I nodded.

  We escaped out the doors that led to the back of the building, avoiding the front because I didn’t want to see anyone. Though I felt a little guilty leaving my brother, sister, and father for even a few minutes, I needed a break.

  We stood side by side in the cool night. She took my hands and gently rubbed them against each other. Kissing each one of my fingers, she whispered, “We’ll get through this together, baby. You’ll never be alone.”

  I looked at her, and her bright blue eyes stared deeply at me.

  I woke up, my sweat-stained shirt pressed against my skin, and jumped out of bed. I hurried to the kitchen, where I slammed a glass of water, quickly refilled it, and then drained that one, too.

  I leaned against the counter and rubbed my face. My heart raced, and I slowly and deliberately told myself to breathe. The smell of the funeral home, packed with Stargazer lilies, the sounds of the somber, whispered voices brought me right back to my mother’s wake, eight months ago.

  Shelly and I sat together on her couch, a glass of red wine in my hand and bottle of beer in hers.

  “Shell, I woke up this morning feeling like my mother had just died all over again. These dreams with this woman are the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had. The dream of the funeral was just like the real one, only, she was with me, and the craziest part is it seemed as though she belonged there. Except for this woman, everything else from that day was exactly the same. Everyone I saw was wearing the same outfit, and the conversations we had were verbatim from that day.”

  Shelly scratched the side of her face and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Isn’t that normal? Maybe your subconscious was remembering that day through a dream. Maddy, it hasn’t been that long. Maybe this dream was your way of telling yourself that you still need closure.”

  I considered that, but shook my head. “I still have my issues around losing my mom, but the dream seemed like it was more about this woman than it was about my mother. Jesus Christ, it really put me right back in that room all over again.”

  “I…I don’t know what to say. I hardly knew what to say then and still don’t.”

  I placed a hand over hers. “You were perfect,” I assured her. “You were my rock, and I couldn’t have gotten through it without you. But in my dream, this woman was the one taking care of me, making sure I was all right. She brought me water, and the funny thing is, I remember standing in line that night, so thirsty and wondering when it was all going to be over.”

  Shelly frowned. “Hey, I asked you plenty of times if you needed anything.”

  I smiled slightly. “I know you did, but there was no relief for me that night. Who was I to ask for water when my mother lay dead in a casket three feet away?”

  Shelly took a swig of her beer and looked down. Her expression was serious. I knew she hated talking about death. “I suppose,” she said.

  “Remember that dream I had where I was crying and the woman was holding me on my bed?”

  She nodded.

  “I think I was crying because of my mom. The outfit I was wearing in that dream was the same one I had on the day she died. People remember things like that. I’d spent the entire day at the hospital. There wasn’t any change in her condition, so when my brother got there, I left. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, so when I got home, I ordered a pizza. I was in the middle of paying the delivery man when my brother called and told me.”

  “I burst into tears right in front of the pizza guy. Of course, he knew what had just happened. After I hung up with my brother, there were a few seconds where I didn’t know where I was, and then I felt someone’s arms around me. The pizza man was hugging me.” I shook my head and smiled. “The pizza delivery man was the first person to comfort me after the death of my mother.

  “I didn’t go back to the hospital right away. Instead, I went to my room and cried on my bed, but I was alone.” I paused and whispered, “The dream was more like watching a memory. I liked it a lot better when she was there, and I don’t even know her name.”

  We walked back into the funeral home and into the room where relatives and friends close enough to be considered family stood together, talking quietly to one another. We stopped to look at a collage of pictures. Shelly came to us and touched my arm. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

  I shrugged, knowing I should have been more prepared. We all should have been, but we had thought that if anyone could beat this, it would be Mom.

  My siblings and I had stayed up late into the night putting that collage together. We really should have been more prepared. But the cancer took her from us only five months after she was diagnosed. Planning for this before it happened meant giving up, giving in, and accepting death. Though we weren’t willing to do that, Death still got its way.Shelly pointed to a picture of my father and mother from their fortieth anniversary party, smiling and hand in hand in the middle of a dance floor. “That was a great party,” my friend said.

  In the picture, my parents wore hats that read, “Happy 40th!”

  “Yeah it was,” I responded quietly.

  As I looked at the picture, I noticed my brother dancing in the background with his arm around the woman who stood beside me.

  I smiled, recalling how drunk he’d gotten that night as he danced wildly. Unfortunately for the woman, he’d chosen her as his favorite dancing partner. I remembered watching them and laughing hysterically as he twirled her, dipped her, and attempted to “Patrick Swayze” her with a lift.

  I peered over the rest of the pictures and held close the happy memories they captured from special holidays, my dad’s 60th birthday, my sister’s wedding, and my brother’s graduation from the Police Academy. The woman appeared with me in every one.

  There was a photograph from the last Christmas I’d spent with my mother. The woman wore black pants, a white sweater, and a Santa hat. My mother’s hand rested on my shoulder, and my father’s arm was wrapped tightly around the woman’s shoulders.

