I can’t tell my parents, of course. Who would want to hear such a thing about themselves? I fix breakfast and wait for them to wake up. The day before yesterday, I went to the market and stocked their refrigerator with a few staples so they would have what they needed on their first morning at home: orange juice, a loaf of bread, cream, eggs. The smell of coffee wakes them and they both emerge from their bedroom, robes belted around their waists, noses in the air.
“Kitty.” My mother takes a long look at me. “Did you sleep at all, darling? Look at those sandbags under your eyes.” She reaches for a coffee cup and pours from the percolator. “I’m sorry we didn’t take you back to your apartment,” she goes on, her voice even. “We just felt that you—”
“It’s all right,” I interrupt, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry.” My father sits at the table as my mother fills the familiar rose-patterned china creamer—a staple in this house for as long as I can remember—and sets it, along with a cup of coffee, in front of him. “We’ve all been there, honey.” He pours cream into his coffee, adds a lump of sugar, and stirs. Then he sneezes the way he always does—loudly, sounding less like a person sneezing than like some large dog, a Labrador or a Great Dane, saying woof. The sound, though familiar, catches me off guard. I realize that the self in my other life—were I to go back there, something I fully intend not to do—would never again hear what for me is a very normal, everyday noise.
My father pulls a handkerchief from his robe pocket and blows his nose. “We just wanted to make sure you were okay, so we thought you’d be better off here,” he says, tucking the handkerchief back in his pocket.
I sit next to him and run my fingers through my hair. “Well, I’m mortified, all the same.”
“Honey.” My father places his hand gently on my shoulder. “This is us,” he says. “You don’t ever need to feel that way around your mother and me.” He takes a sip of coffee. “You know that, Kitty.”
After breakfast, my parents drive me back to my duplex. The day is still cloudy, but warm for early November, and they wait on the porch while I go inside to freshen up. I look like death warmed over, so there’s not much I can do, no matter how much makeup I use.
After I’ve changed clothes and done what I can with my haggard face, my parents walk with me to the shop, so they can say hello to Frieda. It’s still cloudy, and rain falls intermittently on our heads as we walk. Nonetheless, the door to the shop is open, letting in the warmish breezes. “Probably getting toward the end of the season when we can leave the door open,” Frieda says as we enter. She and I exchange glances, and I know we’re thinking the same thing: it may be the last time forever in this little space. When and if we move our bookstore to a shopping center, there will still be a door to open, but it will be a big sliding glass door leading to a pristine concrete walkway, not a crumbling city sidewalk.
Frieda stands up from behind the counter and comes around to kiss both my parents. “You look wonderful, darling,” my mother tells her, holding her at arm’s length. I grimace, knowing that I look about the opposite of wonderful right now.
“You and Tom do, too.” Frieda tucks a stray hair behind her ear and turns to my father. “Tom, you must tell me: Is Hawaii the fountain of youth?”
I can’t help it; I’m pained to hear these words. On so many levels. One, because Hawaii probably was the fountain of youth for them. The winters in Colorado can get harsh, especially for older people—and while I don’t consider my parents elderly, they’re not getting any younger, either. In so many ways, I know they’d be better off living somewhere warm full-time, the way my aunt and uncle do.
And two, because in that other world, all of it—Hawaii, their wonderful memories of this trip of a lifetime, not to mention everything they have back here at home—gets ripped away from them.
And from me.
After a brief visit with Frieda, my parents leave. The sky is still threatening a full-blown storm, and they don’t want to get caught in it. Besides, my mother tells us, they have unpacking to do, and there will be mountains of clothes to launder.
When they’re gone, I turn to Frieda. “I have to tell you something,” I say to her. “It’s going to sound crazy.”
She grins. “Then let’s put on a pot of coffee first.”
When we’re settled behind the counter with our cups, I face her. Frieda lights up a Salem and inhales deeply. She turns away to exhale, then looks toward me again. Her eyes are dancing; she’s in a good mood. I realize how often my moods follow hers. If she’s feeling dark, then I am, too. When her spirits are up, then mine are, too. But while I’m glad she’s so cheerful today, I can’t follow suit.
“Something strange has been happening to me for the past few weeks,” I begin. “When I go to sleep, sometimes I dream I’m in another life.” I take a breath. “A totally different life, but I’m still me and it’s still now . . . actually, it’s a few months hence, the beginning of March, I think, and . . .” I trail off. I cannot think of any sensible way of explaining this to her.
Frieda sips her coffee and taps her cigarette into the ashtray on the counter. “Everyone has dreams like that sometimes,” she says. “Last night I dreamed I was an actress singing on Broadway. You should have heard me . . . I did a tear-jerking rendition of ‘Soon It’s Gonna Rain’ from The Fantasticks.”
I smile. “It’s not quite like that. These dreams, Frieda . . . they’re so real. It’s hard to explain. But here’s the thing: it could have happened. My whole life, in these dreams, turns on an event that happened eight years ago.”
She shakes her head. “Sorry, honey, I’m not following you at all.”
So I tell her. I explain about Lars and the telephone call, and about how in the dream world, we stayed on the line long enough for me to, in essence, save his life. It sounds corny when I say it. Probably because it is, I remind myself.
Frieda has lit and smoked a second cigarette during my long discourse; now she stubs it out and regards me playfully. “Must be your long-lost husband who died.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t remember?” She twirls her empty coffee cup on the counter. “Years ago, we had a conversation in which we speculated about why we hadn’t met the men of our dreams. And you cracked a good one. You said—and I think I am directly quoting you here—‘Well, the only explanation that could possibly make sense is that he died before I had a chance to meet him.’”