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Last week, one of my long-standing clients came for her annual birthday reading. The woman is First Nations, and it was obvious from the moment she arrived that many of her people had decided to help her celebrate—spirit people, I mean.

Almost immediately, I became aware of one dominant spirit woman wearing a red-and-black blanket covered with buttons. I described the spirit, and though my client didn’t recognize the person in particular, she affirmed that her mother’s band wore that kind of ceremonial costume on special occasions.

  The reading had been going well. My client, a woman in her early 50s, seemed pleased with all that had come up so far. I asked if there was anything I had missed. She paused for a moment, reached for a tissue and captured a tear that had escaped from her right eye and said, “I wasn’t going to ask you this, but since we’ve done so well up to this point I wonder if you could help me with this one last thing.”

“Of course,” I said, “anything.”

Sadie felt her heart sink, or at least a sinking where her heart had been. “And diapers, teething, learning to walk, being a teenager, all over again? What’s the alternative, if I decide to stay unborn?”

The angel smiled happily. “Oh, that’s easy. Eternal bliss, just as you imagined when you used to pray at night.”

“Tell me, what exactly is eternal bliss like?”

“Eternal bliss is just that,” the angel said. “Happiness. Bliss. Day after day . . . happy . . .” Its voice trailed off.

When Celia first saw him, he was sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper by the light of a small lamp attached to the peak of his flat tweed cap.

He was bulkier than was her preference, but she thought, as one ages, standards are lowered, just a little, and she moved forward, and adjusted her long black cape.

The hair peeking from under the cap was grey and curly, she noted with satisfaction, medical opinion to the contrary, she was convinced hair and virility were connected, and virile men were so much more delicious.

She decided to use the lost bird approach.

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