When it was over, I glanced at my suitcase, still standing on its wheels in the entranceway.
“I guess I better lug you upstairs before I fall asleep down here.”
A short while later, after I had unpacked in the spare bedroom, I changed into my white nightie and brushed my teeth.
As I turned off the bathroom light and padded down the hall, the house felt eerily quiet. I thought of Gram living here all alone and wondered if she minded the solitude. It was hard to believe it had been eight years since Grampy passed away. It seemed like yesterday that he was still with us.
Too exhausted to even read, I slipped into bed, decided not to set the alarm for the morning, switched off the light and went straight to sleep.
Chapter Five
It was odd when I woke to the smell of bacon. At first I thought I was imagining it, but as the sleepy, jet-lag-induced fog in my brain cleared, I realized it was definitely bacon in the air.
My eyes opened to bright sunlight streaming in through the windows. Still groggy with sleep, I squinted at the blinding light and shaded my eyes. What time was it?
I glanced at the yellow numbers on the digital clock. It was almost 9:30 and I was at my grandmother’s house… But who the heck was cooking bacon in her kitchen?
Sitting up in bed with a whoosh of nervous butterflies—because I had been under the impression I was staying alone in the house—I tossed the covers aside and tiptoed out to the hall to peer over the railing. I couldn’t see past the bottom of the staircase, nor could I hear any sounds coming from the kitchen, so I decided, rather uncertainly and perhaps unwisely, to go downstairs and investigate.
* * *
“Gram?”
At least it was my grandmother who was standing in front of the stove instead of some random intruder with bad intentions, but the butterflies of panic in my tummy flew into a frenzy nevertheless. “What the heck are you doing here? What about your hip?”
I rushed forward, thinking she’d need help to reach a chair, but even that made no sense. She’d just had surgery. Yesterday.
She turned to face me and I was bowled over by how terrific she looked—at least a full decade younger. Her hair was thicker, longer and colored brown, and she was wearing eye makeup.
“What do you mean?” she asked with a bewildered frown, holding up a spatula. “What’s wrong with my hip?”
I stared at her for a moment, openmouthed, and was startled when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Whirling around, I found myself gaping up at my tall grandfather with his warm and caring eyes behind large, Coke-bottle glasses.
Without a second’s rational thought, I threw my arms around his waist and hugged him tightly.
In that blissful moment—as I reveled in the soothing sensation of his hand rubbing up and down my back while he laughed—I realized I was dreaming. It was one of those rare and extraordinary experiences that occur just before you wake, when you are consciously aware that you’re asleep and dreaming. The dream feels impossibly real and you feel in control of what will happen next.
Please, don’t let it end yet. Don’t wake up… Just a few more minutes…
I backed up a step and regarded my grandfather with a powerful wave of love in my heart. “Hi, Grampy.”
“Morning kiddo,” he said jubilantly. “Are you hungry?”
I turned to face Gram again. She was holding out a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs and toast. The smell of the hot breakfast flooded my senses and caused me to salivate, and the joy I felt in the presence of my grandparents made me laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Gram asked.
“Nothing, I’m just happy,” I replied, taking the plate from her and sitting down at the table.
The next thing I knew, the dream spirited me, in a flash, to the lake with my summer friends. I sprinted to the end of the dock and leapt in like a cannonball.
Kersplash! The cool water engulfed me, flowed thunderously into my ears as I sank to the sandy bottom. I pushed off with the ball of my foot and paddled against the resistance of the depths, following the bubbles upward toward the bright, wavy surface and sunlight above.
When at last I broke through and gulped in a breath of fresh air, Ethan was there in front of me, treading water and smiling.
So handsome…so real…
Shock quivered through me and I nearly went under again—for he was my one and only true love. I hadn’t seen him since my youth, but this morning, in this vibrant, extraordinary dream, it was summertime in Portland, Maine. The year was 1998 and I was sixteen years old.
I swam to Ethan eagerly and wrapped my arms around his neck, felt his smooth skin and muscular shoulders beneath my hands, kissed him passionately on the mouth. We sank down together and kissed beneath the surface of the water until we couldn’t hold our breaths any longer. He dragged me up by the hand.
“I love you so much!” I cried out, splashing around, desperate to tell him this one important thing before the dream ended.
“I love you, too,” he replied, laughing at my exuberance. “Forever. Come on, let’s go.” He began to swim away, back to the pebbly beach and the place where we’d left our towels.
I remained where I was, however, treading water with some difficulty, bobbing up and down beneath the surface, catching brief, watery glimpses of him on the beach, drying off with the towel, pulling on a blue T-shirt.
“Are you coming out?” he shouted.
I wanted to. More than anything. All I wanted was to touch him again, to hold him and stay there with him forever at the lake where we’d loved each other so passionately.
Suddenly my eyes flew open and I sat bolt upright in bed.
I was back in my grandmother’s house. The dream was over. Everything was quiet. It was 2015 again.
