Ch19: What a Family, Huh?
I awoke suddenly after my dream ended. But was it just a dream? I sat up to see my husband reading by the desk lamp.
"Wha..." I muttered, getting out of bed. I glanced at the clock. 1052 P.M.
"Mommy?" I heard a small voice call. I went down the hall to a bedroom with a bunkbed and a futon. I saw a small figure huddled up on the bottom bunk, her knees to her chest.
"What's wrong, Lilly?" I asked, sitting down by her and putting an arm around her small shoulders.
"I had a awful dream!" she cried. (She's only three!)
"It's okay, sweetie, it's alright," I whispered, wiping some of her tears off of her delicate face. "I've even had quite a few bad dreams. Your father does sometimes, too."
"But Daddy's brave! He's never gotten scared afore!"
"That doesn't mean he hasn't been scared before. Why, before we got married, we were stuck between a rock and a hard place! Your father was scared for me and his family, but he never thought about himself. That was my job. Now he's a lot more careful. Now go back to sleep, okay?" I told her, tucking her back into bed. She was asleep in no time. Look at me, I'm a mother of FIVE kids with another on the way and I'm only thirty-two, I thought with a wry smile. A heard the upper bunk creak and saw a head, upside-down, appear next to mine.
"Did she have another nightmare?" asked my four-year-old son, Nakaru. I nodded and he went back to bed. I heard Kasu sit up on his futon.
"What time is it?" he asked groggily, his dark-blue hair tousled. Before I could reply, he fell back down onto his pillow. I sighed and went to the kitchen to get some Rose-Red tea.(I love that kind...)
The kitchen's stormdoor opened up and in came Rosemary, Narcissus, and Yusuke's eldest and only daughter, Atsuko, who was grumbling something about the weather being bad. One look outside told me that the tent had leaked badly and I told them to sleep in the living room.
I looked back outside, thinking about how Shiori had died in a car crash caused by a drunk driver three months ago in conditions just like this.
I sighed sadly and, picking up the glass of tea, went back to bed. Kurama had fallen asleep by the desk, so I covered him up with a blanket.
"Night, honey..." I whispered, going to bed. Gradually, I fell back into a fitful, unpleasant sleep.
