Dream
She woke up with a start and for a moment was still trapped in the dream. It was dark, morning only faintly coloring the horizon to the east, that point in the morning where if you wake up from a dream you're not sure it was a dream.
It was a dream, but it wasn't the dream she had hoped she'd have.
The handkerchief was still lying beside her on the bed, not wet anymore, but still a reminder that when she went to sleep she was crying and aching for what she could never have again. So she prayed for a dream. Just a dream would be good enough, if she could dream she was home again and he was there in the bed beside her, just one more time.
It used to be that he was often there in the bed beside her when she woke up from a dream that he was not there, but now he wasn't and would never be again. Alone in the darkness, she cried again, moaning for the dream that didn't come, mourning the loss not only of her husband, but of everything he had been. He had been her lover, her children's father, her home. Without him, this place was just a set of rooms. She had prayed for a dream – just a dream that he would be here with her. That she could come home again. A dream would have been enough. A dream would have helped her set right again.
The dream she got was about trying to get away with her children, in a wagon out of the barn, before some danger her dream never revealed overtook them all. He was not in her dream. It was just her, and her children – in the dream, all four of them the same age, about ten years old. She was trying to run away from this place with them, to get away from the nameless and faceless danger, without her husband.
She moaned out loud, and she cried again. She had prayed hard for that good dream – just a dream to feel her husband close to her again, to feel like she had come home again – but God gave her a nightmare of running away from some faceless danger, hustling her children away from whatever it was, away from home.
There was a knock at her door. "Mother? Mother, are you awake? Are you all right?"
The voice of her oldest son, not a ten-year-old but a man now 27 with the deep baritone he'd inherited from his father. Oh, if only he could have been his father.
She sat up and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief. "Yes, Jarrod, I'm fine."
"May I come in?" his voice asked.
Victoria moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "Yes, of course."
The door opened and he stood there silhouetted by the dim lights in the hallway they always kept lit. So like his father when Tom was his age. "I heard you cry out," he said, coming in slowly. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," Victoria said. "I just – " And then she stopped.
Jarrod came in and sat down beside her. He was already dressed for the day. A practicing lawyer with an office in town, he was often the last one to go to bed but sometimes the first one up. Victoria remembered. Jarrod was going to get started on probating Tom's will today, now that the funeral was over and it was time to move on.
Jarrod put his arm around his mother, and she rested her head on his shoulder. "Did you have a nightmare?" he asked.
Victoria couldn't bring herself to tell him about her prayer, about what she asked for and how she'd gotten the complete opposite. At this moment, God seemed almost crueler than he seemed when her husband was murdered, only a week ago. She just said, "Yes. I hope I didn't wake you."
Jarrod looked at his clothes. "No, as you can see, I was already up. You know, when I was a little boy and I had a nightmare, somehow you always knew and came to console me. You always did a fine job."
"You'd tell me all about the nightmare," Victoria said.
"That's what helped me to get over it," Jarrod said.
But Victoria shook her head. "No. Not this one."
Jarrod said, "Too private?"
Victoria figured Jarrod was thinking her dream was too private because it was between her and her husband, his father. But Victoria knew it was too private because it was between her and God. Why did God give her the opposite of what she had begged for? She sighed and said only, "Yes." She squeezed her son's knee. "Forgive me."
Jarrod kissed her on the hair. "There's nothing to forgive, Lovely Lady. Just know I'll be here whether you want to talk or not – always."
There was the noise of someone moving in the hall. Her second son appeared in silhouette at the open door. Victoria and Jarrod both looked up at him. His outline showed he was still in nightclothes.
"Is everything all right in there?" Nick asked softly.
"It's fine," Jarrod said. "You'd better get yourself dressed and going."
"Yeah, those cattle aren't going to wait for me," Nick said and wandered off to the wc.
Jarrod squeezed his mother a little. "Mother, if it's me and Nick and Audra and Eugene you're worried about, don't. We can take care of each other, and we'll take care of you too. Father is gone, but he left a lot of love behind and it will always be with us. This is still home, and we're still your family."
"Lawyers are good at finding the right words," Victoria said and patted Jarrod's knee. "Go on down and see if Silas needs anything in the kitchen. I'll be down in a little while."
Jarrod kissed her hair again. "I love you, Mother."
He lit the bedside lamp for her, then left and closed the door behind him. Everything was quiet again. Victoria sat there with her bad dream and unanswered prayer, or did she get the answer she needed more than the answer she wanted? A dream about moving away from a danger with her children but without her husband. Moving away, moving on, from the terrible loss. Was the dream telling her she could do that, and she'd have help facing a hard future?
Her husband was gone, but her children were still here. She was still home. That would have to be – and it would be – the answer to her prayer. She prayed again, this time that the dream she got would be more helpful than the one she'd asked for. Only the future would tell. Only getting up and living it would tell.
"I love you, Tom," she said, without tears now, and got up.
The End