House Call: Carrie’s Dream

Part 4

“Carrie! Wake up! Carrie, honey wake up! Its just a night mare.” Jenn patted the sobbing girl. The glow of the alarm clock on Carrie’s desk illuminated the room. Jenn switched Carrie’s purple lamp on, hoping the light might wake her.

“Michael? Where are you?” Carrie cried in her sleep.

“Carrie, you are having a bad dream, wake up.” Jenn said firmly but gently. She slid her arm behind the girl’s shoulders to sit her up. Carrie flailed for a moment. Then she opened her eyes with confusion as she was still partly in dream world.

“Where is Michael? I’ve been looking for him?” Carrie said but as soon as the words left her mouth she realized that she had been asleep. Jenn watched Carrie as she tried to make sense of where she was and calm down. “That was a real dream,” Carrie said to her mother.

“Would it help to tell me your dream? Whenever my dreams seem too real. It helps me to talk about it.” Jenn said in a motherly way. Carrie looked at her mother in doubt.

“No it was a real dream.” Carrie paused, “Mom, who is Michael?” She asked with an air of confusion as though still being in a dream.

“Dreams aren’t real, Carrie.” Jenn reminded her as though she was her four-year-old little brother, Charley.

“No, it was real.” Carrie responded adamantly. “Like a memory. Mom, who is Michael?” This time her question came with an urgency.

“I don’t know,” Jenn said quickly as though she wanted to avoid searching her memory. A cloud of sadness seemed to pass into Carrie’s face. A despondency overtook her. Grief took her voice away. Before she had been crying from a fear, now it was grief–an inexplicable grief. Maybe if it hadn’t hurt so much she could have explained it. Maybe if it she could have explained it, it would not have hurt so much. Grief is sneaky like that. Instead Carrie, just shook her had and turned over to go back to sleep. She managed to mumble that she was sleepy, to get her mom to leave. She managed to hold back silent tears till after Jenn had tucked her back in like she was small child and turned the light off.

The next morning, Carrie woke up with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She went through the motions of eating breakfast. She growled grumpily at Matt and ignored her father’s rebuke, though outwardly she apologized. On the bus she pulled her book out to read so she wouldn’t need to talk to anyone, but she only stared at the page. At school she managed to put her feelings and dreams out of her mind by distracting herself with classes and friends. But in the quiet moments the sick feeling came back. By the time she was back home the feeling was back in full force. It felt like a she had forgotten something very important but couldn’t remember what it was.

She changed out of her uniform and abandoned her school things in a pile. Carrie, desperate to jog her memory, headed for the bookshelves in den. On the bottom shelf were family photo albums. Jenn loved photos. On the shelves above the photo books, the shelves were lined with picture frames. Many were old black and white photos from an era belonging to grandparents. She started with the most recent books. They were not very orderly and had few notes or dates. Carrie set them back on the shelf. Carrie remembered most of the things from those books anyway. She kept looking and found the older books from when she was toddler. These books were much more orderly. Each page was decorated and most photos labeled. Clearly Jenn had more time before Matt, Chad, and Charley were born. However, there was something really odd about the book. There were blank spots on the pages as though pictures were missing, even some blank pages as if they were skipped.

photo album — *These were from before Carrie was born.*

Carrie put this book back as well. Then she pulled an older white book with curly silver writing and bells on the front. This book was of Jeff and Jenn’s wedding. They looked very young. The hair styles looked funny. Carrie liked this book. She set it next to her and pulled another book off the shelf. The beginning had some pictures of Jenn and Jeff doing things with friends and Carrie’s Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents. These were from before Carrie was born. But then pictures seemed to dwindle in the book. Blank sections followed. Just when Carrie would assume the rest of the book was blank there would be a random page of a niece’s graduation or a wedding of a friend on a page carefully labeled and even sometimes with decorative paper and cut outs much like the first pages in the book. Towards the end was her new born pictures. There were a lot more pictures in these pages with careful labels and cute headings and stickers to decorate the pages but still there were a few blanks space that didn’t seem to make sense. Carrie put the book back on the shelf had sat quietly thinking. It felt like the memory books had forgotten something too.

