In it, Corey was five (just the age of Jack and Tom) and we three were sitting around the pool at Hidden Hills Country Club in Jacksonville.
I was having Sarah Donner, modern-day rocker and cat-lady blogger - who probably was not yet born - teach Corey the words to her new Christmas song and help him learn to sing one of her jingles about cats. I had been playing tennis (which I don't) and shuffleboard (which I also don't) with a group of people whom I've never met.
Wayne was talking to some men he knew, laying some plans, wheeling and dealing, bartering eyeglasses for diamonds. (That's a lot of eye-wear.) He wasn't happy with me in the dream. Those lyrics were pretty adult, he said. Why did I slip Sarah fifty dollars? I shrugged. No answer. How was I to know? Nothing at the club today was making much sense.
Wayne said that he would be gone by afternoon. It wasn't working with us. That broke my heart. He didn't mention Corey or what time Loretta was going to pick him up. I looked around and Corey was gone. I was in a panic, trying to find his Dad, but Wayne was gone too. Forever, I knew. Reality was crushing me as if I were sleeping under ten thousand comforters.
I woke up in a fit of desperation, heart pounding, trampled by a dozen horses. It was the light of a cool Tallahassee morning. Don't do this, I whispered. It was just a dream. Don't let anything that happens in sleep upset you. There was still hope while you were lost in dreamland. In reality, when he had to go, plans and dreams and hopes for the future were gnashed forever. You couldn't breathe then. Breathe now.
