Within a Dream

A Story by Essie W

trigger for child death, dementia A short story about a dream

I am walking down the hallway of my high school, confused. What class am I supposed to be going to? It is the middle of the school year, I should have memorized my schedule by now. The little slip of paper with my schedule on it was long gone by now. I saw another girl walk by. “I forgot what class I have.” I told her. Her face was blurry but her hair was bright red. “You should ask the ladies in the office,” she said before fading away.

I walked out the door and took a series of escalators down to the front office. “I forgot what class I have.” I told a woman behind a desk.

“Well that is stupid of you,” she said. “You have class with Mr. Lewis.” That made sense. I had class with Mr. Lewis every year. He was the only one who taught college prep math. I do not question why it now seemed so obvious that I had class with him now.

“Where is his room?” I asked.

“You need to figure that out yourself.” She said before she too faded away. I went back on the series of escalators and then picked a floor. Jean was there with me now and I told him about Mr. Lewis. The hallway was a square and I walked around and around, forgetting what I was supposed to be looking for as what I was seeing became more and more strange.

Suddenly, everything was black and I heard a baby cry.

This was one of my recurring dreams. I graduated high school long ago. I hadn’t known Jean then. He was living in Haiti then. Mr Lewis had retired a couple years ago. Actually, I remembered, Mr. Lewis had died a couple years ago. He had retired before that. How long ago was that? Mr. Waters and Mrs. Potter have died too since then.

I picked up my baby girl and held her in my arms, rocking back and forth. It felt like I had done this a thousand times, but she was new, less than 30 days old. She couldn’t have woken up in the middle of the night for more than 30 nights. It could have been a thousand hours, I thought, but then I remembered even 30 days in less than a thousand hours. I was never good at math. Sarah was a fussy baby but she liked to be held. It was often simpler to sacrifice any hope of sleep and hold her and rock in the middle of the night. Jean was concerned about her particular fussiness the past few days. “She just likes to be held when she poops.” I told him, “she probably is just going through a gassy period.”

I was the one to reassure him, but she did concern me. Sometimes her cries sounded like she was in pain, the kind of pain that didn’t go away. She had bruises from birth that should have started to fade by now. I blinked my eyes and everything changed.

Damn, I thought. I hate dreams within dreams. This place I did not recognize. It smelled sterile like bleach. An unused IV sat in the corner with a blood pressure cuff. The TV was turned to the news but the sound was off. Two people stood in front of me. They both looked like me, but the woman had Jean’s tight curly hair and the man was tall like him and had his broad shoulders. “Are you Sarah?” I asked the woman. “No grandma,” she said. “Sarah died as a baby. I’m James, Eva’s daughter.”

Then it all came flooding back.

The bruises that never went away.

All those trips to the doctors office.

The sleepy smiles.

The pokes and prodding that caused more bruises. The happy babbling. The strong grip that grew weaker each day. The look on the hospice nurses faces when they arrived and saw just how young she was.

The crib that she died in. I couldn’t bear to throw it away but I wouldn’t dare use it with the healthy children that would came later.

The tiny little gravestone. Sarah Papillion Sanroi. Age 10 months. Next to a double gravestone. Jean Marc Sanroi with two dates below his name. Alice Marie Baker with one date and a hyphen below mine.

I looked at the two people in front of me. They had to be at least 20 year old. Maybe 30. How could I not remember the past 30 years?

“Isn’t James a boy name?” I said.

James rolled her eyes and tried to hide the fact that she slipped the man some money. “Easy bet.” He told her, trying to avoid having me hear. Jean was always so bad at whispering.

“What do you want for lunch Grandma?” the man asked.

“Chocolate ice cream.” I said. He laughed.

“I thought so, but the nurse says you are only allowed to have the sugar free stuff.”

“I’ll just have a turkey sandwich then.”

“Great, I’ll go tell the nurse.” He left the room, touching the woman on her shoulder.

She leaned in closer to me. “Do you want to play rummy?” She asked.

“I would love to.” I said.