A quick glance at the clock told me it was 10:00 a.m. The sun was shining outside.
Still wallowing in the vividness of the dream, my heart pounded with excitement, which was an odd feeling. Usually, thoughts of Ethan left me feeling empty and morose.
I flopped back down onto the pillows as an unexpected wave of euphoria moved me to tears at the memory of that kiss in the water. Ethan! It was as if I’d actually touched him, heard his voice and tasted his lips—those lips I once knew so well. As I lay there in bed, his presence remained fresh in my mind. I could still hear him so clearly, calling to me from the shoreline…
Then the memory of the dream began to fade from my mind, and though I fought to hold onto the feelings and sensations, the thrills and the euphoria, everything pulled away from me. I had to remind myself that it was just a dream. Nothing had changed. I was still thirty-three years old. Ethan was gone and I would never see him again. Not in this lifetime.
Pressing a hand to my forehead, I closed my eyes and lay still for a long while, doing my best to steer clear of the familiar gloom.
It was just a dream. Nothing but a dream.
But wow, I thought to myself. It felt so real. How was that possible?
Chapter Six
When I arrived at the hospital an hour later, Gram was sitting up in bed, watching television.
“Morning,” I said warmly as I approached and kissed her on the cheek. “How are you feeling today?”
Still weak and groggy from the pain meds, Gram regarded me with affection and squeezed my hand. “Much better, my darling angel. It’s so good to see you. When did you get here?”
“I was here last night. Remember? I came straight from the airport, but you were pretty out of it after the surgery.”
Her eyebrows lifted and she spoke with childlike innocence. “I don’t remember that at all.”
I smiled. “I didn’t think you would, but it’s not important. What matters is that I’m here now and I’m so glad you’re okay. It must have been a really bad fall.”
Gram waved a hand through the air. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad. I was hardly two feet off the ground when I slipped, and that could have happened to anyone.”
I chuckl
ed and rubbed her arm. “It’s lucky you didn’t slip when you were at the top with the hose in your hand.”
“You’re right,” she replied. “And let that be a lesson to you. No matter how bad it is, it could always be worse.”
“Very true,” I agreed with a laugh. “But really Gram, in the future, you need to ask for help for things like that.”
“I don’t have much choice about it, now,” she replied grumpily. “The doctor says it’ll take a few months for me to get back on my feet. A few months! He says I’ll have to use a walker for a while and go to physiotherapy appointments. I won’t mind the physio. It’ll just take the place of my Zumba class. But I think he’s just trying to intimidate me. You know, he suggested I not have the surgery, just because I’m eighty-six.”
“I didn’t realize you had a choice,” I replied.
“I didn’t! Unless I was willing to spend the rest of my days sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home. I told him that wasn’t happening.”
I chuckled again. “Good for you, Gram. Any woman of eighty-six who’s capable of cleaning her own gutters deserves to be treated with a little respect.”
“Damn straight!”
I laughed and kissed her hand.
“How’s Gordon?” she asked. “Did you feed him?”
“I did, and he’s just fine, but missing you. He’ll be glad when you can come home.”
“So will I. You know, they say they’ll be getting me out of bed and walking in a day or two.”
“They don’t waste any time, do they?”
“They certainly don’t. But I suppose, at my age, every minute counts.”
Gram closed her eyes and lay back down on the pillow. I sat quietly for a moment, not wanting to tire her out.
“It was so good of you to come, Sylvie,” she said after a short rest. “So very generous. I hope it will be better for you this time.”
Something shivered in all my nerve endings. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know,” she replied with a note of compassion. “It’s never easy for you to come here. Memories can sometimes be…a burden.”
I thought about that as I recalled my dream and how disheartened I’d felt when it began to fade and Ethan was gone. I had been carrying that so-called burden for many years.
While Gram closed her eyes again and rested, I wondered if I wasn’t as “over this” as I’d thought I was, because all I wanted to do now was go home, fall asleep and return to the dream and the happiness I’d felt there.
Was that even possible? I had seen a documentary once about lucid dreaming, where the subject was consciously aware he was asleep and could control what happened in his dream world.
That must have been the kind of dream I’d had that morning, because it felt so real, yet I’d understood that it wasn’t. I worried, however, that if I could control what happened in my dreams, I might want to go to sleep and remain in that state forever.
Chapter Seven
That night, I returned to Gram’s house and was greeted by Gordon who purred and rubbed up against my legs at the door. First I picked him up, snuggled with him, and fed him. Then I couldn’t help myself. I opened my laptop at the kitchen table and googled “Lucid Dreams.”
What I found surprised me. There were dozens of websites devoted to the “science” of lucid dreaming. It was described as a state of REM where the dreamer is consciously aware that he or she is dreaming and can control what occurs. Some sites provided in-depth, step-by-step instructions on how to master your dreams and achieve an exhilarating feeling of freedom and empowerment—for there are no boundaries in dreams, no social or physical restrictions to impede any experience.
