Red Wine

16: First Night Back Home

I haven't been back home in a while. I don't even remember exactly how long I've been away from home, but I think it's been around 13 or 14 years. There was just no reason for me to go back, or dare I say, I got caught up trying to be an adult in a country where I am forever a foreigner, that I once never thought of going back home. I worked hard to land a job overseas, learned the language to fully immerse and blend in with the rest of them, eventually got married to one of its locals, and sooner or later I'll be nationalized as well.

My brother invited me back home, both as his sister and his hair and make-up artist, to witness his marriage to his high school sweetheart. I wouldn't miss it for the world of course, especially when my brother made an effort to be there for my wedding in a foreign country as well. Our parents are no longer walking the lands of the earth, so I'm pretty sure that their only wish for me and my brother still threading in this mortal realm is to see the two of us present in each other's important events in our lives.

The good thing about my brother deciding to be the inheritor of our parents' house is that I no longer need to book a hotel for me to stay at during my entire visit. Everything has changed for as far as I can remember, though; the state of this house before I left was old and fragile. Now, the brick house I knew from my childhood days were no longer falling apart, and instead was renovated into something more modern, enough to sustain its appearance and structure for another half a decade. My brother's tastes in design were prominent, but I won't complain about that - surely his soon-to-be spouse helped balance the design.

To my surprise, with the entire house already deconstructed and reconstructed and all, I expected that my brother would renovate it to cater more to his future family over everything else. I was wrong; he still made an extra room for me there. It was still located at the very back of the house where it used to be. According to my future sister-in-law, my brother insisted on giving me a room because it is what my parents would have wanted if the house were to be rebuilt. He was right about that, I do think that would be something my parents would say indeed.

The wedding wasn't until four days after my arrival, so the first night back home I just spent it talking with the future weds, toured around the new house, and of course ending the night with a good night's sleep. It lacked a bed because my brother wanted me to do the designing in my own room, so I had to sleep on just a thick mattress. They gave me pillows and bedsheets at least, so I'm all good with it.

Riding a flight was tiring; I felt my body sink into the mattress as my brain finally settled for a deeper sleep. Now, I normally do not get dreams, or I don't remember them by the time I wake up, but this one was vivid and weirdly lucid in a way.

I felt like I was awake again, grabbing my phone from the floor to scroll on some social media, when all of a sudden the door was opened by someone. It was both my parents, my mom in a wheelchair and my dad supported by his trusty black and silver cane, peering into my room with a warm smile.

"Welcome back, sweetie. We missed you."

A part of me was aware that my parents are already dead and there was no way in the real world now that this would happen, and yet another side of me is gaslighting me to believe that this is indeed real. My eyes were forming tears from the rim as I jolted up from the mattress and ran towards my parents, giving each one of them a big tight hug. I let them into my room and got a chair from the dining table for my dad. Everything just felt real as my parents began to ask me how I'm doing, how's my life in Japan, how me and my husband are doing.

I told them everything for what felt like hours. In turn, they told me what had happened here. They knew how my brother came to the decision of renovating the house as if they were there in his planning, what the workers did during the renovation, and how long it took before the house was complete. I believed them. My heart felt warm around them, like I was back from being a kid again and spending my time with my parents.

My parents told me that it was time for them to head to bed, so I gave them one last hug before assisting them back in my room, which happens to be outside of the house for some reason. It was made of the same material as the old house. This was the part that snapped my brain back to reality, finally realizing it was all a dream, and I began to cry. They gave me another hug back before they went inside this brick house, kissing me on the forehead as they said;

"Don't cry sweetie. We're always proud of you."

I got woken up in real life by my brother, and the first thing I noticed were my eyes felt heavy and swollen along with it feeling damp on the side. My brother's eyes were the same as well.

"Did you dream of mom and dad?" he asked, to which I nodded slowly. "It felt so real."

I told my brother about what my parents told me in the dream about the construction of the new house - he confirmed that the events were spot on as far as he could remember, swollen eyes widened for a bit in shock of this new information.

"The dog house in the dream was a brick house for them, apparently." I added.

"Yeah, I got that in my dream too. Even said good night and all." my brother paused for a bit. "I've never dreamed of them before this - maybe they were waiting for you to come back home?"

We were both quiet for a while, still trying to process what just happened. It was just my first night back home, and what we both got was a visit from our parents in our sleepy state. Perhaps deep down, both of us miss our parents dearly, and the feelings must be the same for our parents in the afterlife.

Visiting us in our dreams is fine, but I hope they don't spook us by appearing in real life.