The dream, p.1
The Dream, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Laura Miller.
LauraMillerBooks.com
The Dream
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system.
Cover design by Laura Miller.
Cover photo; title page photo; and The End page photo (couple) © Halfpoint.
Title page photo; quote page photo; chapter headings photo; and section break photo (moon) © HENADZ.
Second title page photo (flowers) © yurisyan.
Second title page photo; contents page photo; chapter headings photo; section break photo; The End page photo; and acknowledgments page photo (gerbera daisy) © karandaev.
Title pages design by Laura Miller.
Dedication page photo and title page photo (daisy) © antonel.
Dedication page photo (multicolored rose) © fullempty.
Dedication page photo (lily) © sbgoodwin.
Sisters photo © Laura Miller.
Author photo © Neville Miller.
To the Creator of love,
For knowing we’d need it.
And to my sisters, Kathy and April.
And finally, to the dreamers.
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Laura Miller
I hide you in plain sight.
You still have a piece of me.
You can keep it.
I should have given you more.
prologue
-daisy-
When I was young, I’d spend my Sundays at Mrs. Helling’s house. She lived in a small brick home outside of a little town everyone else left decades ago. She was in her eighties, and she lived alone. Her husband, a World War II veteran, passed away five years before I was born. I knew him only from the photos that lined the walls of the little home. Most days, Mrs. Helling was self-sufficient. In fact, looking back, she seemed more like a woman in her sixties than eighties. But nevertheless, she did have those days where her knees just wouldn’t cooperate. So, every Sunday, my dad, my sister and I would tie up the loose ends by doing things like hanging her laundry and cutting her grass and dusting her collection of salt and pepper shakers.
I remember her being so proud of that collection. She had a pair of shakers from every state—“even Hawaii,” as she never failed to point out. I asked her one day if she had a favorite. Then I watched her carefully examine every pair before finally shaking her head and saying she couldn’t choose. But I did. My favorite was the set from South Carolina. They were little sea turtles with fanned-out flippers and sparkly, green heads. I was always extra careful with those.
Her family had gathered the shakers for her throughout her lifetime. By then, she didn’t have much family left, and her two children lived on either side of the country. She had never been to most of the places her salt and pepper shakers had, but she told the story of each set as if she had. She was my dad’s Sunday school teacher for the first ten years of his life. He wasn’t related to her, and he had no other connection to her except for those ten years, and of course, our meeting that one day a week. So, I never understood why he had the bond he did with her, until one day. We were hanging tan pantyhose and blue floral dresses onto the clothesline in her backyard when the thought came to me for the last time.
“Dad,” I asked.
“Yes, Daisy?”
“Why do we come here every Sunday?”
He could have said a list of things, I suppose. I expected him to say that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves or that we’re supposed to help our elders because it’s the right thing to do. But he didn’t so much as mention either of those things, though his answer came just as quickly as if he had. In between my question and him picking up a pair of underwear and pinning it to the line, he said: “I think Thomas Jefferson said it best, Daisy. He said: ‘I find as I grow older ... that I love those most whom I loved first.’”
I remember he stopped then, rested his hands on his hips and stared at the freshly cut grass. “Daisy,” he then said, sucking in a thoughtful breath, “I’ve known Mrs. Helling for a long, long time now. And she’s still that same woman who always smelled like shortbread cookies and who taught me how to sing Jesus Loves Me and who stood in for Thomas Winters as a wise man in the Christmas play when he got stage fright real bad.”
I watched him carefully. It was almost as if he—or at least, his mind—had momentarily left me. And now, I was alone, standing beside two nylon legs desperately trying to tickle my arm in the gentle, summer breeze.
Then just like that, he came back to me, bending down and picking up another pair of pantyhose.
“You’ll understand someday, Daisy,” he said, pinning the hose to the line.
I hadn’t thought about that day in a long time. It took me hearing an old wives’ tale not too long ago to remind me of it again. It’s called the Law of Our Firsts, and it goes something like this: Our firsts will be our lasts. Like, our first words—they’ll also be our last words. For a few of us, it will be mom or dad. Some say it’s because we can see them at the very end, welcoming us home. Others say it’s because we’re searching for comfort in a time that’s wholly unfamiliar. For others, it will be words that describe our feelings, like happy or sad or hungry. Either way, despite all those words we crammed into our brains between birth and death, it seems only those very first ones truly matter.
The legend goes for our joys, as well. Those same wives say that some of the first moments that make us smile—like the day we brought home our first pet or that time we stayed up past our bedtime watching that old movie with grandpa. Those are the moments we’ll look back on most when we’re old and gray.
