Mothered (39)

The clothes folded, she glanced at Mommy just as a soft snore grumbled from her open mouth. She slept with her legs straight, arms at her side. Her head was slightly crooked on the cushion, like her neck was broken. The towels wouldn’t be finished in the washer for a while yet, so Grace tiptoed to Hope’s room.

Hope was asleep, too, propped up against three pillows so her upper body was at an angle. Grace crept onto the bed and kitten-walked on her hands and knees, as delicately as she could, until she was beside her sister. Very gently she laid her ear on Hope’s chest and listened to her heart. It thu-thumped in a steady rhythm, as reassuring as a load tumbling in the dryer. Hope giggled.

“Your hair tickles.”

Grace giggled too, and leaned against the wall, squished up in the corner of the bed.

“I’m bored,” Hope said. “Tell me about your dreams.”

“I don’t remember them.”

“Not that kind. The kind you dream up when you’re awake.”

Grace looked at the ceiling, searching for something she could say that wouldn’t sound mean. Sometimes she fantasized about being adopted and having a new mommy, a daddy, and maybe a big brother. In her imagination she’d tried out all sorts of scenarios with various new families, and they were all better than the one she had.

“Well, I read this book,” she said, finding something safe to share, “about this school for girls, a boarding school, and the dormitory was in a haunted mansion. The teachers didn’t believe it, so the girls had to stay up until midnight and try to talk to the ghost to figure out what it wanted.” Grace saw it in her head, the girls in their white nightgowns, tiptoeing through the darkened halls. “I’d like to go to boarding school.”

Hope laughed. “That’s your dream? To live in a haunted house?”

No, Grace’s dream was to live somewhere else, and if it happened to be haunted, well . . .

She didn’t care if Hope thought it was silly. Girls in stories like that always had lots of adventures.

“Your turn.” She gave Hope a playful poke.

“I have big dreams. Don’t laugh—promise you won’t?”

“Like you didn’t laugh at mine?”

Hope’s face contorted, and Grace recognized the expression as remorse. “Sorry.”

“I promise I won’t laugh.” Grace was more curious than ever to know what rolled around in her sister’s head.

“Okay, so I like to imagine I’m in the Olympics. And sometimes I’m a swimmer, sometimes a skier, sometimes I’m riding a horse or a bicycle. I go very fast, like I’m flying.”

That made sense to Grace. She liked to watch the Olympics too, and marveled at how strong and graceful the athletes were. They had abilities that neither Grace nor her sister would ever have, and she understood why Hope might fantasize about it.

“And I also imagine I’m a famous singer, with fabulous clothes—better than Mona and Rona. And I sing on a stage in front of thousands of people, and they clap and cheer. And everyone knows who I am wherever I go and asks for my autograph.”

It took Hope a long time to get all the words out, and while Grace appreciated that the fantasies were important to Hope, Grace thought they were pretty boring. Her sister just wanted to be better than everyone else. She wanted people to worship her. Grace reached across her and plucked the washcloth from the bedside table. She wiped a stream of spittle from Hope’s chin. For a minute neither of them spoke.

“You don’t like my dreams?” Hope asked, wounded.

Grace shrugged. “They’re okay. But everyone thinks about stuff like that. I thought you’d think about something more original.”

Hope started coughing and Grace helped her lean forward, in case she choked or vomited. But it subsided, and she was fine.

“Well, there is another thing I dream about, but I didn’t want to scare you.”

Grace grinned. This was more like what she’d expected, something weird, like Hope.

“It’s going to sound like a night dream, not a daydream,” Hope warned. “But there’s a very special reason why I think about it when I’m awake. Ready?” Grace nodded. “You ever have those dreams at night where you’re floating, and you float up to the ceiling, or float around the house?”

Grace nodded. Those dreams always made her a little uneasy. They were fascinating because she really got the sensation of what it would feel like to drift through the air. But they were troubling, too, because she was never fully in control. Sometimes the dreams carried her to places she didn’t want to go, where it was dreary and cold.

“When I think about the floating dreams,” Hope shut her eyes, “really concentrate, I can feel it just like when I’m asleep.”

As Grace watched, Hope floated up from the bed. Her limbs were limp and relaxed, and the sheet and blankets dropped away as she rose higher and higher. She hung suspended near the ceiling, her eyes shut in concentration, a pleased smile on her face.

Though Grace wasn’t the one levitating, she felt as if she’d been transported to the chilly depths of a nightmare. She wanted to tell her sister to come down, to get back into bed, but her mouth wouldn’t work and Hope kept drifting—like a balloon caught in a breeze—across the room and through the archway.

The words Come back! howled in Grace’s head; she was too afraid to follow her sister.