Dream No. 1, Wednesday

A stiff, raw breeze blew through the house. I had opened all of the windows because a strong storm was rolling in, and for the past two weeks, the air inside had felt heavy, stagnant.  It was May, but the wind reminded me of March, when the atmosphere is unstable and indecisive and unsure of herself.

For three weeks, I had been sleeping on the couch. I had thrown our queen-size bed away, hauled the mattress and the box springs to the curb for the garbageman. I hadn’t decided what kind of replacement bed to buy. A twin would be large enough for me, but would foreclose on future possibilities. A twin would be too small to accommodate me and the cats. I was leaning toward a full-size, but I felt torn, so for now, I had settled on the couch.

I fell asleep without a blanket. I dreamt I was holding a cold, round object, perhaps a potato or a stone. But the texture was too supple, too smooth. I was holding your hand.

You were wearing your brown coat, your fall coat, the one that kept you warm when we traveled to Meat Cove, at the tip of Cape Breton, and watched the cormorants huddle in the mist on the pier.

“Wait, aren’t you dead?” I asked.

“Yes.

“What’s it like to be dead?”

“It’s OK, not too bad, about what I expected.”

You always had a gift for understatement.

We were quiet for a while, and then you said, “But I do like sitting here in the breeze with you.”

Suddenly, my hand was empty.

Dream No. 2, Thursday

First, I had to dig a trench. It needed to be square, its perimeter large enough for a bed and several vases of flowers. Then I had to stack and mortar concrete blocks to build your crematorium.

You lay dying on a hospital bed within the building’s footprint. The hospice nurse, Pat, said I had to finish it, timed perfectly, so that I placed the last block, the keystone, as you died.

Pat updated me every half hour.

“It won’t be long.”

“You should hurry.”

I had completed one wall when I realized I had mismeasured. I leaned on my shovel and began crying. You had always told me to slow down, to be methodical, especially when assembling things. You were right. You were always right.

I started over, measured — twice this time — dug another trench, took down the concrete blocks and stacked and mortared them in their new spots.

“He’s almost gone.”

I sat down, slumped against the one good wall and cried. I still had two and a half walls to go. There’s no way I would finish on time.