But with our joys, we’ll also have regrets. And oftentimes, those first ones have some staying power ... so they say. Not spending enough time with grandma or not telling that boy in the seventh grade you liked him, apparently, those moments—and not that we didn’t get into Yale—are the regrets that haunt us in our last days. You’d think we would have had enough time to reconcile those first setbacks. It is a lifetime, after all. But as it is, humans are infamous for choosing pain over freedom. So, it would stand to reason that it would take us every bit of a lifetime to bury just one regret. Humans.
And then there are our first loves. These same wives who believe in the strength of our first words and joys and regrets also believe that our first loves do a number on our hearts. Whether it be that first, fast car that was all ours or that boy who stole our heart that one summer before sophomore year, presumably, we’ll always be chasing that first taste of love—that first high. And no matter what we do to forget, cover and ignore their eternal flame, we somehow just can’t. Those first loves find a way to make us remember; they find a way to stay alive and relevant—even if it is just in our own minds. And before we know it, all their sharp edges have turned round, and their subtle ache feels like home.
So, that being said, I suppose I should tell you why I’m writing all this and why those Sundays from my youth, Thomas Jefferson and the Law of Our Firsts are close to my thoughts today. It’s because I have a confession.
My confession?
I love you.
It’s easy to admit that part. I’ve lived and breathed it for so long now; how could it not roll off my tongue with an ease that only comes with the truth?
What’s not so easy, however, is to form the words for this next part. In fact, it nearly crushes my soul—in an oddly familiar, comfortable kind of way.
I love you.
And I know it’s too late.
one
-daisy-
It was summer.
And somewhere in there,
your eyes found mine. I was yours.
I forgot the rest.
There are green-painted fields for miles outside my window. Sometimes I lose track of time just staring at them, dreaming about a machine that could cut all that hay, bale it into square bales and then put it up into the hayloft all by itself. I’d never have to wear flannel in July ever again.
“What are you doing, Biscuit Brain?”
I turn just in time to see Mona belly flop onto my bed. It’s taken her years, but she’s perfected it so much that she lands just perfectly in the center of the mattress only to bounce back up into a sitting position, all in one, fluid motion. She’s proud of it. Her silly smile tells me so.
“Not the pillow,” I say, noticing her inching her way too close to the place I lay my head. “Do not put your butt on my pillow.”
She looks d
“Mom’s in that room again.”
“Okay,” I say, returning my attention to the window. “So?”
“You think somebody’s coming?” she asks.
I stare at the field adjacent to the hayfield. It’s an ocean of corn. The wind makes the stalks bend like waves, rippling over acres of green plants. I’m entranced by their dance for long seconds before slowly swiveling back to Mona.
“You think somebody’s coming and staying in the room?” I ask.
We stay frozen like that, in each other’s stare, for several moments before bursting into laughter.
“You know,” I say, after our laughter starts to fade, “I think Diane and Lisa were the last ones to stay over, and that was before they moved here. Remember? We stayed up until two in the morning listening to that Jamberry book on a cassette tape.”
It looks as if her rusty wheels are turning.
“Oh, yeah,” she says, finally. “That was, like, a million years ago. Do we even have a cassette player anymore?”
I think about it. “I don’t know.”
She seems to chew on my answer for a second before falling back onto my pillow. “I’m so bored.”
“Here,” I say, “read a book.”
I grab To Kill a Mockingbird off my desk and toss it onto the bed next to her.
“Ew, no, it’s summer. Not English class.”
I shrug and go back to the window. Dad’s out there now doodering around. It’s a term Mona and I coined when we were younger. Dad walks around doing stuff to his own spoken cadence of do-do do-do. He’s a dooder.
“Maybe I can just go to bed now,” I hear her say in the background.
I glance at the little clock on my desk. It’s in the shape of a basketball, and it reads: 5:30.
“You’ll miss supper,” I say.
She meets my eyes with a look dripping of apathy. “It’s summer. I can do what I want.”
I let go of a tired sigh and shake my head. I’ve had fourteen years to get used to her weird antics. It would take a lot to surprise me, at this point.
“Fine,” I say, “go to bed then, grandma.”
She starts cozying up to my pillow.
“Hey, no!” I scold her. “In your own room. I know you drool.”
“I do not.”
Just then, the sound of a truck door slamming outside the window steals my attention away from Mona.
I don’t recognize the truck, now sitting in the driveway, and I definitely don’t recognize the person who gets out of it.
“Hey, Mona, get up! Who is this?”
She lazily rolls off the bed and shuffles to the window.
“Who is that?” I mumble again, mostly to myself.
She squints her eyes. “Your boyfriend.”
I look at her. “Seriously,” I say, shoving her arm.
