Â
Â
Â
It was The Dream, again. Same one, three nights running.
Bell Elkins didnât believe in dreams. Not the nighttime kind, anyway. Not the kind that came because you were restless and preoccupied, your mind unable to shed the burden of a problem and so the problem invaded your sleep, too, just as it invaded your conscious hours, until you solved it or learned to live with it. She didnât believe that dreams carried any particular significance. They werenât symbols or omens or portents. They werenât trying to send a message. You couldnât sift through them for clues about the future. Or for dire warnings. That, she was sure, was total crap.
But this one wouldnât go away. Wouldnât leave her alone. When she awoke on the third straight morning and realized that sheâd had it againâsame dream, which meant the same sticky residue from it would cling to her thoughts throughout the dayâBell was annoyed. She pushed away the comforter and sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing her eyes, rubbing her temples. Remembering.
The Dream was about a child. Cliché 101, she scolded herself. A woman in her mid-forties, dreaming about a child? It was so lame and predictable. The road not taken; the children never born because she was too busy with her job as prosecuting attorney for a small county in West Virginia; the bittersweet regrets; the sense of lost opportunities. Last chances. Etcetera, etcetera. Right?
Ridiculous. For one thing, she already had a child. Her daughter, Carla, was twenty years old now. She lived with Bellâs ex-husband in Alexandria, Virginia, and she was a great kid, levelheaded and generous-hearted, spirited and smart. Bell talked to her several times a week.
And for another, Bell was doing exactly what she wanted to do with her life. Armed with a law degree from Georgetown, from which sheâd graduated near the top of her class, she couldâve become a highly paid corporate lawyer in a big, interesting city; instead she was a poorly paid prosecutor in the middle of nowhere. But it was her choice. It was the kind of choice you didnât make just once. You made it over and over again, each morning when you woke up and decided to stay. Your reasons for staying might change over the years, but still: Here you were.
So what was the deal with The Dream? Three nights in a row. It was really starting to piss her off. It kept her from getting a good nightâs sleepâsleep she needed, because her days brimmed with challenge.
The Dream was always the same: The face of a young boy is visible through a cloudy window. He never moves. Never even blinks. He just stares. Heâs undersized, thin-cheeked, with a narrow forehead and a straight-line mouth. His hair is razed brutally short. He wears a dark sweater, ragged around the collar. She senses that he is in distress of some kind, and so she signals to him: Iâm coming. Iâm coming. No response. She runs to the front door and tries to enter the house, but the door is locked. She rattles the knob, pounds her fist on the wood. Nothing. She comes back around to the window, to somehow communicate to him that he needs to open the door for her, but heâs gone. The space is blank.
It always ends the same way, this infuriatingly stubborn dream, this dream that wouldnât let go of her: She keeps looking for him. She goes back to hammer on the door, using both fists now, and then she returns to the window, and back to the door. Back and forth she goes, and by now sheâs yelling, screaming, demanding that somebody let her in so that she can check on the boy. What have they done with him? She threatens, she claws at the door, she returns to the window. Sheâs out of breath from running. She bends over, sucking in air, releasing it. Then she stands upright again, rejuvenated, ready to storm the place. She races to the front door. Turns sideways. Lowers her right shoulder. She
Â
Â
It was The Dream, again. Same one, three nights running.
Bell Elkins didnât believe in dreams. Not the nighttime kind, anyway. Not the kind that came because you were restless and preoccupied, your mind unable to shed the burden of a problem and so the problem invaded your sleep, too, just as it invaded your conscious hours, until you solved it or learned to live with it. She didnât believe that dreams carried any particular significance. They werenât symbols or omens or portents. They werenât trying to send a message. You couldnât sift through them for clues about the future. Or for dire warnings. That, she was sure, was total crap.
But this one wouldnât go away. Wouldnât leave her alone. When she awoke on the third straight morning and realized that sheâd had it againâsame dream, which meant the same sticky residue from it would cling to her thoughts throughout the dayâBell was annoyed. She pushed away the comforter and sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing her eyes, rubbing her temples. Remembering.
The Dream was about a child. Cliché 101, she scolded herself. A woman in her mid-forties, dreaming about a child? It was so lame and predictable. The road not taken; the children never born because she was too busy with her job as prosecuting attorney for a small county in West Virginia; the bittersweet regrets; the sense of lost opportunities. Last chances. Etcetera, etcetera. Right?
Ridiculous. For one thing, she already had a child. Her daughter, Carla, was twenty years old now. She lived with Bellâs ex-husband in Alexandria, Virginia, and she was a great kid, levelheaded and generous-hearted, spirited and smart. Bell talked to her several times a week.
And for another, Bell was doing exactly what she wanted to do with her life. Armed with a law degree from Georgetown, from which sheâd graduated near the top of her class, she couldâve become a highly paid corporate lawyer in a big, interesting city; instead she was a poorly paid prosecutor in the middle of nowhere. But it was her choice. It was the kind of choice you didnât make just once. You made it over and over again, each morning when you woke up and decided to stay. Your reasons for staying might change over the years, but still: Here you were.
So what was the deal with The Dream? Three nights in a row. It was really starting to piss her off. It kept her from getting a good nightâs sleepâsleep she needed, because her days brimmed with challenge.
The Dream was always the same: The face of a young boy is visible through a cloudy window. He never moves. Never even blinks. He just stares. Heâs undersized, thin-cheeked, with a narrow forehead and a straight-line mouth. His hair is razed brutally short. He wears a dark sweater, ragged around the collar. She senses that he is in distress of some kind, and so she signals to him: Iâm coming. Iâm coming. No response. She runs to the front door and tries to enter the house, but the door is locked. She rattles the knob, pounds her fist on the wood. Nothing. She comes back around to the window, to somehow communicate to him that he needs to open the door for her, but heâs gone. The space is blank.
It always ends the same way, this infuriatingly stubborn dream, this dream that wouldnât let go of her: She keeps looking for him. She goes back to hammer on the door, using both fists now, and then she returns to the window, and back to the door. Back and forth she goes, and by now sheâs yelling, screaming, demanding that somebody let her in so that she can check on the boy. What have they done with him? She threatens, she claws at the door, she returns to the window. Sheâs out of breath from running. She bends over, sucking in air, releasing it. Then she stands upright again, rejuvenated, ready to storm the place. She races to the front door. Turns sideways. Lowers her right shoulder. She
Similar Books
