“Well then, that’s different.” Dar crooked a finger. “Come with me. I was going to suggest valerian root, but I think a little insight will do more good than tea.”
She led Christy-Lynn to a small reading area at the rear of the shop where a stick of incense in a leaf-shaped holder gave off a thin tendril of blue-white smoke. She smiled as she sat, patting the settee beside her. “Why don’t we talk a little? Sometimes that’s all it takes. Looking at it when you’re wide awake, saying it out loud, can help you see where the dream is coming from—and the message it has for you.”
“So we’re back to the message,” Christy-Lynn said uncomfortably.
“There’s no way to get around it really. Dreams are like public service announcements from your soul. The only way to get past them is to pay attention to what they’re telling us. If you’d like to share, I might be able to offer some insight.”
Christy-Lynn pulled in a breath then let it out very slowly. “I’m underwater,” she began tentatively. “At the bottom of the bay. Stephen’s car is there. He’s in it. So is the woman who was with him the night he went off the bridge. It’s just the two of them at first, dead in the car. But then the woman’s eyes open, and she starts talking, only I can’t make out what she’s saying. I just know she’s trying to tell me something.”
“What do you think she’s trying to say?” Dar prodded gently.
“I don’t know. That she’s sorry about stealing my husband maybe. Except it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like something else. I just don’t know what.”
“Is that all of it?”
“It was in the beginning, but a few weeks ago, I found out Stephen and Honey had child—a little girl named Iris—and now she’s showing up in the dream too. She’s in the car, and she keeps pushing at the windows, screaming for Nonny—her great-grandmother—but she isn’t there. It’s just me, and instead of helping her, I swim away.”
Dar’s eyes were full of sympathy. “You poor thing. After everything else, there’s a child to cope with. No wonder you’re exhausted. You obviously feel some kind of sympathy for this little girl, but I’m wondering . . .”
Christy-Lynn’s head came up slowly. “Wondering what?”
“If there isn’t something else going on, something that may run a little deeper. Like why you’d want or need to take that kind of responsibility on your shoulders.” She paused, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “In dreams, water generally represents the subconscious, so when someone tells me they’ve been dreaming about water, my first thought is something’s being repressed. Do you think there are things you might need to start looking at, things you’ve been trying to hide from?”
Christy-Lynn was tempted to dismiss the question, but that wasn’t going to make the dreams stop. “Maybe,” she answered finally. “But why now? After all these years?”
Dar folded her hands in her lap and smiled softly. It was the kind of smile mothers saved for children who asked impossible questions. “I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you is there are places in our minds where we lock up all the things we don’t want to remember, like a musty basement filled with all the stuff we don’t want anyone—including ourselves—to see. We think it’s safe, that we’re safe. And then one day, for reasons we can’t begin to fathom, something yanks those doors open, and all our psychic junk comes tumbling out.”
Christy-Lynn huffed in frustration. “It’s all this stuff with Iris and Stephen.”
Dar seemed to consider the answer. “Maybe. But it’s easy to reach for the obvious. Even comforting. I know this stuff with your husband’s been hard, and it probably feels like that’s all that’s going on, but it could be something else. You said you swim away in the dream. Maybe there’s something you’re afraid of, something further back. Or it could be something that hasn’t happened yet, something you’re afraid will happen. Is any of this striking a chord?”
Of course it was.
Christy-Lynn nodded. “I just wanted it to be something else.”
“The memories are uncomfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think it’s a good place to start. Your higher self is telling you it’s time.”
Christy-Lynn felt her shoulders tense. “Time for what?”
“To let the memories catch up with you. You’re never going to outswim them. Why not drift a little and see what comes up? You might even try a little meditation before bed. Ask the dreams to come. Ask them what they’re trying to show you. Remember, they’re just memories. They can’t hurt you unless you let them.”
The jangle of bells alerted Christy-Lynn that a customer had entered the shop. Relieved, she shot to her feet, happy to end what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable conversation.
On the way to the front, Dar pressed a packet of tea into her hands. “Try the valerian root anyway. It might help.”
“Thank you. For the tea and for your time. What do I owe you?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s a gift between friends. And I hope our talk helps. Just remember, I’m no expert. Everything I said could be total crap.”
Dar’s advice played over in Christy-Lynn’s head as she walked back to the Crooked Spine. Stop swimming and let the memories catch up . . . They can’t hurt you unless you let them. It was a fine sentiment, wise and well meant. She just wasn’t sure she could do what Dar was asking. In her experience, memories could hurt very much.
THIRTY-THREE
Sweetwater Creek
June 29, 2017
Christy-Lynn stared at the page of the bullet-pointed notes she had scrawled during her call with Peter Hagan. Inter-vivos trusts, custodians, successor trustees, scheduled disbursements. Her head was still spinning with all the legalese, but at least she had some idea what the process would entail.
Peter was still hedging on the idea, sticking to his earlier recommendation that they quietly petition for a paternity test, even hinting at one point that she hire an investigator to check out these people before making what may turn out to be a costly mistake. He’d hate to see her take such an imprudent step only to have regrets later. There might well come a time when she needed the money herself. She had nearly laughed at that. No one needed the kind of money they were talking about.
He had also expressed concern that as a woman her judgment might be clouded since there was a child involved. She had assured him, coolly and firmly, that there was nothing wrong with her judgment, and that since Stephen hadn’t bothered to provide for his daughter, she intended to do it, and he could help her or not. He had ended the call with a promise to get started on preparing the paperwork and to be in touch in a few days.
It all sounded fairly straightforward. Once the paperwork was completed and the signatures affixed, everything was pretty automatic. There was only one problem, and it went back to what would happen when Rhetta passed away. Who would direct the disbursements and oversee the spending then? Was she willing to take on that role, to tether herself to Stephen and Honey’s daughter for the next fifteen years? She honestly didn’t know. What she did know was that there was a little girl living in a shack in Riddlesville, West Virginia, whose life was teetering on the brink of disaster. Someone somewhere had to step up and do the right thing.
She was spared a flash-forward to what might lay ahead for Iris when Aileen poked her head in the door. “Customer asking for you, boss.”
Christy-Lynn found Wade standing in the café, laptop case slung over one shoulder. He looked more tan than he had the last time she saw him, and he was clean-shaven. His hair had that just-cut look.
He broke into a smile as she approached. “Hey, stranger. Long time, no see.”
“It’s not like I’m hard to find. I practically live here. You’re the one who’s been scarce.”
“I’ve been keeping my head down, working on the novel. I’m determined not to let it break me.”
“Butt in chair, as I tell my writers. So what’s up?”
“I wanted to check on you.”
“On me?”