“Ouch.” She rubs her bicep and moves her face closer to the screen.
“You know him?” I ask her.
“Well, he could be my boyfriend ... I guess.”
“You wish,” I say. My tone is sarcastic.
“Hey, I’m becoming super popular, you know? Soon I’ll be more popular than you.”
“Mm-hmm,” I hum. “Anyway, why do you think he’s here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s dropping something off for Dad.”
“Maybe,” I concede.
We watch the boy for a few minutes in silence—as if he’s a bear at the zoo. He looks up at the sky. He pushes his work boot around in the dust. He stares at something off in the distance.
“Wait, look!” I point to a spot outside the window. “He has a duffel bag.”
“What?” She presses her nose into the black screen.
“You think he’s staying here?” I ask.
And with that, we both look at each other with wide eyes.
“The room!” we say in unison.
“No wonder,” Mona says, returning her attention to the boy, now leaning up against the truck’s tailgate. “Why would he be staying here, though?”
“Does it look like I know?”
“He looks old,” she says.
“He doesn’t look that old. I bet he’s in high school.”
“No, he’s, like, thirty.”
I laugh. “You’re thirty.”
“Yeah, in a gazillion years.”
I roll my eyes.
“Wait,” she says. “There’s Dad.”
We both watch as Dad walks up to the boy. He shakes the boy’s hand, and then they talk for a minute. There’s a lot of swaying back and forth and pushing at the dirt with their boots, some nodding and a couple of times where Dad pulls out his red handkerchief from his back pocket and slides it across his forehead.
“They’re walking,” I say.
All of a sudden, Dad and the boy are making their way toward the house.
“They’re coming in!” Mona shouts. Her voice is frantic.
“They’ll come up here!” I quickly survey my room. And within seconds, I’m jumping out of my chair and flying over to my chest. I open the top drawer, and in one fell swoop, I send my unicorn figurine collection into hiding.
“My Trolls!” Mona yells, as she darts out of my room.
When she’s gone, I gather a sports bra, a pair of shorts and a pair of dirty socks off the floor and toss them into the hamper before doing one more scan. If I had any kind of reasonable notice, I would have taken down the wallpaper boarder that runs around the room. It’s white with pink cats and purple unicorns. It’s not the worst, but it was so much cooler ten years ago.
Moments later, Mona comes charging back into my room with her arms full of Troll dolls.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-shout to her.
“I don’t know where to put them all.” There’s a terrified look on her face.
“Well, not in here!”
“Help me,” she pleads, holding out the dolls.
I let out a frustrated groan. “Fine. Here, stick ‘em in here.” I pull open my desk drawer, just as I hear footsteps hitting the bottom of the stairs.
“They won’t all fit,” she quietly cries. She’s still holding five dolls.
“Stick ‘em in your pockets then.”
She desperately shoves three into her shorts pockets and then holds out the other two to me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I sigh and grab the last two Trolls and shove them into my jean shorts pockets, just as Dad and the boy reach the top of the steps.
Mona and I stand side by side, our backsides resting against my desk, as we listen to the muffled thumps of boots hitting the floorboards. With each thump, they’re getting closer and closer. And by the time the footsteps come to a halt, I don’t think either of us is breathing.
“Hey, girls,” Dad says, peering into my room.
Mona’s shoulder is touching mine, and I know we’re far too close to look natural. No one stands this close to someone in a room with only two people in it. We look like weirdos.
“Hi,” I say, clearly out of breath.
Dad gives me a funny look but then turns to the boy standing behind him. “This is Everton. He’s staying with us for the summer.”
“The summer?” Mona whispers.
I elbow her, and she dramatically stiffens.
“Hey,” I say. I try to sound like someone who doesn’t have two Trolls in her pockets.
“Yeah, hey,” Mona echoes.
“Hi,” the boy says, giving us both a once-over before ultimately lowering his head and clearly smiling, as if something is funny.
That moment is followed by a moment where we all just look at each other, after which I just want to dissolve into the floorboards.
“Okay, then,” Dad says, finally turning and continuing on his way to the spare room.
They’re gone, but Mona and I are still just staring, motionless, at the open door. Seconds go by like that, until I hear Dad talking to the boy in the next room.
Slowly, I tiptoe to my door and close it as quietly as humanly possible. I cringe as the hinges scream back to life.
With the door shut and my back against it, I close my eyes and let go of a long-held breath.
“He’s staying here,” Mona whispers.
I open my eyes to her, and the first thing I see is pink and yellow hair flowing out of her pockets. I panic and look down at my own pockets. Sure enough, I’ve got not only purple and blue hair but also a Troll doll head sticking out of each pocket.
