“You know,” she said finally, “there’s bound to be an easier way to sneak off and see your mistress.”

Eric smiled up at her.  “I know.  She told me to stop waking her up at two in the morning.”

“No girl’s horny at that hour.”

Still smiling, still admiring her lovely shape, he sipped quietly at his coffee.

“How far did you get this time?”

“Pretty well right here.”

“Same dream?”

“Far as I know.  Still can’t remember it.”

She stared at him and said nothing.

He kept smiling.  “It’s just a stupid recurring dream.”

She was silent for a moment longer.  She would not admit that she was worried about him.  That simply wasn’t her way.  But he could see it in her eyes.  And he didn’t blame her for feeling at least a little concerned.  These dreams were troubling.  They were interfering with his life.  Neither of them had ever dealt with anything like this before.

Finally, she spoke:  “What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to go,” Eric replied.

This surprised her.  She stood up straight, her pajama shirt falling open a little at the bottom, where she’d left it unbuttoned.  There was no force on earth that could stop his eyes from being drawn there.  “Go where?”

Eric shrugged.  “I’ll just drive.  See where it takes me.”

“Okay…but there’s nowhere to go.  It’s just a stupid dream.  You said so yourself just now.”

“I know.  Believe me, I know.  But this is the third night in a row I’ve had it and for some reason it’s really getting to me.  I’ve been so distracted.  I constantly feel like there’s somewhere I need to be.”

“But there’s not.  You know that.”

“I do know that,” he assured her.  “But apparently some part of my brain doesn’t.  That’s why I’m going.  I’ll open myself up to it, do what it wants me to do.  I’ll just get in the car and drive.  After a while, I’ll prove to myself that there really isn’t anywhere for me to go.  Then I can come home and finally sleep.  I mean, why not?  I’m already awake.”

She stared at him, studying him, considering what he’d said.  He didn’t know what else to say to her, so he took another sip of his coffee and let his eyes slide down her naked legs while he waited for her to speak.

“I guess that makes sense,” she replied at last.

“I thought so.”

“Show that messed up little brain of yours it doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”

“Put it back in its place, right?  That’s what I’m saying.”

She shifted her weight and continued to stare at him.  He could almost see the thoughts swirling behind her lovely eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her.  “And I can finally get this weirdness out of my system.”

“But what if it doesn’t work?”

“Then it doesn’t work.  At least I’ll have tried, right?  If I’m still having the dreams after this, I’ll call the doctor.”

Karen nodded.  She knew there was no reason to be concerned.  It was only a dream.  It was irrational.  So why not embrace the irrational and see what happened?  Maybe then he’d at least be able to sleep through the night again.

And even if it didn’t work, he wouldn’t be any worse off for trying.

“I guess gas is cheaper than therapy,” she reasoned.

“Just a little, I think.”

“Just a little.”

Eric took another sip of his coffee and found his eyes drifting to the door again.  He felt impatient to go, but he refused to simply rush out the door.

“It’ll be a fun little adventure for you.”

Eric returned his eyes to his wife and smiled again.  “I’ll bet it will.”

“No picking up sexy hitchhikers.”

“But those are the best kind.”

“I keep telling you, you don’t know where they’ve been.”

“If my adventure has a serious lack of romance, it’ll be your fault.”

“I’ll just have to live with the consequences.  How long will you be gone?”

Eric shrugged.  “Long as it takes, I guess.”

She didn’t like this answer.  She chewed thoughtfully at her lower lip.  He loved it when she did that.

“Probably only a couple hours.  I mean, really, where am I going to go?  I’ll be fine.”

“Do you have your cell phone?”

Eric pulled the phone from the front pocket of his khaki pants and showed her.  He hated cell phones, saw no value in them whatsoever, but she insisted that he carry one in case of emergencies.  She was utterly unwavering about it.  She’d even wanted to get him a high-dollar one with more functions than his laptop, like the one she carried, but he’d put his foot down.  He carried nothing fancier than a cheap, pre-paid model from Wal-Mart.  Even so, it had an obnoxious amount of extras built into it that he had no idea how to use.  He didn’t even know how to add minutes to the ridiculous thing.  Karen took care of that for him.

He returned the annoying device to his pocket, finished his coffee and then stood up and rinsed out his cup in the sink.  When he turned back around, Karen was right next to him, slipping her arms around him.

“It’s okay,” he promised her.  “I’m just driving around.  I can drive at night, you know.”

“I just don’t like being left alone.  You know that.  You won’t fall asleep, will you?”

“I’ll stay caffeinated,” he promised.  “Just go back to sleep.  I’ll be home before you know it.”

“I won’t be able to sleep.  I never sleep well when you’re not here.”

“Try.”

“You and your convoluted schemes to sneak off with your women.”

“I like to keep it interesting.  I’ll tell your sister you said hi.”

She gave his arm a gentle smack.  “Pushing it,” she warned him with an amused grin.

Eric smiled and kissed her again.  “What’ve you got going on today?”

“Birthday cake for Joss.”

“Oh yeah.”

Karen was a talented baker and a freelance cake decorator.  She’d earned an impressive reputation here in her home town and regularly earned fairly decent spending money.

“Toni’s coming by to pick it up this afternoon.”  Toni was Karen’s cousin.  Joss was Toni’s son, whose first birthday was tomorrow.  He was an exceptionally adorable baby.

“That’ll be fun for you.”

“I know.  Also, I’ll probably get started on those pies for Lana.”  Lana was one of Karen’s oldest friends.  They went to grade school together.  Lana often organized social events for the church, a responsibility she inherited from her mother when she was diagnosed with cancer several years ago.  Karen made various pies, cakes, cookies, whatever recipes she wanted to try out, and Lana regularly earned her new customers.

Eric had tried to talk her into starting her own website, but she wasn’t interested in expanding her hobby into an actual business.  She was convinced it would take all the fun out of it.

“Maybe I should just get started now,” she said, glancing at the clock on the stove.

“I think you should at least try and get more sleep.  You don’t want to be too exhausted when you’re decorating that cake.”

“I guess so.”

“Go back to bed.  I’ll see you in a little while.”

“Okay.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Eric kissed her one last time and then collected his keys and walked out of the house.

Karen watched him from the doorway as he climbed into the PT Cruiser and backed out of the driveway.

Now he had only to convince himself that this wasn’t completely insane.

He settled back into the seat and again tried to remember the dream.  But like always, all that came back to him was the bird.  It wasn’t even an image of a bird.  It was just the idea of a bird.  As if that made any sort of sense.

He drove away with no idea where he was going, confident that he would find nothing waiting for him in the great open world and hoped to soon return home satisfied and back to normal.

Chapter Two