The Sleepwalker(14)

“We were friends. I hadn’t seen her in almost three years.”

“Did my dad know?” I asked again.

“There would be no reason why he wouldn’t. There was nothing illicit about our relationship.”

“Why did you two stop seeing each other?”

“No reason, really. I was promoted and transferred to Waterbury: the Criminal Investigations Unit. Your mother didn’t have clients in my neck of the woods. Plus I was traveling more. But the big reason, I guess, was that our sleepwalking was under control, so we no longer had that in common.”

“Was under control,” I repeated.

“I hear ya,” he said, and when I turned to look at him he was shaking his head. “Anyway, we talked about family, which is relevant because I know how much she loves you and Paige. And we talked about dreams, which are irrelevant when it comes to sleepwalking, but still pretty damn fascinating if you have a parasomnia—and you’re on really interesting drugs like clonazepam or imipramine.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Which is good!” he told me. “Your mom have any new friends?”

“You should ask my dad.”

“I will.”

“Because she probably told him more than she was likely to tell me.”

“Why?”

“Well, they’re married.” I watched him scribble a note on his pad. “And, remember, I’ve been away at school the last three years,” I said.

“You’d be amazed at what married people don’t tell each other.”

“I don’t remember her mentioning any new friends.”

“Ornery client, maybe?”

“Not one she told me about.”

“What dreams did she share with you when you were home?” he asked.

“She actually used to share more—when she was sleepwalking. But since she stopped—or while she stopped, since it’s pretty clear she started again—we don’t talk about them all that often.”

“What was the last dream you recall her telling you? Any you can think of her bringing up over breakfast this summer?”

“It’s weird.”

“All dreams are weird. Their secrets are encrypted. Was it a good dream or a bad dream?”

“Bad dream.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure which hits us harder,” he said, his voice growing wistful, “that relief when we wake up from a nightmare and realize it was just a dream, or the sadness when we wake up from a good dream—a really good dream—and realize that nothing was real.”

“And then there are moments like this: you’re wide awake and wish you weren’t. You wish it was just a dream.”

“That is the worst, I agree. So: that dream. Your mother’s bad dream.”

“She and the minister here were pulling dead bodies out of some weird underground bunker.”

“Who’s the minister?”

“Katherine Edwards.”

“Your mom isn’t a big churchgoer. Is your dad?”

“None of us are.”

“Where was this bunker?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she recognize any of the bodies?”

“She didn’t say if she did. And she didn’t sleepwalk that night. Obviously.”

“Tell me another.”

I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. It was hot inside the cruiser, even with the passenger door open. “This was a while ago, when I was home in the spring. We had a swimming pool in the dream. It was in-ground. It had screens over it. A plane crashed into the hill just beside it.”

“Little plane?”

“Big plane. Airbus kind of big.”

“More bodies?”

“Yes. And a lot of the locals were there, trying to help. The volunteer firefighters. Our neighbors. The guys out looking for her right now. Elliot. Justin Bryce. Donnie Hempstead. But, again, Mom didn’t get out of bed. She hasn’t gone sleepwalking in years.”

“Others?”

“There was a chimney fire, but it wasn’t this house,” I said, and I motioned with the back of my hand at our home. “It was, like, a house from her childhood.”

“In Stamford, Connecticut.”

I looked at him. “She told you a lot.”

“She liked that house. She loved the bookcases her mom and dad had someone build in the family room. She loved the brook in the backyard at the edge of the woods. What happened during the fire?”

I honestly couldn’t recall any more of that dream—or any other dreams. But the unease I had been feeling grew more pronounced; it disturbed me that my mother had shared so much with this stranger. They had discussed, it seemed, even their childhood homes. “I don’t remember,” I said.

“As far as you know, she’s been taking her meds?”

“As far as I know.”

“We’ll check, of course. And—just confirming—this is the first episode she’s had since she was treated, correct?”

“That’s right. It was the first time my dad went away since then. She only does this when he’s away. This was kind of a test.” And she failed it, I thought, but I kept the short sentence to myself. We failed it. I failed it.