Rooted in Dreams

One

Craig

We sat at a metal outdoor table and the sun was shining, and she was smiling.

A big broad smile that filled the whole world, because she was laughing.

A laugh full of life and joy. My hand rested on the table next to a coffee cup, and she reached out and laid her hand atop mine.

And the touch was electric, a shocking snap that shook my entire body. That’s when my leg woke me.

Before closing the bathroom door, I heard the murmur of my niece Jackie stirring in her sister’s room.

When I moved in with my sister’s family, my niece lost her room to me and now slept in a bunk bed over her younger sister.

That wasn’t cool and shouldn’t have been necessary.

Palming four ibuprofen I held on to the sink and drank them down.

Usually at this point in the morning I stared in the mirror and asked how a thirty-four-year-old could feel like eighty.

But today all I could see was how the smile from my dream fit into the shape of her face and the way the sun lit up her blond hair. Who was she?

A light tap echoed on the bathroom door. “Uncle Craig, you okay?”

Jackie again. Before dawn is way too early to require fifteen-year-olds to get ready for school. “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”

I splashed some water on my face, flushed the toilet for good measure, and unlocked the door. After four months I was still getting used to living with a teenage girl. Her curly hair was askew with bedhead and at five foot seven she was almost at my chin. She was going to be tall like her mom.

“Sorry,” I shrugged, exiting the bathroom. Jackie tried to hide her impatience but at fifteen it was hard. She was a good kid. I laid back down until the ibuprofen took effect.

The leg still hurt but I’d been off the heavy stuff for three months now and the dull background ache was just the cost of being clear headed.

Everything was more vivid without the oxy, even though I worried the NSAIDs were giving me an ulcer.

But laying there waiting for the heavy throb to turn into a dull roar, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

Awake now, the dream was still unnaturally clear, even around the edges.

The highlights in her hair. The gold pendant at her neck.

The only thing that I couldn’t make out was the sound, there was just this background burble.

After Jackie left the bathroom, Darren and little Cami fought over who was next.

It would be a while before I got back in there so I sat up and one leg at a time, pulled on my pants.

Then I fitted the brace on my right foot and put on my shoes.

Once I had the brace on to control the right foot drop I moved with more assurance and made my way out to the kitchen.

My sister Kathy was packing lunches and her husband Lukas sat at the table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. They still got the daily paper and as a couple they looked as domestic as they sounded.

“Coffee’s on,” Lukas nodded to the pot.

I mumbled thanks and found a cup. After taking a sip, I remembered the sour taste of coffee mixing with ibuprofen. I poured a bowl of cheerios and started on that first.

Kathy smiled reassuringly, trying to message that the day was going to be fine. She was only four years older but sometimes that gulf pushed her into surrogate mom mode. Older sisters can be bossy. Which was good practice for her three actual kids.

“Jackie up yet?” Kathy asked.

“She was last time I saw her,” I said around a mouthful of cheerios.

Lukas folded up the paper and put his mug in the washer. “We’ve got the spring pots delivery coming in this afternoon. The shipper said they were behind so I may miss dinner.”

Lukas’s family owned a chain of garden stores and he managed the Spokane Washington one. Kathy does the books, putting her accounting degree to use. Dad had been so happy when she graduated college and I suspect that he thought I would do the same instead of following him into the lumber business.

“You were supposed to be at Jackie’s game this afternoon,” Kathy said to Lukas with that sigh she’d perfected on me when I was twelve. “I’ve got Darren’s trumpet lessons.”

“I knew this was going to happen when you said yes to band,” Lukas complained.

Looking over at me, Lukas smiled, “I bet Craig could handle the game. You played basketball when you were a kid right?”

“Swim team,” I grunted. “But I could pick her up.”

“That would be great,” Kathy said. “It’s the JV team so the game starts at four-thirty.”

“Sure.”

I am sure the conversation they exchanged in that secret wordless husband and wife language went something like, “He’s going to leave the house!

” “Be nice. He’s being helpful.” “It’s been weeks.

How long is he going to mope around?” “He just needs some time.” “He needs a job.” “You know what happened. And Veronica tossed him away when she should have stuck with him.” “Well look at the guy.”

I kept my face in my bowl as Lukas kissed Kathy goodbye and headed out the door. “Thanks, Craig,” Lukas said with a wave. I waved back with my spoon while I chewed.

Jackie ran through the kitchen, grabbed her lunch and a banana and made for the door. “Thanks Mom. I have my game today.”

“Uncle Craig’s going to be there, Darren has trumpet.”

“Oh.”

Jackie stopped in the doorway and I looked up at my niece. Green puffy coat over jeans and some tall boots. She didn’t look like the toddler in the yellow duck onesie I remembered. “Sure,” I said again. Then with a smile I didn’t feel I added, “Looking forward to it. Go get ‘em!”

