I am sitting around a dinner table with my husband and kids, discussing the interesting things we have seen today—Maria saw a gas station that used the wrong form of “your,” as in, “Your going to be amazed!!” We chuckle. This feels familiar, but in the wrong kind of way. Upon closer inspection, I know what I have been trying to figure out the whole day now: these are not my real husband and kids. I have been sitting here nearly every night, having dinner with them, for the last 3 years. His name is Rob, he is 43 years old, five years younger than I am and we “have” two children together. One boy, one girl: Tom and Maria. Rob, 43, Tom, 17, Maria, 13. Cecilia and Rob, Tom and Maria. It sounds weird to me because I am used to saying Cecilia and Jack, Katie and Sarah.
Now that I have made the realization that this is not my family, I must go through with Step 2. I must convince myself that this is a dream, because it is. But in dream world, just because the same thing has happened to you the exact same way 1036 times before does not mean it will happen the same way for the 1037th time. In fact, in dream world, it seems downright improbable.
I study my hands. They move when I want them to. I have a distinct awareness of my body in time and space. The shadows fall over Maria's face the way they should given the light source affixed above the table.
My “husband” leans towards me, what's wrong? The dinner table has fallen silent. I think they know what's coming. If this is a dream, if they are something I have conjured up, they should know what's coming.
Tom looks angry, an adolescent boy whose mother has commitment issues.
Mom, Maria whimpers, don't do this. Just let us have one night. Just one.
Look what you're doing to the children, Celi, says Rob. The children. They'll think you don't love them. That's right, I almost forgot. Rob calls me Celi.
But it's too late. My hand is already reaching for the knife next to my meatloaf. They know. That means this is a dream, right? How else could they know what I was going to do before even I did?
(And here the same thing happens every time.)
I grab the knife. Rob is sitting to my right side, Tom to my left, Maria across from me. They don't try to stop me. Do they know it is useless? This dream world is their real world so it makes sense to them that this would happen for a 1037th time. Me—well, I am still a bit bewildered by the complacent look on Maria's face as I slash at her dad's throat. The spray of blood hits my eyes and my open mouth. The taste is the same in every dream.
My actions are frantic, but Maria and Tom are calm. Maria is crying silent tears. Mom, she whispers as I hack at her breast. I always start with Rob, he is the easiest. For all intents and purposes, Tom and Maria are my children. The dream me recognizes that they are my children. It is the real me that is trying to break through that.
Maria's eyes are glazed over and there is a gurgling sound coming from her throat.
Fine, says Tom, fine. He offers up his wrists. My mind always finds a way to make everything harder than it needs to be. Just do it, Mom. Just go ahead and do it.
I am sobbing, porcelain plates are shattered on the floor, my meatloaf is a little pile of mush in the carpet under me. I'm perched on the table with mashed potatoes in my hair. It is too late to ask myself if this is crazy.
I don't answer Tom. That would be accepting him as real. I want to give him consolation, but he is not who he says he is. I stab him, too.
I survey the room. It looks similar to the way it does every night. There is blood and mashed potatoes on the walls. They are all slumped in their chairs, leaning against the table. Rob's face is in his soup; his hand gives a twitch. Will this be the last time? Or am I perpetually destined to kill my family dream after dream? I wake up in the mornings and see Katie and Sarah, my daughters, and think... am I sure this is the real world? Have I been getting it wrong this whole time?
Speak into the microphone.
Like this?
We can't hear you. All I can hear is your breathing. Pull the microphone away a bit.
Exhale. Now?
Your breathing. It's like falling asleep to the ocean.
I'm just out of breath. I'm sorry, can I have a minute?
I spend days at work and evenings and weekends with Jack, Katie and Sarah. Then I fall asleep and do the whole thing over again with Rob, Tom and Maria. These lucid dreams just won't go away and in them, it usually takes me until dinner before I realize that I am dreaming. The shadows cast from a candle that don't fall quite right, or something Maria says sparks a memory and I realize my body is lying in a bed next to Jack with my two daughters in the next room, although my mind is here. I go through with trying to rid myself of this family. I do not have place in my life to take care of two different households, two different pasts, presents and futures. I have tried sleeping pills, therapy, hypnosis, and finally, murder. The last option is the only thing that has worked even marginally.
Then, I wake from the dream, not feeling rested at all, and it starts all over again.
I open my eyes. “Rob?” I ask, trying to get my bearings.
Jack nuzzles my shoulder and says, “Mm'mm. Jack.” His eyes are still closed. A sheen of sweat covers my forehead.
“Jack,” I say. He nods in his sleep.
“Jack,” I say, having grasped reality again.
Speak directly into it. Say what you really want to say right now.
No.
Why not?
Someone will hear me.
No one can hear you over your breathing.
Ok.
Ok what?
Ok. What I want to say is...
…
It's that... wait... where am I again?
I remember the remembering I do in my lucid dreams. I remember that while I’m dreaming, I have memories of Maria when she was 3 and learning how to ride a fire-engine red tricycle. I remember the red pimples on the faces of the boys down the road that were friends with Tom when he was just hitting his teenage years. I remember the tooth he got knocked out by a baseball at 13, the blood, red against his white teeth. I remember how Rob and I met, 1967, a rally, awkward, angry, and red-faced. During the day, I carry these memories around like someone might carry around the pages of a book she has just finished reading, familiar and intimate, yet still recognizably distinct from one’s own experiences. But as I fall asleep, I can feel these memories becoming my own, settling under my skin, behind my eyeballs, until they are the only truth that is fed from my brain through my ocular nerve and to the projection screen of my eyelids. Silent movies constantly flickering across my gaze: Maria running, Maria stumbling, Maria going to the ground, Tom by her side, Tom, baseball, high school, high school friends, Maria getting up, Rob, laughing, Rob, yelling, Rob and that French cuisine cooking class, Rob and...longing?
The second time Maria begs me, don't do this, let us just have one night, in a dream, I pause. I am in my familiar crouch in the middle of the dinner table, my toes spread apart in the Jello. I'm tired. What if she's right? Why not let it go this one evening? I've trained myself to do the same thing every time for so long that I don't know if I can stop myself.
Rob is watching me quietly over his meatloaf and I know that he is just reflecting my own thoughtful expression. I climb down from the table and put the knife next to my plate. During the time it takes me to set the knife down, it turns into a spoon—yes, this is a dream. We laugh at the idea that I would ever consider murdering them, especially with a spoon. By the time we are done laughing, I have forgotten that it was ever a knife and that I ever intended to hurt them. I even forget it is a dream. Maria chatters incessantly about going to volleyball camp. I listen.
Waking up in the morning, exhausted, I remember the previous night's events.
“Jack,” I whisper. I hear a grunt and then, “Mm'mm. Rob.” I open my eyes in horror.
Excuse me, ma’am, listen to me now. Please.
Ok.
We need your name for the record. Please.
Celi Hamilton.
Celi. There was a woman at this residence named Cecelia Bennett. Do you know anyone who went by that name?
Bennett...Bennett...I’m not sure. I don’t quite recognize that name.
I’m replaying the scenario over and over in my mind. The woman who physically wakes up in the real world, but is still mentally stuck in her dream life. She walks out into the kitchen and sees intruders sitting around the breakfast table. She has trained herself to spot these intruders. She has trained herself to terminate these intruders.
Only, she is awake and she doesn’t know it.
She lunges for the knife and her daughter, Sarah, unknowingly says the same line that Maria does in her dreams, she says, “Mom, don’t do this!”
And that is all she needs to start slashing.
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