think, reader?

I don't want to miss wish number three for a wonderful guy, April determines. She takes the slimy sides of the bowl with the shallow bits of yolk and egg-white and places it on a pillow-case from the closet.

She squats over it, quite a bit over it, gazing at the clock to time five minutes, which will be 10:09. She closes her eyes and seems to travel out of Kaiteriteri Woods over a beach with birds walking about and squawking, eucalyptus trees bordering the sands. She smells salty air. “God, you know how much I’ve put into this novel.”

At 10:09 - finally - she backs off the bowl with the egg in it, puts it on the night table. “I’m ready.” She bring her laptop to the bed.

She scrolls down the titles “Estuari Diary” in Google Docs for the most recent edit. Nine years ago, November 16, 2012. Before Ged got colon cancer.

She scrolls to the end. Three hundred and ninety pages. Through the glass door she can see a pincushion of stars. As she edits chapters one and two, then three, the sky becomes dark grey. She puts on her green robe, because it's gotten colder.

The sky looks lighter grey. She sleeps. She wakes. She edits. She sleeps. She wakes, she edits. She sleeps, she wakes, she edits--places the quilt around her shoulders.

She looks at the bottom of page 360. She has edited 360 of 390 pages! She can’t believe it. She has almost finished editing the novel. She kicks the bowl with the cracked egg by accident, and hears a “clunk” that sounds like, “Well done!”

She sleeps the sleep of an author who is satisfied.

In her dreams, she sees the cover for the novel, a circle of women with the sun shining down on them and above each an angel.

Wow, she thinks, waking up from that dream. That is powerful! Maybe my stay in New Zealand will inspire the ending of the novel.

April opens the glass door onto the veranda. It is cool and she ties the belt to her open robe. Daffodils, pink bulbs, rosemary, white, tender four-leafed flowers, white and pink roses greet her around the veranda.

The air smells crisp like rosemary and mint. She hasn’t heard Frankie who's probably sleeping after a long flight.

From around the corner of the house walks someone…It’s the farmer.

April turns to get her basket with the pink knitted balls and shows the farmer the last magic egg in the basket.

“I am so excited about almost finishing the novel."

“Can I read a few pages?”

“OK.”

He passes the laptop to her. "That is inspired writing, April!"

“I believe the egg you gave me helped…a lot!”

“You didn’t trust me, at first.”

They sit on the porch swing, revealing shades of their lives to each other. She tells him about the adventures with egg number one, tumbling onto Frankie.

He laughs. "I'd like to meet her, April." He motions to her to walk with him. She brings the basket. They chat as they pass the curves of flowers and trees, stopping and discussing how special each one is. He caresses the petal of an apple blossom beginning to bloom.

He tells her about his young adult son and teen daughters, the daughter who plays the violin, the younger one who plays soccer. The son who has gone to live in Nelson who works as an inspector at the airport.

She tells him about talking with Frankie, how glad she is to be in her life again. He asks her, "Besides Frankie, what is your deepest passion?"

“I write mystical poetry.”

“Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei.”

“What does that mean?”

“Seek the treasure you value most dearly: if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.”

April holds out the Frankie basket. “I’m going to make my last wish.”

"I'll feed the chickens to give you some privacy."

She sets the basket near a plum tree and crouches over it. She thinks of dancing and of a beautiful healing prayer.

She suddenly feels the last wish shifting: May I always be close to the lofty mountain and grow in its shadow. And if the Creator brings me a spiritual and kind companion, may I serve others with him and bring happiness to our marriage, to me, and to every person we meet.”

The farmer returns to her still crouched down. He raises his eyebrows, “Wow. A big wish!”

"I'm afraid I might have cheated a bit. It was a compound wish."

She rises and closes her green eyes.

Her hand feels warm and she looks at it. The birthmark on her right hand, which has embarrassed her since she was a child looks like a nine-pointed star.

She feels something happening. In her other hand is something unexpected.

A big rough finger…. It is attached to a hand attached to an arm, shoulder, neck, and face.

She is holding her breath. The farmer walks around her and places his hands on her shoulder and whispers in her ear, “Spring Treasure”.

"That’s the name that occurred to me for you just now." He wraps his tan jacket around her.

“I came to your cabin because you prayed to God to meet a humble companion, who loves God more than tuna fish." He laughs. "I heard your prayer the other day when I was feeding the chickens.

"I think there is a reason we met."

She is scared or is it excited? She feels something strange in her throat, in her heart, in her eyes.

The farmer introduces her to the trees he has planted, as they walk along --alder, oak, cypress, Robinia, acacia, apple, pear, nectarine, and hazelnut trees. "I've planted 19,000 but some did not make it.

“This is a healing sanctuary for not only tourists, but for Asian and African refugees who’ve been traumatized," he says.

“You’re a trauma therapist?”

“I do Lomi bodywork and Reiki with them. I used to be a marriage and family counselor.”

“Oh. You are doing important work with immigrants!

"...I’m a medical social worker,” she tells him. They walk together over soft and spiked grasses, through mounds of mud with rivulets running through them.

April stoops down to see tiny blue and white flowers that appear out of nowhere.

The farmer pauses and walks towards a tree. He picks a plant from the ground around it, placing it in the hat April gave him. “Miners lettuce,” he says, offering a piece.They both eat some.

“It tastes good, lemony.”

You can hear cows mooing from the adjacent property. He says they're not fed properly, that's why they're mooing. April comments on a bird that flies ahead as they walk, from tree to tree. The farmer calls it a fantail.

He introduces April to his "girls" -- his sheep Henrietta and Elena behind the corral he calls “the paddock”.

April and the farmer are last seen sitting on the grass, leaning against the paddock fence, hand in hand. Elena and Henrietta stare at April's back with large eyes.

The farmer asks, "April , would you like to come this summer and help with the retreat for refugees?" Elena leans into April and the farmer, nudging them.

The farmer laughs. "I think Elena is jealous."

Henrietta bumps April's butt. "Henrietta, too!." April laughs. April and the farmer get up, stand away from the sheep.

"Please repeat what you said...about the summer conference?" With the electricity of his hand in hers April can't concentrate, can't be certain she heard right.

“Will you come back this summer as my guest? I'll make all the arrangements. You can help at the retreat if you like. And you can bring Frankie and her new husband along.”