reconciliation dreams

This story is a contribution to the 15th STSC Symposium, a monthly collaboration from STSC's writers around a set theme. Our topic for this month is dreams.

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it took six weeks for the status of our divorce to register in my dreams.

that first dream was feverish, full of blood and bile and exhaust. it was a carbon copy of one of the fights we’d used to justify our split - see how mean we are to each other? how we’ve strayed from our vows?

it was another six weeks before i’d hear from you in real life. a brief text message, perfectly punctuated, to let me know that suzy was doing fine after her appointment at the vet, with a picture of her curled up on your khaki-clad lap.

eight months after the court appearance to finalize our divorce, your sister called to let me know she’d gotten engaged.

“you know how much i wish you could come to the wedding.” her voice shook over her car’s bluetooth speaker, a semi-truck whooshed past the open window. i pictured her biting her lip as she shook columns of ash from her parliament light.

that night i dreamt a single image of her at the age i’d met her as a little girl, twirling in a pleated dress with purple ribbons dangling from the hem. you were there too, watching over her the way you’d always used to.

i’ve continued to meet you in my dreams through all these years. sometimes our encounters are mundane, so realistic that i can barely remember them the next morning: a routine birthday, a hasty parking lot goodbye. others are dizzying and saturated like a wes anderson film. in one such dream we attended a wedding celebration together - though not our own - and the alter was a jade-colored ocean wave thundering towards us. just before swallowing us the foamy swell broke into a flock of clamoring seagulls whose wings whacked the tops of our heads as they swooped away.

as i woke up the next day, i finally understood that the only way to prevent our divorce would’ve been never to have married.

last week, during our once- or twice-annual FaceTime call, you tilted your phone to show me suzy purring on your lap. her face has gotten thinner, more sculpted with age, and she only has three whiskers left. some things you told me about your new wife sounded foreign to me - how she doesn’t share the same hobbies, for example, or how much time you spend apart. back when we were together i couldn't have imagined being apart; even when we were fighting there was nowhere else i could have been besides right there, tears scalding my cheeks, terrified and ablaze before you.

in my dreams later that night, i gave you a long hug in the middle of a nowhere landscape. in that same moment Ralph squeezed my arm and let out a disjointed snore into his pillow next to mine. i wondered if he, too, had stumbled into his ex for a reconciliation hug in their sleep.