"Dream Interpretation"

That night, after there is only the chirp of crickets and the last, wistful footsteps of Vinny have left our apartment, I fitfully and finally fall asleep and dream.


I am standing in the hallway of our house in Houston. There is the newel post I banged my head against when I roller skated through the front door. There are mom’s children’s plays scattered on the floor and the smell of old books and dad’s oatmeal. I am home! I start to run up the worn stairs but there is Dad coming through the front door behind me. He holds two tickets in his hands and for some reason I know they are for Disneyworld.


“Dad!” I run to him but he just walks through me and starts calling for my mother. “Sam? Sam where are you?”


I glance out the window of our cozy den. It is a sunny day that makes me think of fresh squeezed orange juice and games of hopscotch. But when I blink it is raining outside and dad’s navy Corolla is sitting on our lawn. It is waiting for him. I must do everything I can to keep him home with us.


“Dad, it’s me, Amelia!” He is heading for our sky blue kitchen. Oh, I am hungry to see it again, but there is a knock at our front door.


“Amelia, can you see who it is?” mom asks from the kitchen. Her voice is light. Nothing has happened yet. It is still Before. There is still time to make everything okay.


I open the door and there is Mr. McGee dressed in a red suit. “Hey Shorty,” he kisses the top of my head.


“You can’t be here! You need to go!” I stretch my arms to block him.


“Ya can’t stop a man who’s in love, Shorty.”


“Oh, Vinny!” mom croons. Dad is standing behind her.


“Oh, Samantha!” They become ballerinas en point and tiptoe toward each other in the hallway.


“Samantha?! Sam, who is this man?” dad asks but they just skip past him into the kitchen.


“Dad, you’ve got to stop them!” I tug on his flannel shirt. It is the same one I wore in school, the same one I wanted a hug from. But he doesn’t feel a thing. I am not there for him.


“Please, let me make you breakfast, Samantha,” Vinny says and walks over to the wooden cabinets. Inside are the bluebonnet plates and glasses.


“These don’t belong to you!” I slam the cabinets closed.


“Amelia, that is just plain rude,” mom says and pushes me out of the way. She hands Vinny the big blue bowl with the tiny crack running through one side, the one my dad always made pancake batter in. I am crying inside and out.


Dad walks over and touches the bowl that mom holds. It turns immediately to the bone white of mom’s new kitchenware. “Oh,” he says and walks over to the wooden table he helped build with Grandpa Frank. This too he touches and the table is now the cheap plastic one we eat off of at Meadowview.


“I just wanted to surprise you, for our anniversary, Sam,” dad says with giant tears in his eyes. But mom doesn’t hear dad, she only knows Vinny in his red suit whispering in her ear as he holds her from behind. It is what my dad used to do. It is what he can still keep doing if she’d just let him. “But I can see…” he looks around our blue kitchen. Its walls are already spilling into yellow. “I don’t belong here.” His eyes look like they’re on mine and I am crying again.


He is walking out of the kitchen and is in our hallway. Jack is on the bottom step of the stairs, dad’s spear in his hands. “Hey big guy!” dad ruffles the top of Jack’s head. “Where’s your sister?”


“She’s right here.” He points to me.


“Hi dad!” I scream. My tears are hitting our wooden floor.


“Why can’t I see her?”


“Because she doesn’t want you to go.” Jack hands our father his spear.


“Oh, but I have to. I don’t belong here anymore. Things have changed.” He looks down at the tears that have accumulated into several puddles at my feet. “That’s her, isn’t it?” He points to the now flooding floor.


“Yeah.”


Dad looks out of the den window. The headlight of the car winks at him. “Maybe I can go find more of her out there.” He hands my brother the spear. “You keep this. You know how to hold on and let go.”


“Dad—no! Don’t get in that car! I’m here! I’m here!” But he is already in the car and I can’t run after him because I am swimming in my own tears.


I wake up with a start and think that it is still raining. But it is only my cold tears. Outside it is still pitch dark. I rub the salty dampness off my cheeks and tiptoe into the den. It is time to hold on and let go. I flick the light switch and stare at the stack of memories just waiting to be unearthed. Mom keeps her heart tucked behind hook-rugs. And I am about to do something that will make it come out and say hello. I’m going to make a scrapbook of our life together before Meadowview, before everything went wrong.


Maybe then my mother will be there for me the way I need her to be; maybe then the mother I miss will return.