The nightmare

I talk to the stepmother I never had and she points out the cracks in our home. They are huge, some so deep I could put my whole hand in them. Great stucco and beam walls, full of texture, rippling down into the foundation, redolent of all the travail this house has gone through.

We go to bed secure in the heaviness of the house, because there is no choice.

Then, in the deepest, darkest, part of the night I hear it and I am terrified.

It's vibrations rock my bed, roll over my room like an ominous voice from the past without words. I tell myself it is only a sound, but I feel it. I feel this sound that comes from the left and moves over me without touching me.

Not once, or twice, but again and again and I am scared!

I try to call for my mother, but I am afraid to make my own sound and I am tired -- so tired, but fear overcomes everything and I cry out, "Mom!" with my eyes closed and my body huddling under my quilts.

"Mom! Mom! Mom!" Knowing she must hear me and wake up. Knowing she will appear in my doorway soon to tell me that it is only a dream, it is okay.

But she doesn't. I hear my own voice and open my eyes. I am in a strange place, a strange body and I am still afraid . . .

for a few moments and then I realize that it was only a nightmare, that I am not at home and my mother died thirty years ago and the real nightmare is a mind that conjures up experiences like this to entertain itself at night.