She remembered an image then, of brown hair shining in the sun, smiling with her sunglasses on. 

Only it hadn’t happened yet, a misremembered lyric became a memory she dreamed of having.

The mind plays tricks on us.

“Oh… yes, please. Thank you.”

The shop owner with his black hair trimmed into a bowl cut placed a bowl of hot liquid on the woven mat in front of her. It smelled of the forest behind her aunt’s cottage on the lake in northern Minnesota. The sign on the storefront read “Shop” but could just as easily have said “Spa”. Several women entered in pressed linen suits, nodded to the owner, passed her while she sat on the oversized orange pillow in the 70s style pit that took up the entire front section, and disappeared down a hallway separated by a curtain of hanging beads and lit by candles and flavored incense.

They reappeared from the hallway to receive folded towels from the shop owner. Their suits were replaced by plush white robes. The creases in their faces had smoothed. Or the angle from the pit combined with the light from the lanterns made her see something that wasn’t there.

That had already happened, though. The women had come and gone. 

She sat on her pillow in the pit in her robe, the sleeves too long and pushed up to the elbows so she felt like she was wearing elbow pads in her college roller hockey league. The bowl of liquid steamed into the dim air. She didn’t recall changing into the robe.

“Sir?” she asked meekly, remembering feedback she gave a staff member recently, The story I’m telling myself is you’re afraid to ask certain questions. How close am I?

“His name’s Harold,” a boy said flatly from the corner window sill. He sat on his own bed of pillows, short legs spread on the sill, red socks pointed to the low ceiling, one big toe jutting out of a hole like a sore thumb. He pulled a cork from a glass container and dipped a finger into the oil and rubbed it into his temple. He read from a paperback with a creased spine and golden cover. 

“Harold?” she asked the boy.

Harold parted the hanging beads holding a pile of green towels. His humming matched the hum from the speakers in the corners of the shop. She was forever noticing things after everyone else. 

Her mind needed a good pause. A slow down. Space to catch up. A chance to reset. What other cliches had her friend used to convince her a visit to Harold’s shop was necessary? 

It’s what saved my marriage. 

I could’ve killed Karl. 

Not that I would’ve, but I could’ve.

Harold convinced me not to. 

By showing me what was really causing my strife.

Life-changing, is what it is. I promise.

Don’t tell Karl, okay? I know you two are close, after everything from college and what not. 

And, honestly, it’s not that I would’ve killed him. He’s the best. I love him and the kids and everything he does to support us. Some days I just want to leave him without giving him any reason and rather than leave an explanation, or sit him down and explain it like I know I should, I just want to grab the girls and sprint for the horizon and shout back at the top of my lungs, “I’ve got the girls, the rest is yours, Karl!” 

Seriously, go see Harold. He’ll fix you.

Clouds of smoke floated above the bowl scented with pine and childhood memories of cannonballing from a rope swing into a deep river. A wooden ladle rested on the mat to one side. On the other side, a silver spoon cupped a thinly sliced circle of kiwi.

She blew the smoke away and saw her face reflected in the glassy surface. Memories frowned upon her brow. Curiosity draped over her pale eyelids. Her lips moved without speaking, mimicking the boy who read aloud from his paperback, every sentence phrased as a question.