Epilogue

I never told anyone, not even Valeric, what I was dreaming about when Ma woke me up that Saturday afternoon after she got back from New York five hours earlier than she’d planned. She’d known, my mother, as she sat through her alumnae lunch, because she excused herself before dessert and hailed a cab to Grand Central to make the 2:05. When she saw me she began to scream, and miraculously they said, I was jolted back to consciousness.

I didn’t want to wake up. At first it had been like any kind of going to sleep, except more serious, I could even feel my heart slowing down, my breath becoming shallow. I was dreaming of Carey, more of a feeling than a dream, of lying in a narrow bed with him, the long bones of his body pressed against mine like those times he’d held me the last few days, before I moved out, after we’d quit having sex, but the warmth of him was something I still craved.

And then I dreamed of a pattern, repeated over and over: white bears carrying pink and yellow balloons on a light blue background. I hadn’t seen it in twenty-six years, but I recognized it instantly: the walls of my crib in Monterey.

Finally I dreamed I was flying. Not by myself, but on the back of an enormous white crane, up into the eye of the sun.

That’s when she called me back. OPEN YOUR EYES. OPEN YOUR EYES. THIS IS YOUR MOTHER. OPEN YOUR EYES.

Before he died, Uncle Richard sent me a present, a key chain with a single charm—a little silver greyhound. Like Nai-nai’s hairpin, I keep it with me always, because, even with the way things turned out, I need all the luck I can get.