“Uh okay. We’re in the small gym.”

“Got it.” I turned back to my coffee now that I had some food in my stomach.

Kathy put out toast for Cami and Darren sat down across from me. He poured an oversized bowl of Cheerios, trying to match me bite for bite as I chewed. Then they were all out the door, Kathy piling them in the car to drop them at school before she swung by the store.

Now empty, the house was quiet. Like a hillside of pines without wind.

Completely still in the moment before the saws kick on.

I showered and thought about shaving. Veronica hadn’t liked stubble but she wasn’t around to complain.

Around 2 pm I realized it had been hours and I should eat lunch but that required me going down the hall to the kitchen so I took my third set of ibuprofen instead.

When I thought about food again it was too late.

If I was going to make the game I needed to get going.

My F-150 was parked on the street in front of the house.

Using the cheap metal cane I was given after the surgery, I shuffled across the icy ground.

A snow plow had piled a low wall around my truck but it was old snow and dry as a dead bug.

Swapping the cane to my right hand I grabbed the door, stepped over the snow to put my good left foot on the bully step, and pushed myself up inside, praying the cane didn’t kick out from under me.

The truck was a full size ‘95, and probably more than I needed now that I wasn’t driving logging roads, but it was good in the snow.

And I’d put on more than half of its 220,000 miles myself.

Now that I’d lost my apartment, sold my furniture, and pawned the engagement ring, it was about all I had left.

I cranked it over and it roared to life.

Despite its age it never let me down. Couldn’t say the same about my ex-fiancé.

I let the motor run a moment to settle in before dropping the vehicle into 4-high and gently driving over the foot high wall of snow.

The sound of all four wheels crunching over the obstacle felt very satisfying.

In late winter the streets of Spokane were filled with ice and snow and the afternoon sun was already setting.

Jackie’s school parking still had empty spots, but they were a long walk from the building.

North Central was Wolfpack territory, festooned in red and black.

I picked one and did that thing that I used to think was jerkish and parked across two spots so I had plenty of room to maneuver my body out of the truck.

For two minutes I thought about the cane and then with a curse took it. Falling would be worse than using it.

A gray-haired lady gave me directions to the small gym.

The thudding sound of basketballs is pretty distinctive and once I got close, I followed the noise.

The gym smelled stuffy with polish and sweat.

On one side, folding chairs had been set up for the teams, on the other a short stack of bleachers were pulled out from the wall.

There was no way I would make twenty minutes on those backless bleachers.

Instead, I grabbed one of the folding chairs stacked along the back wall and set it up at the foot of the bleachers and sat down.

Jackie was already out on the court warming up in her red and black uniform.

She looked good, her free throws effortless and her passes smooth.

At the buzzer most of the kids came off the court but Jackie stayed on, playing center.

With a whistle the ball was tipped and our guard made a quick fake and passed to Jackie who deftly laid it up for the first score.

Her team cheered and a mother down the front row of bleachers gave me a look. I may have been a bit loud.

At the close of the first quarter we were up by twelve.

I stood to shake out my leg but I was having a good time.

Jackie was playing well and sharing the ball despite being the tallest kid on the team.

She really did take after her sister. Jackie sat out the second quarter and the lead vanished, at half time we were down by two.

When our team came out of their huddle with a shout, my eyes started following Jackie back to the bench but a flash of blond hooked my gaze.

The sunny hair was pulled tight in a ponytail, and the woman clapped and pointed with her hands instead of holding mine, but her mouth and wide wonderful smile were achingly familiar.

The woman from my dream! She wore a red and black wolfpack T-shirt and turned to the kids on the bench letting the other coach shout play directions.

Jackie sat on the bench during the third quarter so I could ignore the game and watch this woman.

Tall, the woman sat next to the smallest girl on the team and leaned over to say something.

A coaching pep talk, I’d been on the receiving end of those before.

The girl nodded and looked across the court with determination.

At the whistle Jackie and the small girl headed onto the court. We were down by eight.

I tried to watch the game, but my eyes kept sliding over to the coaches again.

Had I seen her before? I’d never been to Jackie’s school.

Maybe she wasn’t the woman in my dream. But her movement as she clapped or pointed out instructions was as fluid as I remembered.

The long lines of her face, edged with gentle curves at her cheeks and chin, were as open and inviting as I recalled.

Still, you don’t dream up a woman and then find her.

Eleven and a half months had passed since Veronica and I ended. It had just been a while and I was projecting. It was a nice dream and I was pushing the memory of it onto what was in front of me. How could I dream up someone I’d never met and then find them. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be here.

Jackie scored a three pointer at the buzzer, putting us up by two for the win. Dream woman jumped, throwing her fist in the air and breaking into a wide mouthed smile, so genuine and happyand right out of my dream.