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41 immutAbLe tRuths When I went to see the fortune teller, I asked questions about my marriage, the failed crumbs of a banquet coupling. It was in the afternoon — after lunch — and my stomach would not stop protesting the Chinese pork and rice. “Your stomach knows I’m right,” she told me and finished reading the runes then turned to her cards. Her eyes squinted and played with the pictures. “That’s it,” she said finally. “Nothing else there,” she shook her head, “unless you got twenty more dollars.” The cards shifted under her fingers, made a pile, stood silent as God. Without twenty more dollars to coax the reluctant future, there’d be “nothing else there.” I told her I guessed not, slipped my heel back into my shoe and got back to work an hour late. It doesn’t take a fortune to convince the spirits to do what they ought to do for free, but I didn’t have twenty dollars and my husband left me anyway. ...

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