by Donna Burgess

Created on: January 26, 2009

Blackwater

"Do you know how much I love thee? Let me count the ways," Mother whispered. Her breath was warm, soft and scented with the cheap, stale cigarettes she smoked secretly when Father was out on the water. It caressed his smooth forehead and pale, rounded cheeks.
"One," and a dry peck to his small button of a nose. "Two and three," and her lips rested an instant on each of his translucent eyelids.

Though he was more than four years old, she held him in her thin arms, cradled him and rocked forward and back in the squeaking chair. But he did not feel as comfortable as he should have in the arms of his mother. A question troubled him. He dreaded coming sleep for the nightmares.

In the far corner of the small living room, a TV played, black and white images moving silent and blurred like ghosts unnoticed, for Mother's attention was now turned from her son to the front window. The boy's attention was rooted deeply in his dark and worried thoughts.

Finally, one starfish hand rested on Mother's white cheek and he asked:
"Mommy, do dreams come true?"

"Yes, Del," she answered, a small, hidden smile touching her lips. Her eyes drifted once again to the darkness of the front window. "Sometimes, if we're lucky, they do come true."

*

Little Del lay awake in his bed, listening to the bell-like clank of bottleneck against wine stem drift down the short hallway. If sleep did not come, he reasoned, then neither would the dreams.

He listened for the sound of his father's return-the heavy footfalls on the wooden dock, a hearty greeting for Mother at the front door of the house.

Their voices would then float into his room from the kitchen where Father would eat his late dinner. The voices sometimes grew hushed and serious-that was when they discussed him, or more often his nightmares. Other times their voices twined into one playful sound, laughter, a bit louder than the first. These times were when Father told Mother about "those silly Yankee tourists," their ridiculous questions, and how they actually became frightened on the boat. Those were the same voices they used when they were feeling loving toward each other. When Del heard those tones, he felt a bit safer. He knew the muffled click as their bedroom door closing, then the ghost-like singing of the mattress beneath them would soon follow.

He had not heard those playful voices in a very long time.

*

His mother and father thought the dreams came on account of Father's work. You see, Del's father owned a small vessel

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>