I Dreamed Of You
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Bleak House
Copyright: Public Domain/BBC
"I have dreamed of this for so long, cariad," Allan says, walking with his arm around Esther's waist in the sunlit gardens of Bleak House II.
"So did I," says Esther, her eyes burning with the memory of dried roses going up in smoke. "Even when I despaired of such dreams ever coming true. Being here with you, like this, seemed like a blessing far beyond what I deserved."
Her hand drifts down to the gentle swell of her abdomen, where the child inside her is growing like a flower seed. The earliest dream of her childhood, to be loved and needed by someone the way she loved and needed her old doll, springs up vividly in the shadows of her mind. For a moment, she feels the chill of long-dead eyes on her. Your mother is your disgrace, and you were hers. It would be better if you had never been born.
"Do you truly believe that I am fit to be a mother, Allan? I, who have never known a mother's love in all the years of my childhood?"
"Esther. Of course you are."
"How do you know?"
"Because you are a mother already, to every child you know." Her husband's black eyes sparkle as he smiles down at her. "Little Rick, Little Esther – not to mention their parents – the Jellyby family, even poor Charley and her younger siblings. You are the strongest, wisest, most loving person I have ever met, and our child will be blessed to have you for a mother. I only wish you could believe in yourself as I do."
"When you look at me like that, I could believe anything."
She smiles back at him, safe from her demons in the circle of his arm. They will come back eventually, as always, but when they do, she trusts implicitly in her doctor to draw the poison out.