THE COFFEE HAS YOUR SMELL

CHAPTER 28: THE DREAM

That night, the thoughts had been with Kate for a long time. There were thoughts about her life, ideals, unfulfilled dreams, and loneliness in particular. Yes, all her thoughts had been about loneliness that had always been with Kate, holding her hand even when a man held it. Thus, loneliness hadn't ever allowed Kate to feel the warmth of someone's skin on her skin or the warmth of a soul that longed for another one. At the same time, those were thoughts about her cowardice and about the fact that she hadn't ever allowed herself to be happy, not even when she'd been alone.

Kate knew very well the reason for that cowardice. She found it out when she was still very young and when only the classical music, the dance, and herself accompanied her. It's when she asked herself for the first time the question, „Who am I, and why is there nobody with me?" Questions she found an answer from her mother when she told Kate's father one evening, „She should better live this way: alone and on her own. Thus, she won't do stupid things."

When she heard these words, tears had bathed Kate's eyes. Those were tears that were born in Kate's soul not because of pain but because of release, because she thought her parents ignored her because they didn't care about her. They really cared about her, even if they strangely did that. At the same time, they loved her as much as they could. Even so, none of them hadn't ever managed to give Kate what she really wanted: a family, one next to which she could spend those cold nights or those stormy days, which she had been fearing for her entire life. Kate feared those stormy days because they reminded her of her powerlessness and loneliness.

Nevertheless, she didn't have the family she wanted. At least, Kate didn't have that family with whom she could talk for hours about trivial subjects just to make sure they'd have a reason to smile or talk about after that. At the same time, she didn't have memories of a happy childhood. What kind of memories did she have? About a lonely childhood, which she spent between four walls - the walls of her room where an old gramophone played Bach or Beethoven's music, Tchaikovsky or Liszt's music.

Actually, Kate finally fell asleep that night listening to the same classical music. It's been the only way she could cut the thread of her twisted thoughts that overwhelmed her so much. A music that slowly but surely filled her inside and made her dream eventually. Music that made her, even if it's been for a short time only, forget about her problems and madness, hiding from herself in her own mind - in a perfect world where she could be the real Kate, the one that was free and happy like the birds from above the sea.

In that dream, Kate danced through the raindrops. She was free, breathing with all her chest the scent of that light and warm summer rain. Kate wasn't in Dublin or Belfast, her hometown, in that dream but in Westport - at the docks, where she experienced the breakup with Alex, even if they hadn't ever been together. There, with the seagulls dancing above the waves, Kate finally felt life's joy and the fact that loneliness doesn't always mean pain but simply a way of making peace with yourself.

Soon after this, she saw herself advancing barefoot through the fresh herbs that got up to her ankles. She wore a white dress in that dream, a dress with ornaments of the same color, which got up to her knees with two thin braces that made her naked shoulders seem so gentle. Her shoulders were really gentle at that moment, kissed by someone's lips. Who exactly kissed her shoulders? Kate didn't see. She only felt that that man was someone her soul knew, someone whom her soul had been longing for so long.

„He's the man I've been in love with for so long, even if I haven't ever realized that," Kate told herself in that dream, closing her eyes for a few moments and sticking her forehead on the top of his head. And that almost blond hair, which touched her cheek, was so pleasantly smelling like sky and summer rain, happiness, and soul warmth... an aroma that Kate had often felt in her dreams and about which he'd been thinking for so long.