Susan Pfeffer - This World We Live In

Then I heard someone screaming, and I looked down at a man, his leg twisted horribly. I knew right away it was the man with the broken leg Syl had told me about. It was like I wasn’t asleep anymore because I thought, Oh, that’s the guy Syl mentioned. Then I thought the man was Dad, which was when the dream turned into a nightmare. But I realized it wasn’t anyone I knew, and I remember thinking, Okay, this isn’t going to be another nightmare after all.

I felt like I was awake and this was all truly happening.

Everyone who was walking stopped, and some of the people came back. There must have been ten or fifteen of us standing around the guy, who kept screaming. Someone said, “Shut up already,” and kicked the man in his leg.

Then other people started kicking him, and—this is the worst part—I started kicking him, too. I thought, If I don’t join in, they’ll kick me. But part of me enjoyed it, because I was okay and this guy, who somehow represented everything that had been awful for the past year, was lying there helpless.

The more we kicked, the louder he screamed, and the more excited I got.

In my sleep I thought, This dream is going to turn and I’m going to be the person lying on the ground, but that never happened. I guess I woke up before it could. I know I was shaking when I woke up. My body hurts all over from the fall, but I swear my leg hurt even more, like it ached from kicking.

A month ago I was dreaming about Baby Rachel. Dreams I thought were scary.

For the first time ever I hoped there was no Baby Rachel. I don’t know what happened to Dad and Lisa, if the baby was ever born. It must be so hard now to have a baby. Lisa could have miscarried or had a stillborn baby. Horrible though that is, it might be for the better.

I tiptoed out of the sunroom and through the kitchen to the bathroom. It smells of fish and bedpans and ocean breeze air freshener. I curled up on the cold tile floor, and I rocked back and forth, glad it made my body ache even more, like I deserved the punishment for what I’d been thinking.

I hate my dreams. I hate Matt for bringing Syl into our lives, and I hate Syl for giving me her nightmares.

I hate this world we live in.

The doorbell rang.

Mom and I sat there, frozen by the sound. Syl was upstairs napping. Matt and Jon were chopping firewood.

The doorbell rang again.

Mom gestured for me to stay absolutely still.

“Laura? Laura? Are you in there? It’s me, Lisa!”

“Oh my God,” Mom said. “Lisa?” She raced to the back door and opened it. “Lisa? Is that really you?”

Lisa was crying. “Please,” she said. “Please let me in.”

“Of course,” Mom said, and gathered Dad’s wife in her arms. “Oh, Lisa. I’m sorry. I’m in a state of shock.”

“Where’s Dad?” I asked. “Is he here? Is he all right?”

“Yes, yes, he’s out front with the baby,” Lisa said. “Everyone’s outside. Hal thought it would be safer if I came first, that it wouldn’t frighten you as much if you heard a woman’s voice.”

At least I think that’s what she said, because before she was halfway through, I had run through the house, passing Syl on the stairway, and flung the front door open. There he was: my father, still alive, home where I could hold him and never let him go.

“Miranda, Miranda,” he said. “I knew this day would come. I never lost hope.”

“Oh, Daddy,” I said, and the tears streaming down my face were tears of joy for a change. “I don’t believe it. I can’t. It’s too good to be true.”

Dad laughed. “It’s true all right,” he said. He turned to one of the other people he was with, a girl, I noticed, and took a baby from her arms. “Meet Gabriel,” he said, handing the baby to me.

I was so stunned the baby’s name wasn’t Rachel, I almost didn’t reach out. Gabrielle’s a pretty name, I told myself. It was my fantasy she’d be named Rachel, no one else’s.

Dad was beaming. “This is Miranda, your sister and your godmother,” he said to the baby. “Miranda, this is your baby brother Gabriel.”

I looked down at the baby I was cradling. “It’s a boy?” I said.

“He was born right after midnight on Christmas Day,” Dad said.

For months now I’ve dreamed of my little sister, Baby Rachel. A few days ago I was in such despair, I’d hoped she’d never been born. And now I was holding that very baby, only it was a boy and it was screaming.

“He cries a lot,” the girl said. “You get used to it.”

Lisa and Mom had come to the front door. “Come in, everyone,” Mom said. “Syl’s gone to get the boys. Please, come in. You can warm up in the sunroom while I make a pot of tea.”

Lisa took the baby, Gabriel, from my arms, and for the first time I really looked at the people Dad was with. They were unloading their backpacks and taking their coats off, so they didn’t seem to notice that I was staring at them.

There were five altogether, if you count Dad and Lisa. Six if you include the baby. Besides Dad, there were two guys: one maybe in his thirties, the other one more my age or Matt’s. The girl who’d been holding the baby looked young, close to Jon’s age. Everyone’s so thin nowadays, and gray and sad, you can’t really tell ages anymore. Except the older guy wasn’t thin. He wasn’t exactly robust, but he certainly wasn’t thin.

We followed Mom into the sunroom. “It’s so warm in here,” the younger guy said.

We had the woodstove going, of course, and one of the electric heaters was on. Mom has it in her head we’ll use less firewood that way.

“Please,” Mom said. “Make yourselves comfortable. Lisa, is there anything I can do for the baby?”

“He’s hungry,” she said, and she began to nurse him. The other people—their band, I guessed—acted like this was the most normal thing in the world.

I didn’t have to figure out where to look, since Syl, Matt, and Jon burst in. Jon held on to Dad even longer than I had, and then Matt got his turn to hug Dad.

“This is Syl,” Matt told them. “My wife.”

“Your wife?” Dad said, giving Matt an extra congratulatory hug. “When did that happen?”

“Three weeks ago,” Matt said.

“May I kiss the bride?” Dad asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he gave Syl a hug, which she resisted for a second, but then responded to with a hug and a peck on Dad’s cheek.

“Can you believe it?” Dad asked. “My son got married.”

“Congratulations,” the older of the two men said, and gave Matt his hand to shake. “That’s wonderful news. Hal talks so much about you, but he never once guessed he had a daughter-in-law.”

“Are you from around here, Syl?” Dad asked. “Did Matt go to school with you?”

“No,” Syl said. “We met nearby.”

“That’s great,” Dad said. “Lisa, darling, can you believe it? Matt’s married.”

“And you had your baby,” Matt said.

“A boy,” I said. “Gabriel.”

“I have a baby brother?” Jon said. “Wow.”

Dad laughed. “It’s all wow,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry. There are introductions to make. It’s just—well, I know you understand. Laura, everyone, this is Charlie Rutherford, and Alex and Julie Morales. And in case you haven’t figured it out, this is Laura, the mother of my beautiful children Matt, Miranda, and Jon. And now Syl, my unexpected daughter-in-law.”

There we were, eleven of us, crowded into the sunroom. If Alex Morales had thought it was warm before, our body heat and the lingering smell of fish now made it almost unbearable.

“It takes a while for the kettle to boil,” Mom said. “Please, everybody, sit down. Miranda, get the mugs, and the tea bags.”