  I smiled at how happy we looked.

  As tears cluttered the corners of my eyes, I glanced at one last picture at the top of the collage. The woman and I were dressed in strapless white gowns. While her hair was pulled up in a smooth formal bun with a veil around it, the curls of my long dark hair pressed against her face as we smiled into the camera.

  With a deep sigh, I touched the photograph and said, “At least my mother got to see me get married.”

  The woman pulled me close and kissed the side of my face.

  I opened my eyes and sat up. “She’s my wife?” I asked out loud in disbelief. I ran my fingers through my hair and leaned back, letting some time pass for the dream to settle in my mind. “She’s my wife,” I repeated, only this time, it didn’t sound so strange because she was exactly the kind of woman I wanted to marry.

  Chapter Three

  When I walked into the house, he was sitting in a chair in front of the TV. He stood up when he saw me. He smiled, but it wasn’t the same smile from the man who saw me ride a bike for the first time, attend my first school dance, or graduate from college.

  In just eight months, my father had aged eight years. His sagging eyes and frail body screamed of sleepless nights and a loss of desire to do anything that resembled living.

  He had died that day with my mom.

  “Hey, I wasn’t expecting you,” he said. “Your sister said she was stopping by.”

  Ever since mom passed, my brother, sister, and I took turns making sure he wasn’t alone very long.

  “Well, I called her and told her I’d come instead. She’ll be over tomorrow, though, with the kids,” I replied.

  I followed him through the living room and into the kitchen. “You want something to eat?” he asked.

  “I was hoping you’d want to get out for a little bit and grab a bite.”

  His mouth tightened. “I…I have perfectly good food here. Mrs. Graham next door made me this tuna casserole,” he said and pulled a dish from the refrigerator.

  I took a peek and wasn’t surprised to see that it had hardly been touched.

  I looked at my father and offered an encouraging smile, “Okay, we don’t have to go out today. Maybe next time.”

  “Yeah, maybe next time,” he repeated.

  As he prepared our dishes, I walked back into the living room. Lying beside his favorite chair was a photo album. My heart broke as I imagined my father, every day, looking through old pictures.

  I sat in his chair and opened the album onto my lap. The first few pages were filled with my parents holding me and my siblings when we were babies, and each turn of the page captured special moments as we grew older.

  As I looked through the pages, my eyes stopped on a familiar picture taken at my parents’ fortieth anniversary party. Mom and Dad were standing in the middle of a dance floor, and behind them, my brother was dancing with his arms flailing in the air.

  It was the exact photo I’d seen as part of the collage in my dream, only in this one, my brother didn’t have his arm around his favorite dancing partner; he was dancing alone.

  I held my breath, and my heart raced as I flipped through the pages, searching for more. And then I saw it: the picture of me and my parents from last Christmas. Our outfits matched the photo I’d seen in my dream, only the woman wearing the Santa hat wasn’t there.

  I pressed a hand against the side of my forehead. “What the fuck is going on?” I asked out loud. I hurried down the hall and opened a closet door. Kneeling down, I pulled out a bin filled with photo albums.

  With shaking hands, I opened the first one, turning every page with angst as I searched for any picture that matched the ones I’d seen in my dream. I did this with all the albums, and it wasn’t long before I was staring at a picture taken at my brother’s graduation from the academy. It was identical to the picture I’d seen in the collage, except the woman wasn’t there.

  I remembered the picture clearly from my dream. My brother, dressed in his fresh over-starched blue uniform, was standing between me and the woman. In the photo in my dream, I’d had one arm wrapped around my brother’s waist and the other pressed against his chest. The woman kissed him on the cheek and had one arm linked through his arm. The photo I was holding in my hand was the exact same picture—but in the photo, it was just him and me.

  The only photograph from my dream that didn’t appear in any of the albums was the one from our wedding.

  In a daze, I piled everything back into the bin and shoved it into the closet. I walked to the kitchen.

  My father sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window into the backyard. He could have been watching the birds chirping loudly in the little tree house he’d built for them or the neighbor’s dogs toppling all over each other. I suspected he was staring at nothing.

  I smiled at my father and spent the rest of the day with him. Whatever, if anything, my dreams meant would have to wait a little longer for me to figure out. My father needed me.

  “It’s getting chilly out there,” Shelly said as she shut my kitchen window. Fall was coming to an end. The nights were getting longer and colder.

  I sat at the table, dragging Thai take-out across my plate with the edge of my fork.

  Shelly sat beside me, and I watched her, with an apparent heavier appetite, scarf down her food. Taking a break between bites, she looked at me. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?”

  “Yes, this is good. Thanks for picking it up,” I said, forcing a bite.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her watching me. “You want to talk about the pictures,” she said.

  I had called Shelly while driving home from my father’s house. “I saw the pictures, Shell.”

