Ashes and Oatmeal

I always dream. Sometimes I remember them, but more often I jerk awake with my heart pounding so hard it hurts and my body all sticky with sweat, and I can't remember why I feel so afraid. Sometimes Aunt Cassie is there when I wake up; she says I call out in my sleep, and she shushes me and watches over her shoulder as though she's waiting for something terrible to come in the door.

Those are the nightmares. 

Sometimes, though, I have happy dreams. I always pray that I'll remember them, those dreams of the place I was before. The first time I dreamed about it, I told Jeffrey; I didn't know any better, then. He said I was making it up, and he told Aunt Cassie on me. Then Mr. Spender came again. He said that the dreams weren't true, that before I came to live with Aunt Cassie I lived with my parents, but that we had all had a car wreck and everybody died except for me. He said that I was hurt very badly in the accident, and that's why I don't remember anything. He said that's why I have to go to the Place, and that the doctors there are trying to help me get better. Then he made me go with him to the Place, and the doctors did... something. I don't know what. But it made my head hurt, and when I got back I didn't have the dreams anymore, not for years. When they came back at last, I was so happy I cried. I didn't tell anyone that they had come back; I didn't want the doctors to take them away from me again. They're all I have left from before. 

I pretend to believe the things that Mr. Spender tells me, but I don't. I know he lies to me. Everybody lies to me. He lies about who I am, and Jeffrey lies about snooping in my room and messing up my stuff, and Aunt Cassie lies and tells me that nothing bad is going to happen, and the doctors lie and say that it won't hurt as much, the next time.

I lie, too, every day. I lie every time I say "I'm Samantha Spender," every time I tell the kids on the base that my parents died in a car crash, every time that Jeffrey's father asks if I've been dreaming and I tell him no, sir, I never remember my dreams anymore. Sometimes I feel like the lies and the secrets hang in the air like his cigarette smoke; they make my eyes sting and my clothes reek, they fill me and choke me and make me want to cough. I want to get away from here. I've given up on finding my home from before; all I want now is a place where I can live, just live like a normal person and be free from the tests and the doctors and Aunt Cassie's fear and Jeffrey's sulks and Jeffrey's father's stink of cigarettes and pain.

I know the dreams are true, both the good dreams and the nightmares. I know, even when I don't remember, that when I wake up screaming it's because I'm remembering the Place in my sleep. I know the Place is real. That means that the dreams about before are real too. 

I think maybe I lived near the beach before. I dream about the ocean a lot, about making sandcastles and picking up shells and pretty rocks. Sometimes there is a lady with me, and she tells me the names of the shells. She never calls me by my name. I wish she would. I want to know my name, my real name, more than just Samantha. Jeffrey says my real name is Spender, like his, but I know that's a lie. My real name is something different. I don't quite remember it yet, but I have a feeling that maybe it starts with an "r."

There are pages and pages of names in my diary, where I've gone through the phone book trying to remember the right one, trying to find one that will look right to me. I write down the ones that seem familiar, hoping that one of them will shake something loose in my head and let me remember for real. I look at my lists and I try them out, whispering names to myself like a prayer: "Samantha Williams, Samantha Porter, Samantha Holden, Samantha Miller..." 

That's my secret diary, the one I keep hidden, the one I write in by flashlight under the covers in the middle of the night. I have two diaries; I keep the other one under the mattress for Jeffrey to find. I know he reads it, the rotten little sneak. So I make it easy for him to find that one, where I talk about having crushes on the neighbors and wanting a new pair of jeans, and I pretend to be mad when he reads it. But the whole time I'm laughing at him inside, because he doesn't know about my real diary, where I write down the precious little bits of memory I've managed to hide away from him and Aunt Cassie and Mr. Spender and the doctors at the Place.

Sometimes I dream about riding bikes. I'm sitting on the crossbar and there's a boy, pedaling us as I hold tight around his waist. He is older than me. I think maybe he might be my brother. I can hear the seabirds and I taste salt in the heavy air as I laugh and cry, "Faster!" I don't know his name, but I feel safe with him; I know he won't let us fall. I want to turn and see his face. I am frozen, though, like you sometimes are in dreams, and I can only look ahead into the ocean wind.

No matter how they start, the dreams always end the same way. I am sitting on the floor with my brother; we are playing a game, and we fight over the television. And then there is the awful light, and I am so afraid, and all I can hear is my brother screaming my name.

Jeffrey's father is here when I come out to breakfast. He is drinking coffee and smoking. Aunt Cassie stands stiff at the stove, stirring my oatmeal. I feel sick to my stomach when I see him; he only comes to take me to the Place. I don't want to go back there. I don't want to go with him anymore.

"Good morning, Samantha," he says in his hateful cool voice. 

"Good morning, Mr. Spender," I say, politely, and think that it wouldn't be a lie if only he would go away and never come back, if only he would leave me alone. If only he would let me go back to the place I lived before.

Last night I dreamt of crayons, of coloring. I close my eyes, and I can still smell the wax and newsprint. My brother is there, at the edges of the dream, not paying attention to me. I interrupt him--he was reading-- and ask him to guess which color I used on the tree in my picture. He humors me, guessing wildly wrong, and I correct him, proud in my small victory. He tugs on one of my pigtails; the ribbon comes undone. He does it up for me again, in a double knot like you use for shoelaces so it won't untie. His face is still indistinct, but I see that he has brown hair.

My brother has brown hair. I repeat it to myself, so that I will be sure to remember until I have a chance to write it down in my diary; now I have one more memory to hold on to, another small true thing to clear away the lies and let me breathe.

"Come here," Jeffrey's father says, and reaches towards me. I cross to where he's sitting, and he takes my hand. His skin is dry and flaky; there is a yellow stain on his finger. I pretend not to hate him, and he pretends not to notice. 

"Did you sleep well?" 

I nod.

Did the dream come back? Did you remember again? The questions lie just under his too-smooth face. I can see them there, even before he asks. "Any dreams?"

I clear my throat. "No, sir." I never tell him about the dreams anymore, not since the first time. I smile, and lie, and keep that place I was before as a secret just for me. 

He lets go of me, and I take my seat. Under the table, where he can't see, I scrub my hand against my skirt, wiping his touch off my fingers, his smell off my skin.

Aunt Cassie gives me my oatmeal. It tastes like the ashes of Jeffrey's father's cigarette.

My brother had brown hair. He had brown hair, and we fought over the television.

I wonder if he ever dreams of me.