Chapter 124

You can’t always choose your future. Not in a world of risk and uncertainty. No matter what the self-help gurus tell you. You can only attempt to guide it in the right direction, like a willful horse, but accept there will be times when it will gallop off in a direction not of your choosing. No one can tell you what lies ahead with one hundred percent accuracy. If your doctor tells you ninety-nine out of one hundred people die of your disease, you most likely will die, but you might also be the one who beats the odds, and if you do, you will believe yourself special and blessed, and your loved ones will believe the fervency of their prayers for you paid dividends, but it’s just math. It’s all just math.

—

It was a great relief when my predictions began to fail.

People outlasted the awful deadlines I’d given them. They posted photos of their birthday celebrations. Sometimes their captions said things like Suck it Death Lady! but I was still happy for them.

The woman who was pregnant on the plane, the one who had been refusing treatment because she believed it would make no difference, decided to accept her oncologist’s advice. She is now cancer-free. Her husband wrote me a very nice letter telling me I’d saved his wife’s life and enclosed a photo of their sweet, enormous baby.

Some people also sent messages telling me that serious illnesses had been picked up early thanks to my predictions.

One family had all their smoke alarms checked after I predicted a house fire and a short time later those smoke alarms saved their lives.

And then another woman, who I had predicted would live until ninety-four, died suddenly in her sleep, at the age of forty-five, so that was very sad, but also quite helpful.

I saw photos. She was the caftan-wearing woman who didn’t apologize when she knocked my head with her elbow.

—

After a while, people began to call me a “fraud,” which, you know, would have made me laugh if I didn’t still feel so terrible.