Dream of Me

November 2

That night I could hardly sleep. A heaviness was weighing down my chest, and my thoughts were magnetized to my mother's changing exterior, physical strain and odd dreaming patterns. That night I didn't dream, and I couldn't remember a time when I did. I must've fallen asleep early in the morning, but I didn't notice until loud wailing filled my room and dragged me from my restless slumber. I awoke to the sound of sirens outside the door instead of to the smell of breakfast across the hall. Rushing out of my room, still straddling the line between unconscious and conscious thought, I heard Addy crying from my parents' room and knew at once nothing was right. My father ran past me with his coat in hand and a frantic force that seeped out of his every pore.

"August, take care of your sister. I need to go with mum. Don't worry. I'll be back." He paused at the door for just a moment to look back at me, still standing, dazed, in the doorway to my room. "I'll be back," a second of vulnerability flashed between the two of us and I wanted nothing more than to run to him and to wherever my mother was. My feet were planted to the floor, though, and the task he had given me took on more weight than it ever had before. I dragged myself to Addy's howling, picked her up, and tried to sooth her while talking to myself.

"It will be okay, sissy. Mum will be back, she's just not feeling well. And tomorrow she'll walk me to the bus stop and tell me about her dreams again. It will be okay. She'll be right back." I held my baby sister to my chest, cradling the months-old form to my own. She began to whimper instead of wail, and I sat with her on my parents' bed for hours. Around 9am, my aunt arrived at the house.

"Hello Gus, hello Addy," she smiled as she walked into the room and kissed both of our heads. I remained in silence, half waiting for my parents to walk through the door, half wondering how all of this this could happen so fast but feel so slow.

"Sweetie, let's get you guys some breakfast. Come on. Let's eat."

"Where's mum?"

"She's in the hospital. Dad is talking to some people there. He'll be home soon."

"Is she better?"

"Dad will be home soon, Gussy."

I didn't eat the breakfast she prepared and I don't remember what it was. Nothing was

important and nothing would ever be that important again. The hours crawled by. My auntie turned on the cartoons hoping to extract some energy from my closed-off being, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. I sat there for hours, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I was replaying my mother's friendship in my head. Our story walks, our cartoon cuddles, our playground adventures. Her smile and her laugh and her energy that seemed now so distant haunted my imagination and I could do nothing else but to watch her there. I saw her open-mouthed smile as she pushed me on the swings at the park a block over. I saw her dark eyes glowing in the dark as we sat at the table with candles lighting up the kitchen during a power outage. I saw her flowered scarf flying from her shoulders and the both of us chasing it across the sidewalk as the wind and rain splattered across our cheeks. I saw her on the hospital bed holding a newborn Addy, love so engrained in her eyes that I resolved to love this new addition as much as she did if that was even possible. I saw her in my father's office, rubbing his back and singing softly as he frowned over his piles of research. I saw him look up and around, take her into his lap, and bury his head into her chest, cradling her like she always cradled me. I saw her playing with Addy on the living room carpet, prancing around her on her hands and knees, extricating shrills of excitement and fascination from the little baby's toothless beam. I would sometimes join her, bounding around the room as if I was a puppy, stooping down to munch on Addy's cheeks with my lip-covered teeth, causing even more commotion of baby giggles. I saw her thick, black hair covering her face and her carelessly tossing it away with a shake of the head.

Finally, after what seemed like my whole life relived in one afternoon, my father returned. His presence was heavy and damp. Shaking off the umbrella as he shivered off his trench coat, he made eye contact with my aunt. They didn't say anything for several seconds, and then both shrunk to the kitchen to talk in hushed tones. I couldn't handle it any more. I ran to the kitchen and planted my feet in such determination and anger that I even caught myself off guard.

"August-"

"Where is she," I yelled, trying to supress the tears that were burning their way through my eyelids, "Where is she!?"

I broke down on the kitchen floor, my knees crumbling beneath me, chin fallen to my chest, helpless. For the first time that day, I was embraced by both aunt and father, both moulding to my crumbled form, only a level above me. They began to cry as well. We held each other for an eternity on the kitchen floor, no one knowing what to say or even how to start.

"She's gone," I sobbed, wet, sticky, burning, "isn't she?"

My father still couldn't answer and only pulled me closer and wrapped me tighter after the question that had taken so much of my courage to ask.

"She's gone," he managed.

That night I dreamed of her. She was alive again. She held my face, rubbed her nose against mine, and kissed the entire circumference of my face. I had different variations of the same dream for months after she was gone. Some nights she was in the hospital holding Addy again. Some nights she was walking me to pre-school. Some nights she was teaching me how to make noodles. Some nights she was sitting in my father's lap in the office. Some nights she sat on my bed throughout the lasting darkness whispering, "Sweet dreams, my August day" and running her fingers through my hair. One morning, months later, I awoke from a dream of her planting sloppy kisses on my cheek and swore that the moisture was still there on my skin accompanied by a faint mingling of her shampoo. I didn't see my father for almost two weeks besides the rare time he would come to the kitchen for nourishment and pack it back to his office. My auntie stayed with us for a month, taking care of Addy and walking me to the bus stop in an attempt to fill the void of my mother's ghost. She didn't tell me stories, though. And she didn't ever remember her dreams.

I never thought much about dreaming until my mother died. Before, I would only be interested in her dreams, in the stories she would tell me, the action, the adventure, the slow dances, the mountain climbing, the car chases, the kidnappings. When she was no longer around to tell me about her dreams, I began to have my own. I dreamed every night after that. It wasn't always clear in the morning, and most times I went through the day with only a vague idea that I had forgotten something relevant as soon as I had woken up.