Matt walked into the room. Seeing the Wedding Album next to Carrie he decided he needed to look at it too. Was it some kind of sibling rivalry or did he want to remember something? Either way he snatched up the album and began to look at it. Instantly angry at him for barging in on her thoughts Carrie yelled viciously. “Give that back, I was looking at it!”

Matt grinned a taunting grin and ran out of the room. Hot on his heels she sprinted after him up the stairs to the right and into his bedroom.

“Get out of my room!” yelled Matt. Not that Matt really cared if she was there, he just loved feeling that for once he could yell those words at her, considering all the times she insisted that he leave her room. Up until they moved, all the boys had shared the largest room in the tiny house. Jeff and Jenn had actually traded with them and took the smaller room. Carrie had always had her own room, being that she was the only girl. Matt never thought that seemed very fair. Chad and Charley now had a smaller room on the bottom floor. Carrie came up short in the room. Not because she cared that Matt told her to leave. She hadn’t been in Matt’s room since they first moved in.

“Matt, w-why is your room like this? “Carrie stuttered. Something in her face pulled him up short too but he certainly wasn’t going to admit it.

“Why do you care, it’s picked up! So you can’t complain to MOM!” he yelled.

“Why is half your room blank?” She countered, ignoring his defensiveness for probably the first time in her life. She was struck by how large it was for just him. This was exaggerated by the fact that all of Matt’s things were on only one side of the room. His dresser, night stand and bed were clustered in one corner. His posters and wall hangings all decorated one side. It was almost like an imaginary line was draw in the room. One side of the room was normal and the other side was blank.

“I don’t know, it just is. Now get out, or I’m telling Mom!” Matt yelled again. but this time the anger seemed to be covering up something else, something like pain. Carrie heard her mother coming to check on the commotion, and so that she wouldn’t get in trouble she left the room quickly forgetting about the Wedding Album.

Giving up, she pulled a journal from between her mattress and box springs.

Sitting at her desk in her room she sighed at her math homework. She had been staring at it for at least ten minutes. She couldn’t get her dream out of her head. Giving up, she pulled a journal from between her mattress and box springs. You can never be too careful with sneaky little brothers.

My Dream

I have had the same dream every night since we moved to this new house. I am walking down the hallway of my old house. Everything looks big, so I guess I am young. It is early morning and I am looking for someone. First I run into the kitchen and no one is there. I look in the living room and no one is there. I come back down the hall and no one is in the bathroom or spare office room. That is what it was back then, not Mom and Dad’s room. I remember that. I come back to my room and there are two toddler beds in there. They didn’t seem little like they do now. I look over at the bed across from mine and it is empty. I began crying. Mom comes in, her room was the only room I hadn’t checked. I ask her where Michael is and she looked at me like she knew before she walked in why I was sad. Like she felt sorry for not telling me earlier. “He is with Dad this morning, they went fishing really early. You get to go next time, but its his turn this time.” I remember feeling better because she knew why I was sad before I even told her. This dream bothers me because I am certain I remember it happening.

Then last night the dreamed changed. It started with me crying in my room and asking for Michael but this time Mom looked at me like she had no idea who Michael was and she told me that I had just had a bad dream and dreams aren’t real. Then over and over again I kept waking up in my toddler bed, looking over to see if Michael was there. I then would search the whole house to look for him. Only, there were more hallways and more rooms that all looked like rooms that could be in our house but weren’t. Dreams are so weird like that. Sometimes I would walk into a room and would see Mom working, and I would ask her, and she would look confused and say she didn’t know but that I must have just had a bad dream and dreams aren’t real. This kept going on ’til I woke up with Mom sitting next to me telling me I had a bad dream. I asked her about Michael and she said she didn’t know.

But I think it’s worst than that. I think she doesn’t remember. I remember. Or I remember something but I can’t remember what exactly.

But really, I’m scared. I’m scared I have lost someone. I am scared that I have forgotten an entire person, except on this one morning. I am scared that mom and dad have forgotten him.

And I’m scared that maybe she will forget me too.