  “What pictures? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I was just at my dad’s, and in his photo album were the pictures I saw in the dream of my mom’s funeral.”

  I waited for her to say something, but when she said nothing, I pressed, “So?”

  She sighed deeply into the phone.

  “Please don’t get frustrated with me,” I begged.

  “Maybe we’re going at this the wrong way. Maybe this has nothing to do with your mom. You’re dreaming of a beautiful woman, someone you clearly wish was real, because in some crazy way, I think you’re falling for her, and that’s pretty fucked up. You need to get a real-life beautiful woman and fuck her, because you’ve been very tense lately.”

  “It’s because of these dreams!”

  “Exactly! And maybe a good lay is exactly what you need. News flash! Sex makes you feel good. It relaxes you!”

  I shook my head. “I’m not having these dreams because of lack of sex. I was just with Becca!”

  “Oh, right, and I imagine sex with her was a huge stress relief. That crazy bitch made you wash your feet seven times before she let you under the covers!”

  I pressed my cell against my ear and stared at the road. When I didn’t respond, Shelly said in a softer tone, “I’m sorry if I’m being an asshole again, but I really don’t know what to say.”

  Now, I laid down my fork and leaned into my seat. I knew she didn’t want to talk about this anymore, but I did. “This all sounds crazy to you, and maybe in the beginning, it was something to joke about, but now, I’m not sure. These pictures were taken directly out of my life, and this woman was in every one of them. You can’t tell me I just dreamed it from memory, because my memory isn’t that good! The photos were identical all the way from the clothes we wore, to the smile on our faces. Hell, even the background was the same! She was the only thing that was different. How could that be?”

  I stared at her, waiting for a response as she took it all in.

  “Like I said on the phone, I just don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Is it weird? Yeah, totally, but I’m no dream expert, and neither are you. Like I said before, maybe it’s your subconscious taking over. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, and it probably has some fancy scientific name.”

  “She’s my wife,” I said flatly. “I saw a picture of us from our wedding, and we looked like we belonged together. We know each other. I mean, really know each other. I wish you could see us together, because you’ve never seen me this way with anyone before.”

  “And what way is that?”

  “In love,” I answered.

  “In love,” Shelly repeated and then pushed herself away from the table. “Well, Maddy, me seeing you with her is something that will never happen. Do you wanna know why that will never happen?”

  “I know why you think that will never happen, but that’s where you’re wrong.” I stared at her and said, “I’m just gonna come out and say it. I think she’s real.”

  Shelly took a deep breath and pored over her food. “Maddy, Maddy, Maddy. What are you saying? This is crazy! I’m back to thinking these dreams are about your mom, because this is way beyond not getting laid. You lost a woman you loved, you miss her, and now you’re trying to replace all those things you miss about her with this other woman.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “If this was just about me missing my mom, then why wouldn’t I just dream of my mom? There’d be no reason for this woman to be in my dreams if it were just about my mom.”

  I watched a look of frustration cross Shelly’s face as she ran a hand through her hair. “You said you were at your dad’s today. How’s he doing?”

  “Wow, that was a very obvious subject change,” I pointed out.

  “I’m sorry, Maddy, but I’m having a real hard time digesting this food and your dreams at the same time. I need a fucking break.”

  “Fine, but don’t use my dad as an excuse to change the subject.”

  She touched my arm. “I’m serious. How’s he doing?”

  I looked at her. “He’s desperately lost without her, and I don’t know how to make him better. Of course, I knew it would be hard for him to move on, but I thought eventually he would.”

  “Maddy, it’s only been eight months. Give the man some time.”

  “But he’s only getting worse. She was the love of his life, and he can’t live without her. Until I started having these dreams, I’ve never experienced that kind of love before and what it felt like to have someone to come home to, or someone to comfort you while you cry in their arms and take care of you when you lose your mom to cancer. The love he misses is the love I have with this woman.”

  Shelly kicked the chair out from underneath her and came toward me. “What are you saying?” she yelled. “That you love this woman the same way your father loved your mom? Madison, that is ridiculous. It is not the same!”

  I shoved myself away from the table and stormed across the room. “Maybe not here, in real life, but in my dreams it is! We were married! I saw the picture of us. We had a life together. We’d known each other a long time. I can feel it. Hell, my brother graduated from the academy eleven years ago, and she was in the pictures! Eleven years ago!” I stopped and took a deep breath. “If you could see these pictures, you’d understand. It isn’t just about the mere fact that she was in them, but it’s about how close she looked with my family. She was a part of my life.”

  Shelly cocked her head and gave me a challenging look. “So you’ve known each other for a long time, you and this woman in your dreams. The two of you shared some great life together, yet you don’t even know her name. Madison, real people have names.”

  I held the microphone in my hand and looked out at the smiling faces of friends and family. I nervously licked my lips as I steadied myself to speak.

 

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