"Don't most people have different dreams?"
Helen did not know what to say. She had never had a dream. Even as a child, sleep was merely blackness until she woke back again to another day. Her childhood had not included picture books, stories or any other amusements of that kind. Instead her time was devoted to piano lessons, dancing lessons, poise and posture lessons, culture lessons, writing lessons and history lessons.
She would not hear her first fairy tale until Margret was born.
Perhaps free time would become available for an afternoon and she and Imogene would play with a few dolls or take so time in the garden.
Her older sister would often describe her dreams in great detail, which would usually involve a handsome prince rescuing her on a dashing white horse to take her off into the sunset and be married. While in great detail, Imogene's dreams were usually the same.
She met Charles when she was a mere eighteen years old and he was a mere twenty years. Their marriage was an agreement between the two families to seal a business deal but he truly fascinated her, with his wild talk and ideas. She considered it an added bonus that he was, while not a traditional handsome, was a good-looking man. Possibly it was his air of energy and the sparkle in his eye, which she would later see in the younger of their daughters.
Charles would merely tell her an idea that sprung into his mind at one odd moment or another but he never told about his nighttime dreams. Although occasionally while awake on a late night, she would hear him mutter a word or twitch in his sleep.
Even when still in the crib, neither of their children had a nightmare or bad dream. Alice would begin to describe the same dream over and over again after a bout of sickness made her leave a tea party being hosted by the neighbors and be put to bed for several days.
After Charles's death, she would cry herself to sleep for a night or two while silently mourning the loss in the daytime. But still no dreams.
"I don't know."