The Edge of Dreams(52)
“But I enjoy discussing Daniel’s work with him,” I said. “Remember I was a detective myself once. I might even be able to offer him some insight when he’s dealing with a difficult case.”
“You’ve a young child to think about now,” she said, glancing at Liam chasing the ball. “Do you want him to grow up thinking that the world is full of murders and crimes? He’s a right to think that the world is a safe and lovely place. It’s up to a mother to create that kind of haven for her children.”
She was right, of course. I certainly didn’t want Liam growing up thinking that the world was full of danger. But then he’d been in danger himself already and didn’t seem any the worse for it. Certainly no sign of the sort of bad dreams Mabel was experiencing. But I did take Mrs. Sullivan’s point. From now on, any discussion of Daniel’s cases would be when Liam was safely in bed.
My headache lingered through most of the morning, even after I’d drunk a cup of coffee. I had a suspicion that Sid’s strong Turkish coffee might well do the trick. Normally I could hardly bear to swallow it, and the spoon almost stood upright in the cup, but today I needed it. However Mother Sullivan was so adamant that I lie and rest that I didn’t want to risk creating a scene and incurring Daniel’s wrath when he came home. I suppose I must have become meeker since my marriage.
I didn’t feel like reading, and I never felt like sewing. I couldn’t even concentrate on the list of things I needed to buy for the house, as Mabel’s and Daniel’s cases kept flashing through my mind. I was dying to get out and do something. I wondered if anyone had spoken to the firemen who were called on the night Mabel’s parents died. Might they have seen anything strange? Since Mabel’s parents’ house had only been on Eleventh Street, and thus within easy walking distance of my home, the fire engine would probably have come from the Jefferson Market fire station, at the bottom of Patchin Place. And nobody could object to my stretching my legs that far.
I had just moved on to Daniel’s case and was going through the list of victims again, trying to find anything they had in common, when to my delight, I heard a door slamming across the street and saw Sid and Gus heading in my direction. My mother-in-law responded to the knock on the front door and I heard her say, “No visitors today, I’m afraid. She overdid things yesterday and isn’t feeling at all well.”
That was too much for me. I got up from the sofa and went to the door. “That doesn’t include my friends, Mother Sullivan. What I need now is cheering up, and I’m sure they can do just that. Do we have any coffee left in the pot?”
She shot me an angry look, but she let Sid and Gus come in and stalked off to the kitchen.
“Not what you’d call a warm welcome,” Sid said in a low voice. “Is she really banning all visitors, or is it just we who are persona non grata? I have the feeling she disapproves of us.”
“She was just doing what she thought was best for me,” I said, just in case she was listening. “I really didn’t feel well this morning. I also had a horrible dream last night. Maybe Gus can interpret it for me. I’ve actually had it a couple of times before.”
“When did you start having it?” Gus asked.
“After the accident. When I was lying in the hospital.”
“So it’s not a long-term problem you’ve been dealing with.”
“No.” I took a deep breath, making myself recall the details of the dream. “I’m lying in a dark, confined space, and I can hear water dripping and there is a horrible rumbling all around me, and I know I have to get out before it’s too late.”
Gus looked at me and smiled. “I don’t think that one is too hard to interpret, Molly. You were in a train crash. Didn’t you say you passed out and when you came to your senses there were people lying on top of you? And I’m sure the rumbling was the motor of the train still running nearby. You’re just reliving a moment of great terror, the way Mabel is.”
“I suppose so,” I said, “although in my dream it feels as if I’m underground, and I can’t breathe properly.”
“You were buried under bodies in the train, so your brain is playing with the notion of being buried,” Gus said. “Now, what I want you to do, the next time you dream it, is to take control of it. Visualize a square of light in one corner and say to yourself, ‘Why, there is a way out after all.’”
“One can really do that in a dream?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. And it’s very effective. If you wake up after the nightmare, you make yourself go back to sleep, fall back into the dream, only this time you make it have a positive outcome. You face the monster. You stop the horse from running away with you. I’m told it really does work.”