As I recalled the thrill I’d felt that morning after dreaming I’d returned to my youth and spent time with my grandparents and Ethan, I grew more curious about learning how to control these vivid hallucinations during sleep.
I spent more than an hour researching the subject online and eventually stumbled upon another phenomenon called astral projection, which was described as an actual out-of-body experience where the soul could leave the physical body and travel to other spiritual realms.
Feeling a bit creeped out, I decided to take a break, so I rose from my chair to make a cup of herbal tea.
I was just setting the kettle on the stove when my cell phone vibrated. I picked it up off the counter and discovered it was my sister, Jenn.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me. How’s Gram doing?” she asked.
“Better today,” I replied as I turned the knob on the stove. “They plan to get her out of bed and walking tomorrow.”
“Wow. That soon?”
“Yeah. She’ll probably be discharged within a week.”
“I’m amazed,” Jenn replied, “but I suppose she always was a trooper. How about you? Are you holding up okay?”
“Of course,” I said, offering no more information than that, because I could just picture Jenn pacing around her kitchen, wondering if I was falling apart yet.
“Do you have any idea how long you’ll be staying?” she asked. “I mean, how long will it be before Gram is able to manage on her own?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “It’ll be a few weeks at least. Maybe a month. The nurse told me she won’t be able to climb stairs easily, so I’ll probably set up a bed for her on the ground floor until she’s more mobile.”
Jenn paused. “I’m glad you’re there to take care of her. You know how much we all love her.”
“Of course I do.” We were both quiet for a moment. I reached for the box of tea bags in the cupboard and opened it.
Somewhat cautiously, Jenn asked, “So you don’t mind…you know…being back there?”
I froze with the tea bag dangling from the string, drew in a deep breath, and finally dropped it into the mug.
“It’s actually nice being here,” I assured her. “I think enough time has passed.”
It was partly a lie, of course. Jenn didn’t say anything right away and I suspected she didn’t believe me, which only made sense. She knew me too well.
But still… Did no one have any confidence in me?
Aside from the lucid dreaming thing this morning, hadn’t I proved I’d grown stronger over the past year? I’d made a lot of changes in my life—for the better. I’d left my sleazy job at the bar, had gone back to school and graduated at the top of my class. I hadn’t dated any alcoholic losers or married men in over a year. Now I was here, back in Portland, taking care of Gram. I thought I deserved a pat on the back.
With that still on my mind, I probably shouldn’t have steered the conversation in the direction I did. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” my sister replied.
“Have you ever had a lucid dream?”
She took a moment to think about it. “I’m not sure. What is it…like when you’re half-awake or something?”
“You’re not exactly awake,” I explained, “but you’re sort of conscious. It’s when you’re dreaming, but you’re aware that you’re dreaming and you can control what happens.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. You could leap off a mountain and go flying if you wanted to, or travel anywhere, go through walls.”
Jenn’s voice became animated. “I think I have had a few of those, but they never last very long. As soon as I realize I’m dreaming, I wake up. Why? Did you have one?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “This morning. I think it must have been the jet lag or something, because it felt unbelievably real. I just wish I could have kept it going longer.”
“What did you dream about?” she asked.
Because Jenn often criticized me for clinging to the past, I decided to steer around the important part of the question. “I dreamed that Grampy was still alive and Gram was cooking breakfast for me, just like old times. I was young again.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know… In my teens.”
Sixteen to be e
xact.
Jenn fell silent again. “Did you dream about anything else?”
I probably should have told her the truth because obviously she suspected it, but I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture that ended with: ‘I don’t know why you keep torturing yourself, Sylvie. You shouldn’t even go there. Just let it go.’
“No, that was all,” I replied.
We chatted about a few other things and she told me about a cute little outfit she’d just purchased for her baby. Then I promised I’d call the next day, and we hung up.
Right away, I sat down to read more about “How to Master Your Dreams,” because something very powerful was pulling me to try it again.
Chapter Eight
According to what I’d read on the web, there were a number of different strategies a person could employ to bring about a state of lucid dreaming. Some recommendations included keeping a dream journal, exercising specialized methods of meditation, or making a habit of doing repetitive reality checks during the day—checks that would eventually spill over into your dreams. One site recommended staring at the palms of your hands before bed and planning what you were going to dream about.
I tried that trick before I went to sleep, just to see what would happen. For a full ten minutes, I stared at my palms, then I rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I attempted to begin a new dream by imagining myself back in that memorable summer of my sixteenth year. I thought about what sort of person I was then, and how I had come to know Ethan.
* * *
Ethan Foster was not the sort of boy I’d ever imagined I’d end up with. Not because he was trouble. To the contrary, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever laid eyes on—in a masculine way, of course. He was tall and broad shouldered with washboard abs and a perfect tan. His wavy hair was golden brown, his eyes, deep green and long lashed. Jenn, who was thirteen at the time, said he looked like he belonged on a Calvin Klein billboard in Times Square. I couldn’t disagree.
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