Closing her eyes for a moment, Ella prophesied to herself with jubilant conviction and confidence what the days ahead would bring her. She had never been on her own like this before, and yet, oddly enough, she didn’t feel lonely.
“I’ve missed you, baby,” she said. “And I’ve missed your brother and sister, too. Will you come to see me?”
“Of course I will, Mama—we will—but what are you going to do now? Are you sure you aren’t coming back?”
“I’m going to Amsterdam,” Ella said. “They have incredibly cute little flats there, overlooking the canals. I can rent one of those. I’ll need to improve my biking. I don’t know.… I’m not going to make plans, honey. I’m going to try living one day at a time. I’ll see what my heart says. It is one of the rules, isn’t it?”
“What rules, Mom? What are you talking about?”
Ella approached the window and looked at the sky, which was an amazing indigo in all directions. It swirled with an invisible speed of its own, dissolving into nothingness and encountering therein infinite possibilities, like a whirling dervish.
“It’s Rule Number Forty,” she said slowly. “A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western.… Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple.
“Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire!
“The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”