Dreamcatchers

Part 4

I was invited to Matthew's home. Me, the girl who basically told him he was no longer safe in his own life, was invited to his home. We needed to work out a plan of action, is what he told me. Maybe that was true. Or maybe he just wanted to keep an eye on me. Either way, I was glad I didn't have to drive back to the city tonight. It made me feel like I was actually on the vacation I told my boss I was taking when I asked for my week off.

"Wow, that was delicious," Matthew sighed with pleasure after finishing the meal I'd prepared. Since he was offering me his guest room, the least I could do was fix a nice meal. We'd just finished the peach cobbler that followed a simple, but hearty meal of spaghetti and meatballs.

"Oh, it was nothing," I replied, trying to prevent myself from blushing. I knew that I was a good cook, but I'd never cooked for a man before and I wasn't sure how to take the compliment.

"Well, I can boil water and run the grill, so I don't starve, but it was nice to have someone who knows their way around a kitchen making the meal for once. I tend to eat out more often than I should to avoid the need to cook."

"Then I am happy I could do this for you. Besides, you are giving me your spare room for the night. Cooking dinner was the least I could do."

Once the dishes were cleaned and extra food placed in containers and stored in the fridge (I may have overcooked on purpose so Matthew would have leftovers) Matthew and I were seated on the couch in his living room. I wasn't sure what was about to happen next, but I made the decision to allow Matthew to lead the conversation since his life was the one being affected by my presence in it. "Could you tell me a bit more about the work IDEAS is doing?" He asked after a brief awkward silence.

"Well, IDEAS is a psychological research center that focuses on researching the meaning behind dreams as well as discovering ways to prevent sleep disorders like night terrors and insomnia from affecting people." I knew as soon as I spoke I'd given him the company line. "Honestly, though, I'm not sure what all the company is doing. Beyond emptying the dreamcatchers, I'm not given any information. I actually had to hack into the customer files to find information on you besides your name and age. I have access to the dreamcatcher files. I empty them into the storage drive, but what happens to them beyond that is above my pay grade. Did they tell you anything about the dreamcatchers when you were referred to the program other than the fact that it would help you with your nightmares?"

Matthew took a deep breath. "Not really. We were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. My psychiatrist explained the form to me before I signed it. If I signed, I was guaranteed medical privacy and I also had to agree to keep the dreamcatcher program confidential. Something about IDEAS not wanting everyone to be able to have access to the dreamcatchers. Just people who were severely in need of them to promote healthy sleep away from the 'nightmare landscape.'" His putting of air quotations around the words "nightmare landscape" made me believe that those were his doctor's words, not his own, and as a former psychology student, I can concur that my professors spoke in such manners.

"I assumed there was something you were required to sign. I also assume that there is something in the fine print that allows the company to access your nightmares for research purposes. I wish they would just destroy the nightmares. No one should have to see some of the things I've seen in other people's nightmares. I thought living with my own was difficult enough, but living the nightmares of one thousand, one hundred, and fifty-seven other people can be almost debilitating."

"Have you ever wanted a dreamcatcher for yourself?" He asked me cautiously.

"So I can live my own nightmares a second time? No thank you, once is enough."

I could see the curiosity in his eyes as well as the struggle with his conscience as to whether or not he should press me more answers. I knew that I would tell him anything he wanted to know about me since I already knew the deepest, darkest part of him. "Tell me about yourself. Where did you go to school? Why did you want to work for IDEAS?"

He was giving me the opportunity to decide how and when I told him about my own trauma. I could imagine he was just as good with his students at getting them to tell him what there problems were. "Well, I did all of my post-secondary schooling at Harvard. I knew I wanted to major in psychology and Harvard has the best psychology department in the country. It was a no brainer to attend there. I also graduated from high school when I was sixteen. I was always the youngest person in my classes. The youngest and the smartest. My mom was encouraged by the schools to push me through as quickly as she could because sticking around with the kids my own age would hold me back and not challenge me enough. So, after nine years of Harvard, I graduated with my doctorate in psychology. My dream career had always been to be a psychological researcher and I wanted to emphasize in dream analysis and sleep disorders. My mother had terrible nightmares my entire life. She and my father were in a fatal car accident when my mother was pregnant with me. My father died on impact and my mother was in a coma for ten months.

"Unfortunately, my mother did not know that she was pregnant before the crash, so when she woke from her coma, she discovered that I had been delivered by cesarean section two months before she woke up. I had made it almost full term, so I was healthy, but now my mother had to deal with the death of her husband, the recovery from a severe brain injury, and the raising of a child she didn't know about. Everyone else around her had already grieved, so she didn't have a lot of support in that area because no one wanted to relive the grief."

I took a deep breath before continuing. The next part was the hardest for me to talk about. "My mom dealt with a lot of nightmares because of the accident. Even though she was comatose for a long period of time, she eventually remembered what happened and it completely traumatized her. It was just the two of us my entire childhood. My mom never dated anyone. She said that my dad was the love of her life and that there was no point in meeting anyone else. I kind of wish she had. Maybe it would have made her happier. I tried my best, and I know she loved me, but I think I was just a reminder of what she lost. With all of the accelerated classes in school along with the dozens of extracurricular activities I was involved in, it was like she was more interested in pushing me away than keeping me close. When I was sixteen, just before graduation, I came home from my Model UN meeting and found her in her bedroom. She had taken a steak knife from the kitchen and slit both of her wrists." I could feel the tears flooding my eyes and the floor I was staring at looked more like a pool than a carpet. "She was just lying there on the bed in a pool of her own blood clutching her and my dad's wedding picture."

There was silence in the room for what seemed like an hour. How long we sat there together without speaking, I don't know, but what I do know what that it was a comforting silence. He wasn't sure about what to say and didn't want to say anything that sounded insincere. I, on the other hand, had said entirely too much.

Eventually, the silence was broken by Matthew with a soft, "that sucks."

A strangled laugh escaped by throat. Laughing was the last thing I expected to do when discussing my past, but the honesty of Matthew's reaction was refreshing and caught me off guard. "I think that is the most honest thing anyone has ever said to me when they learn about the circumstances of my birth and the death of my mom."

"Well, from experience, I know that you don't want to hear platitudes. Not many people in my life know about the kidnapping, but the ones that do always tip toe around me when it comes up. They always have. I've learned that sometimes a person just needs to be honest about their feelings, even if their honesty seems abrasive or insensitive. Most people would think that what I said to you was cold hearted, but I know from experience that honest reactions are welcome."

"Well, I liked what you said. It was the truth and I needed to hear it. It does suck. And what happened to you sucks too. It is awful what happened to you and what is still happening so many years later."

Then Matthew placed his hand on my knee and my heart about beat out of my chest in response.