Ever since Orlando we have been on the road home. We had intended to have a longer stop there, so I could go to the Magic Kingdom, but we cut it short so we could meet my in-laws in New Orleans. Unfortunately their flight was cancelled and they never made it. (Bummer.) We would have had a lot of fun. I love my in-laws.

So with an extra day in New Orleans we were left with a lot of time to fill. All of which was spent in the French quarter.

While parts of it are derelict and ugly, it still maintained this beauty that I cannot quite explain. Aside from the smell on Bourbon Street. It was pungently sour and I could not place it.

“That’s vomit,” my brother-husband informed me with a confidence I could not argue with.

And seeing as how we were on Bourbon Street, that tracked.

All of our trips are pretty much dictated by food. As I’ve gotten older I’ve deviated from the husband to be more of a sites and experience guy. I think because I pack on weight like I’m heading into the harshest winter in existence and food will be scarce.

My husband was adamant on trying gumbo, jambalaya and even a po’boy. But once the two boys learned it was seafood they were out. They don’t eat anything that comes from the ocean. I’m okay with it when it’s battered and deep fried.

Lacking any real direction we wandered the quarter and then did a walking ghost tour with this adorable guide who made me smile every time she did her “fuuuuuuuuun fact!” She lunged foreword on one foot and did excited jazz hands, jangling her jumble of steel bracelets.

The other thing we did was visit the shop if the famous voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. It was quite the tourist stop. There were all sorts of magical things, rocks, potions, candles, alligator feet. As we were waiting for the brother-husband to find a voodoo doll to get his step mom, my husband turns to me and says “let’s get a psychic reading!”

This is not anything my husband has ever wanted to do. However being in the shop his enthusiasm was understood.

So, since I didn’t get the psychic reading I had wanted to do in Salem, I thought here would be even better.

“Yeah? Let’s do it.”

The gentleman was meek, small framed with blonde hair. He had on a tight black shirt that went to his mid thigh with woven fabric on the sleeves. He was definitely playing the part of a mystic. It was fun. He took us through a door with a combo handle to a tiny little wood cubicle. In it was a small table and two chairs. My husband could barely fit into it with his power chair but we made it work.

He took my hand and started.

“So, the diabetes skipped your generation.” It was both a question and a statement.

“Yeah,” I said. I was shocked because if that was a guess it was a good one.

“And you had a lot of ear infections as a kid, those are all better?”

“Yeah.”

He proceeded to tell me everything about me. Later, when I asked my husband about the reading he said, “he had you pegged perfectly.”

And he did. I just didn’t know if it was my own interpretation of the moment or real. Getting his confirmation made me feel better.

He proceeded to tell me many different random facts that had no correlation. It was almost as if he was skimming the page of my life and retelling me in this sort of stream of consciousness.

I would never leave California. I’d travel a lot but never leave. I’d have a son; and a daughter. Both adopted. And that I would start school again in the spring.

That one was weird cause I’m like… I don’t see that happening. However… since then it has become very clear that if I want to move into a better role at work I have to go back to school. My husband said the psychic, Phillip, said I’d be going back to study math.

I don’t remember the specifics of how it came up but I told him I was married and he looked genuinely perplexed.

“Do you have someone on the side?” He says point blank.

I bark a laugh, give this wry smile, and say “yeah. You could say that.”

I proceed to tell him the dynamics of my and my husbands relationship.

For whatever reason he did not pick up that I was referring to Charlie.

“You will never get divorced.” He said matter-of-factly. “And your boyfriend isn’t going anywhere.”

(My husband said that Phillip stated that “he wouldn’t go anywhere until I got bored with him” and I genuinely don’t remember that.)

He stops my reading there and reaches out and lays a hand on my husbands knee. He proceeds to tell him that he’s not leaving the chair. (“Duh,” I thought. By the way, we did not give him details of my husbands diagnosis.) He said that there were many doctors appointments for my husband in the future. And that he was going to start an experimental treatment that was going to improve it. Which… is a stretch.

The number one thing that stood out to me about his reading was that he told my husband he wasn’t going to die any time soon.

Some highlights that tickled me, were when he said that my mother would never remarry and was content in her small space. He was right but not in the context he was telling me this information.

When I told my in-laws about this they were convinced he looked up my social media. And he may have, but the fact that it took him a concerning amount of time to comprehend that charlie was my husband was odd. I made multiple references to him as my husband. He eventually picked it up but… it was strange. The other thing is the details he told me, his good guesses, is not info I have EVER or would EVER share here. I mean, I have now in the context of this retelling, but at no point have I shared the medical facts he told me.

We were both thoroughly pleased with it. Absolutely worth the price. If you ever find yourself in the French Quarter, get a psychic reading from Phillip.

I would like to add that I am someone who does believe this stuff. There are things in this world no one can explain. And rather than attribute it to some higher being I give the credit to the immense power of the universe. Some may also call that god, but I do not. And I don’t think psychics can tell the future. I think they’re more interpreters of energy. I think Philip just read what he felt from our interaction.