Saturday morning I woke up with a
lump in my throat. I woke to sunlight streaming in through white plantation
blinds and crusted sleep in my eyes. I sat elbows resting on my knees, fingers
pushing at the hair in my face, swallowing, and swallowing again, the lump as
stubborn as I was. The quickly fading dream took the ache in my chest with it
and began to subside the lingering emotions.
“Are
you hungry?” his deep voice interrupted my quiet.
I
looked up and saw him standing in the doorway, tall, bed-headed, and for a
moment my mouth opened to tell him about the dream I had just had. The dream
that kept my voice from forming words, but instead, I simply shook my head. The
sound of his steps retreating on the wooden floor echoed and I sighed in
relief.
My
cat, Drew, meowed as I walked past her and the tangled gold comforter on the
floor. In the bathroom I locked the door, stood hands braced on the cold porcelain,
and exhaled, long, from the depths of belly. Three years later and the dreams
still came, some good, some bad, today’s had been good, but still a punch in
the stomach that never managed to make the guilt completely disappear.
I took a deep breath and let my mind relive
the dream again, before I would have to shove it down inside myself with the
rest of them. I sat at dinner with friends laughing as my phone rang. When I looked
at the display screen it simply said, “Ita”. I swallowed deeply and answered.
“Hello?”
“Como esta la chavala?” her
voiced crackled with laughter.
“Who is this? It can’t be you
Ita, you’re dead,” I looked around as panic welled up inside, threatening to drown
me. My friends at the dinner table kept talking and laughing as I looked around,
and the colors began to blend together.
“No mas te quiere dicir Prieta,
que te quiero mucho, eh?”
“Ita? Ita is it you? How is this
you?”
I woke up seconds later. Now I
just stood in the bathroom tears quietly dropping from my cheeks into the sink
as I willed my memory not to forget.
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