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THIRTY-TWO

  When I had finally gotten out of bed that morning, I went straight to the kitchen where I found my mom cooking breakfast. I took my place at the table and within minutes, she put a plate of crisp bacon, fried eggs and buttered toast in front of me. After she had gone to the cupboard to get a glass, she poured some milk into it and came back to sit next to me while I ate. She was silent for a while, watching me as I nibbled a strip of bacon.

  I felt exhausted.

  She combed the hair back from my forehead with her hand and asked me if everything was alright?

  I stared at my plate for a bit, fork poised in one hand, ready to stab the food in front of me, a half-eaten strip of fried meat in the other. Gingerly, I nodded.

  She gently grabbed my chin with the palm of her hand and turned my head to look at her. “Your eyes are puffy,” she said, looking deeply into them. “How did you sleep last night?”

  I looked back at her, not sure of what to say. Of course I hadn’t slept well at all the night before. I hadn’t had a decent nights sleep in weeks and I didn’t know how to tell her. I didn’t know if I even wanted to tell her. I never liked worrying my mom so I just shrugged it off.

  She let go of my chin and rested her head on her fist and I went back to staring at my food.

  “Did we keep you up too late last night?”

  After the block party and firework show the night before, our family had gone inside and dad had let us stay up and watch the late show with him while mom washed the dishes we’d used for the party.

  I shook my head in response to her question. It was a treat to get to stay up that late and I knew she wouldn’t give me that opportunity again if I told her that I was exhausted from lack of sleep.

  I poked at one of the eggs with my fork, sending a flood of yolk into my toast like yellow blood. It reminded me of the Oscar the Grouch children from my nightmare and the bloody, runny goop that dripped form their wounds and the thought killed what little appetite I had left.

  “Ricky?” Mom said, in a soothing voice. The kind only mothers know. “Look at me.”

  It took me a second but I laid down my fork and turned to her once again. The exhaustion was hitting me hard now and I felt my eyelids getting heavy.

  “Did you have a bad dream last night?”

  Last night. The night before. The night before that. What could I tell her?

  Once again I shrugged. Should I tell? Would it help? Talking sometimes made things better but could I find a way to explain everything to her?

  “When I woke up this morning,” she said, “I heard a noise coming from your room. I went in to check on you guys and what I saw startled me.”

  She looked concerned, now. Her eyebrows were raised; thin worry lines creased her forehead. She stopped for a moment; maybe waiting for me to explain what it was that had startled her. But I only knew what had happened on the inside of my dream, not on the outside.

  After a moment she continued. “At first, when I saw you, you looked as if you were having a bad dream. You looked as if something was after you. You didn’t necessarily look scared, but you kept turning your head back and forth slowly like you were listening for something. I was about to turn and walk out but then you gave this tremendous gasp and held your breath like something had spooked you. When you didn’t start breathing again right away, I was going to wake you. But just as I was about to touch your shoulder you let all you air back out. You started saying, ‘No, no, no, no,’ over and over. Then I noticed you’d been crying. I could see were your tears had run down the side of your face and wet your pillow.

  “And then I knew I should wake you up. But once I touched your shoulder, you smiled and opened your eyes and said, ‘It’s going to be okay.’ Do you remember saying that?”

  I shook my head. My eyes where slits. My heart was racing. I didn’t remember any of it. Mom wouldn’t ever make something like that up though. There was no reason for her to. Still, how could I have said that to her and yet have no recollection of it? What did it even mean? What was going to be okay?

  Everything from that dream ran through my head like a movie in fast motion. Nothing about it seemed okay. In fact it seemed quite disturbing.

  My mother, Juanita Sinfield, sat there with love in her eyes, wondering what her little boy had gone through in his sleep. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked.

  I sat for a minute, silent. I finally let my eyes close all the way, took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. Then I spoke my first word to her since I’d sat down at the table.

  “Voices.”

  Getting up off the chair, eyes still closed, I raised my arms and let my mom lift me into her lap where she cradled me against her breast. She smelled of Oil of Olay and peppermint toothpaste, soft and warm.

  I began by telling her about the dream I had had the night before. About the voices that yelled at me. About the children, dead and battered, that wanted to rip me to shreds. I didn’t tell her about the Oscar the Grouch faces or the barking. I did tell her about the other Dark Dreams that I had been having but not of the dark figure that I had seen in my room a few nights earlier. I didn’t want her to think that I was losing my marbles, seeing things that weren’t there. I told her about the bubbles that popped and screamed at me. She only sat listening as I relayed my nightmares to her.

  The next thing I knew I was waking up on our couch in the living room sometime around noon, later that same day.

  My brain felt fully recharged, like I had just gotten the best sleep in a long time.

  And I had.

  I guess talking to her did help after all. Moms are good for stuff like that.