Member-only story
The Fortune Teller’s Daughter
You need to get married, girl
“You need to get married, girl. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’re nineteen years old, gettin’ long in the tooth for many a man,” grumbled Lily’s mother, Zelda, shuffling her Italian tarot cards. “Want me to run the cards and see what they say?”
The air hung hot and sticky in the rundown parlor room. Zelda’s clapboard cottage squatted on the floodplains of Wheeling, just two blocks from the Ohio River. Homes up on the surrounding hills might snag a breeze or two, but no wind made it down to the flats.
Lilly glanced up from her latest Buffalo Bill dime novel Buffalo Bill at Graveyard Gap. The clerk at the dry goods store was smitten and always passed his Buffalo Bill books along after he read them.
Zelda claimed Lilly’s father had been tragically blown to bits and pieces on a riverboat. Every time she told the story, Zelda would squeeze out a single tear and let it roll down her cheek. Lily knew the drama for what it was — a lie. Her grandma, a white-haired and wrinkled version of Zelda, had spilled the beans.
“Honey, your smooth-talkin’ daddy was a rambler. He just couldn’t stay put. I hear tell he’s out in Oklahoma Territory nowadays, married to a Cherokee lady and they have a dozen little ones. Or maybe it was thirteen little ones. I forget.”
