THE JOURNEY OF SOULS
Alex couldn’t quite explain it, but she felt as if her mother’s soul had entered this little girl. Normally, she wasn’t one for mystical notions, but there were just too many coincidences to dismiss it.
The girl was born eight months after her mother’s passing—almost as if her soul had wandered for a while before coming back to this earthly realm. Even the day she was born was uncanny; it coincided with her mother’s birthday, exactly forty-six years later.
The coincidences didn’t end there. Alex had been hired as the girl’s nanny. This was her second job nannying—her first had been for a classmate’s younger sister, and now she was here. Although Alex never intended to be a nanny forever—she aimed to study psychology, but didn’t get in on her first or second attempts. She was determined to succeed on her third try.
Alex wanted to avoid working as a shop assistant or waitress. Being a nanny felt less like a job and more like joy. Thanks to an excellent recommendation letter, this young woman decided to hire Alex, albeit with a trial period. Alex was honest enough to confess that she planned to go to university in a year. The girl’s mother, Mary, was only about five years older than Alex and suggested they speak informally to ease things.
“That’s great, then. Annie will be heading to a special nursery soon,” Mary reassured her. “She’s very advanced and could have gone earlier, but I was anxious. She has special sessions every day. There’s something I haven’t mentioned yet, but I hope it won’t be a problem. Some nannies get frightened by the label of disability or ask for a fee I simply can’t afford.”
Alex anticipated something severe, perhaps a cleft palate awaiting surgery, or maybe epilepsy.
“Annie has sensorineural hearing loss, an inherited condition…”
Alex even smiled as she interrupted her.
“You don’t have to say; I know what it is. It runs in our family too.”
“That’s why I called you in. A mutual acquaintance mentioned your mother had it too, so I knew you wouldn’t be scared.”
Alex wasn’t daunted by it at all—it wasn’t challenging. Modern hearing aids could nearly restore hearing entirely. Her mother had it much harder, as they’d communicated using sign language.
The final coincidence was their uncanny resemblance—dark eyes, raised eyebrows, like she was always intrigued, and unruly curly hair. Alex even went to her dad and asked for her mother’s old photo albums—it was astonishing, the girl was her mother’s spitting image as a child! When she pointed this out to her dad, he only chided her:
“You just miss your mom, sweetheart. What’s with the mystical stories? You need your own kids!”
Alex blushed. She had met a guy named Josh in her prep courses and they had gone out three times. But it was too soon to talk about children. Dad seemingly read her thoughts from her pink cheeks.
“Have you asked if his family has any history of hearing loss?”
“Come on, Dad!”
Her parents had always drilled this into her and her brother, convincing them to find out about potential partners’ recessive genes for hearing loss, since both Alex and her brother, Tom, were carriers.
“What, sweetheart…? Asking questions doesn’t cost a thing.”
Alex had to make a quick escape.
Whether it was because she had concocted the idea of soul migration, or if the girl truly was delightful and bright, Alex grew very attached to her and dreaded the thought of parting. Maybe her father was right, perhaps it was time for her own kids, but she was so young and dreamed of getting an education. Somehow, she ended up bringing it up with Mary, who was always busy working to provide for her daughter and maintain a decent lifestyle.
“You need to study!” insisted Mary. “I had to leave college because of my pregnancy, and now I can’t advance beyond a certain position. It’s frustrating—I’ve got more experience and knowledge, but they hire some fresh graduate who only knows how to shuffle papers.”
“And the child’s father?” Alex asked cautiously. In four months of nannying, the girl’s dad had never appeared.
“He’s not around,” Mary replied.
“What do you mean, not around?”
“Just not. He doesn’t even know he has a daughter. We met in another city; I was visiting a friend for a week and met him in a bar. It was love at first sight! We planned to meet again soon—either he’d fly to me, or I’d go to him. But it didn’t happen—he broke it off via email, saying, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t be together. You deserve better,’ and all that.”
“That’s harsh… And you didn’t know you were pregnant?”
“No, I didn’t. I found out a week later and decided to have the baby,” Mary smiled. “I’ve never regretted it.”
“Yeah, Annie is delightful. She really reminds me of my mum,” Alex suddenly admitted.
Mary laughed.
“You and Annie have a karmic connection; I noticed it a long time ago.”
“I told Dad, and he laughed at me. Said I need to have my own kids.”
“Make sure to finish your studies first, then think about kids,” Mary reminded her. “Don’t end up like me.”
For Christmas, Alex made plans to visit her brother in the neighboring city—he headed a department at a travel firm and couldn’t leave for long. Alex had visited him once before and loved it—he had a magnificent apartment on the fifteenth floor with a stunning view. She had bought Annie a gift in advance—a teddy bear similar to the one her mum had, after a long search. The girl loved it and announced she would sleep with it.
While sitting in her brother’s cozy kitchen, indulging in relaxed conversations, Alex received a message from Mary with a photo of Annie sweetly asleep, hugging the teddy bear. Alex even teared up and showed the picture to Tom, narrating the story of the karmic connection and soul migration.
“Are you serious, Alex? Soul migration?”
“Listen—Annie looks more like our mum than her own! Just look.”
She found a selfie they’d taken recently—herself, Annie, and Mary—and handed it to her brother. He stared at the photo for a while before asking in a strange voice:
“What’s her name?”
“Annie, I told you. I mean the little girl.”
“No, the mother.”
“Mary. Why?”
Tom swallowed hard.
“Annie… Is her hearing okay?”
“For crying out loud, I’ve been talking about her hearing aid for the past half an hour! That’s another connection! Mary’s father has the same condition as our mum; it’s genetics, not reincarnation, but think about it…”
Tom jumped up and began pacing the room.
“How old is she? When was she born?”
“Why are you asking?” started Alex, then covered her mouth in shock. Whispering in a small voice to not scare off her suspicion, she asked, “Mary said he broke up by email and didn’t know about the child. Was it you???”
The next day, they were all flying back together, miraculously snagging the last tickets. Dad wiped tears, poring over pictures of the newfound granddaughter, Tom nervously biting his lip like in childhood, repeatedly questioning Alex about Mary and Annie. Alex was the calmest of them all—she knew everything would work out. And the soul migration idea wasn’t entirely off the table…
