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Chapter 21-2

It had been eighteen years since my brother died, and for the first few years, I dreamed of him often. Sometimes I relived real moments from our past, actual conversations with him. In those dreams, I knew he was dead, and there were so many things I wanted to tell him, but our past scripts constrained me. I was trapped in the same words and couldn’t change anything, except by the end tears would be streaming from my eyes as I said my lines. Eventually I started to think he knew what was coming too, that he was trapped in the script, and his chocolate eyes looked like they were melting.

In other dreams, I’d create new memories. I’d remember while dreaming that Allan was supposed to be dead, but think my greatest wish had been fulfilled. The waking world where he was dead became the dream, the nightmare. We never lived very dramatic moments, just the everyday things we used to take for granted. When I woke from those dreams, I’d have a few cruel moments of happiness, thinking Allan really was alive and my years of grief the dream. Then the truth would creep in again, and the emptiness would return.

I hadn’t dreamed of Allan for a while, and I don’t know what triggered this one. In my previous dreams, he’d looked as I remembered him, a beautiful nineteen-year-old with his whole life ahead of him. This time he looked closer to the age he would be had he lived—thirty-seven. I wanted to ask him what he was doing, if he had a family, but I don’t remember either of us speaking. I don’t think we could. We just looked at each other, smiling, and in the way of dreams we did that for a fraction of a second that was forever. At the end of forever, both our faces were wet with tears. We embraced. His arms were strong, lifting me up onto my toes. It lasted forever, and forever ended again. I fought to stay asleep, to stay with him, but I couldn’t. My eyes opened to see the red numbers of my alarm clock: 2:14 a.m. My pillow was damp and my face itched with tears.

It hurt to move, but I got up to splash water on my face anyway, only to discover that task was too complex for my feeble left hand. I settled for a damp washcloth instead. The coolness was reassuring, and I took the cloth with me to the living room to sit in front of the TV. Even manipulating the remote was painful enough to take the fun from channel-surfing infomercials. I flipped the television off and set the remote on the end table next to me. A bit of pale blue on the other side of my hula girl lamp caught my eye.

That damn letter. How many days had it been since I’d brought it home? I couldn’t remember any more. It was still unopened. Why not? I was feeling masochistic. I reached for it and spent a good half minute fumbling to get it open with one sore hand.