A Lady Under Siege (34 page)
Read A Lady Under Siege Online
Authors: B.G. Preston
“More and more.”
“They’re meant to be temporary. Time’s up. Time to stop.”
“I want to. They’re horrible. I feel like a zombie—I never wake up refreshed or revived, or energized. Just, drugged. Sleep without dreams is like, half a life.”
“I’m staying over, right? Don’t take one tonight, and let’s see what happens.”
“Actually there’s been a change in plan. Betsy’s not going to her Dad’s after all—she didn’t want to, and I can’t force her. So she’s home.”
“Oh.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “You want to wait till I’m around to go off your meds?”
“I think so.”
Suddenly they heard Betsy shout from the living room. “It’s all right, you can stay, Derek!”
“Have you been eavesdropping?” Meghan called to her.
“Not on purpose.” She came into the kitchen. “I know he stays here when I’m not here, so what’s the difference?” she said.
“Nothing, I guess, if you can handle it.”
“I can handle it.”
A
FTER DINNER AND DISHES
they watched
Shrek Forever After
on DVD. In the early going Betsy had to explain a lot of back story to Derek, because he had never seen the first three installments of the series, and later Derek had to explain to Betsy what a metaphysical paradox was. Then it was her bedtime, occasioning a collision of wills between firm mother and feisty daughter that Derek stayed out of. When Meghan finally came downstairs from Betsy’s bedroom she wore that look of triumphant exhaustion that every parent knows. She slid next to him on the couch and said, “So, a night of firsts. First night you get to stay over while the kid is home, and first night I go without the sleeping potion.”
“How are you feeling about that?”
“A bit scared. But hopeful. I’d just love to have a regular old dream.”
“What if you see our friend?”
“I don’t know. I’ll tell him he’s been replaced.”
“Maybe you should have a plan—try to talk to him, tell him you don’t want to be there anymore. Supposedly we can control our dreams, if we consciously will ourselves to.”
“I thought about that. I’ve looked into it online. There’s a lot of BS out there. I’ll just see what happens, try to stay with it, assert myself if I can. Not that I expect I’ll really be able to. You dream what you dream.”
“Yeah. But tell yourself you’re in charge. Try to be comfortable with yourself.”
“I’m comfortable with you. Especially since you told me about your new plans. All the boxes are getting checked off—you’re smart, you’re funny, you’re good with Betsy, handy around the house.” She smiled, and snuggled closer. “You’re also handy in the bedroom. And now it seems like you’re shedding that aimlessness that I considered to be your last major liability.”
“Hurray for me.”
“Exactly, Hurray for you.”
I
N THE MORNING SHE
woke up and nudged him awake. Her smile reminded him of what needed to be asked.
“Well?”
“I saw them. Faintly, and from a new place, not inside Sylvanne’s mind, but outside, more like an-out-of-body experience. Sylvanne is going to have a baby. She’s thrilled, Thomas is thrilled, and I was happy for them too. Daphne looks great. I saw it all in a glance, and that’s all I needed. It was like I was waving goodbye, being carried somewhere else. And I had another dream—you and Betsy in bright sunshine, you were trying to ride unicycles on a sandy beach and got all bogged down. But you were laughing about it, and then there was something about an orange juice maker, the old fashioned kind where you pull a big lever to squish the orange.”
“I have one of those, somewhere.”
“It was mounted on your handlebars. You were making glasses and glasses of it and passing them around.”
“Unicycles don’t have handlebars.”
“Yours did. Hey, I dreamt about you!”
“And then you woke up, and here I was.”
“Kiss me.”
And he did.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Here’s to The Editorial Department, a sunny bunch down in Tucson, Arizona. Morgana Gallaway designed this book, and Kelly Leslie did the cover. Karinya Funsett-Topping and especially the indomitable Jane Ryder helped me straighten up the mess and reminded me which kind of endings make for happier readers.
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