The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online Page B

psychiatrist and author of several books. I recognized her immediately because I had read her book on the goddesses that inhabit every woman, and how those archetypes influence personality. That was how I discovered that in me there was a jumble of contradictory deities that might be best not to explore. Though I had just met her, I told her what was happening with you. “We are going to pray for your daughter and for you,” she told me. A month later she invited me to her “prayer circle,” and that is how these new friends came to accompany me during your agony and death . . . and continue to comfort me today. For me it is a sisterhood sealed in heaven. Every woman in this world should have such a circle of friends. Each of us is witness to the others’ lives; we keep secrets, help in difficulties, share experiences, and stay in almost daily contact by e-mail. However far I may be traveling, I always have my line to terra firma: my sisters of disorder. They are joyful, wise, and curious women. Sometimes curiosity can make one reckless, as in the instance of Jean herself, who in one spiritual ceremony felt an uncontrollable impulse, took off her shoes, and walked over red hot coals. Twice she passed through the fire, and emerged unhurt. She said it was like walking over little balls of Styrofoam; she felt the coals crunch and the rough texture of the burned wood beneath her feet.
    During the long night at Tabra’s, with the whispering of the trees and hooting of an owl, it occurred to me that the Sisters of Disorder might be able to help me. We met for breakfast in a restaurant filled with weekend sports enthusiasts, some in running shoes, others disguised as Martians to go cycling. We sat at a round table, always respecting the concept of the circle. We were six fiftyish witches: two Christians, an authentic Buddhist, two Jews by birth but semi-Buddhists by choice, and me, still undecided, all united by the same philosophy, which can be summed up in one sentence: Never do harm, and whenever possible do good. Between sips of coffee, I told them what was happening in my family, and ended with Tabra’s words, which kept echoing in my head: Sabrina needs two mothers. “Two mothers?” repeated Pauline, one of the semi-Buddhists and a lawyer by profession. “I know two mothers!” She was referring to Fu and Grace, two women who had been together for eight years. Pauline went to the phone and made a call—at that time there were no cell phones. At the other end of the line, Grace listened to her description of Sabrina. “I’ll talk to Fu and call you back in ten minutes,” she said. Ten minutes . . . either they are unbalanced or they have hearts as big as the ocean to be able to decide something like that in ten minutes, I thought, but before the ten minutes were up, the restaurant’s phone rang and Fu announced that she wanted to meet the baby.
    I went to pick them up, driving along the rims of the hilltops in the direction of the ocean, a long, curving road that led to a poetic rural setting. Nearly invisible among pines and eucalyptus rose several Japanese-style wood constructions: the Buddhist Zen Center. Fu was tall and she had an unforgettable face: strong features, with a cocked eyebrow that gave her a questioning expression; she was dressed in loose, dark clothing, and her head was shaved like a draftee’s. A Buddhist nun, she was the director of the center. She lived in a little dollhouse with her partner Grace, a physician who was irresistibly congenial and had the face of a mischievous child. In the car on the way back, I filled them in on the calvary that had been Jennifer’s existence, the harm to the baby, and the specialists’ dark prognosis. They did not seem daunted. We picked up Jennifer’s mother, Willie’s first wife, who knew Fu and Grace because she’d attended ceremonies at the center, and the four of us drove