Happier Than She's Ever Been...

by Menna Van Praag

  DREAMS

  Two weeks later May awoke in the middle of the night, her heart beating so fast she could hardly breathe. She glanced over at Ben sleeping next to her softly emitting little snores, put her hand on his bare shoulder and held it there. The touch steadied her, anchoring her in reality: Ben beside her and Doughnut snuggled in the folds of bright blue blankets, a big fluffy ball in a sea of sheets.

  Gradually, as the minutes ticked by, May’s breathing steadied and she sank back into her pillows with a sigh. She stared up at the patches of moonlight shimmering across the ceiling, trying to remember her nightmare. May glanced at the alarm clock – three thirty-three a.m. – and smiled slightly. Thirty-three: her lucky number, her birth number. Perhaps that was a good sign. Everything was fine. It was just a bad dream, nothing more. She was safe. And happy. And fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. May tucked her hands under the covers as Ben rolled over onto his stomach. She pressed her right palm against his bare back, closed her eyes and refused to admit she was slightly too scared to go back to sleep.

  The next afternoon May reshelved the Science Fiction & Fantasy section. It was a quiet day. By teatime she’d sold a total of three books on Astrology and one Harry Potter book that Ben kept in the section on Witchcraft for Kids: Fiction. As May worked, slotting the books into alphabetical order, she started to remember last night. Single words and snapshot images floated into her mind, slowly settling into her consciousness like snowfall.

  Fantasy. A woman’s smile. Fairy tales. A string of pearls. Smiling eyes. Wrinkled skin. True love. Safety. Sitting on her daddy’s lap. Snuggled in Ben’s arms. Joy. Coming home.

  Holding a copy of Coraline in one hand, May stopped for a moment. Perhaps the dream had been a happy one. She’d been worrying about nothing. It was fine. Everything was fine. May turned back to the shelf, then stopped, holding the book in mid-air.

  False love. Fear. Panic. Anger. Despair. Reality. A scream, her scream. Feet running, dashing through a forest, faster and faster. Lies. Her heart beating in her mouth. Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. Louder and louder. Fear. Loss. Her feet tripping on a log, falling into a deep, never-ending black hole. Falling and falling and falling into…

  May dropped the book to the floor.

  Distracting herself with a few more sales and spending half an hour chatting with a customer about their favourite Alice Hoffman books, May got through the rest of the day without thinking about the dream again. Or, at least, not every other second. When she went upstairs that evening Ben had made sea bass in white wine and butter sauce, with curly kale and purple sprouting broccoli for dinner. Her favourite.

  ‘Are you okay, bichana?’ Ben asked, as they sat on the floor, their plates on the coffee table. It was his pet name for her, meaning ‘kitten’ in Portuguese. And it was what his mother had called him as a child, though of course using the male form: bichano. Sometimes, when she was feeling adventurous, May used it too.

  ‘Yeah.’ May glanced up. ‘I… it, um, well, it was just a slow day, that’s all. I don’t like them so much, they make me worry.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ben said, smiling. ‘We’ll be okay. It will all even out in the end, good days and bad; it always does.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ May said. ‘You know, I should have had that attitude when I was running The Cocoa Café, then maybe I wouldn’t have lost everything.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Ben said, ‘but then you’d never have published your book or crossed the ocean and I’d never have met you. Which would have been a very bad thing indeed.’

  ‘That’s true.’ May smiled. ‘It’s like Shakespeare wrote: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” I suppose that’s true. Though it’s sometimes hard to think so when you’re in the middle of some messy, totally tragic event.’ The first one that came to May’s mind was the humiliating and heart-crushing break-up with Jake, the only man she thought she’d been so in love with before Ben. The one who’d taken her right to the edge of sanity and self-loathing. But of course she couldn’t mention that now.

  ‘Hey.’ Ben reached over the plates to take May’s hand across the table. ‘You seem a little sad. What’s up?’

  May shrugged, thinking it was too silly to talk about. ‘Nothing, it’s nothing, I don’t know.’

  ‘You do,’ he said, ‘I think you do.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ May said. ‘It’s silly.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I had this dream last night. I couldn’t sleep afterwards. And, I don’t know, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ben squeezed May’s hand. A little rush of warmth flooded her body, and she felt again how lucky she was to be loved by this man. ‘So, what was the dream about?’

  May glanced down at the last piece of broccoli on her plate. She prodded it with her fork. ‘I don’t know,’ she lied, scared to bring up the subject. ‘I can’t remember.’

  That night Ben didn’t fall asleep as quickly as usual. He knew May wasn’t telling him the truth. At least not entirely. And it worried him that she would retreat into herself when he was right next to her and wanting to help. But he didn’t press her, thinking it best to let May tell him in her own time. He turned his head to see the luminous red lights of the alarm clock: twelve twenty-one. Past midnight. The eighth of October. Two weeks until the anniversary of their first kiss. And tonight was the first time they’d turned out the lights without making love. May had her eyes closed, but Ben knew she wasn’t asleep. He felt a tiny distance springing up between them, something he’d never felt before. He reached out to gently stroke May’s long, thick, dark hair. But the space was still there. Eventually, not knowing what else to do, Ben finally closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep.

  As soon as she heard Ben’s breathing deepen and slow, May opened her eyes. She still felt the small stabs of guilt in her chest for not telling him the truth. But she hadn’t wanted to bring up the pain of her past, hadn’t wanted to create a problem, to create concern where perhaps there was none. For the past year everything had been, for the first time in May’s life, so perfect. And she couldn’t bear to spoil it, especially with the fragments of fantasies. It was nearly four o’clock before May finally drifted to sleep. And, almost as soon as she did, she began to dream.

  She was in a field full of daisies and daffodils and apple trees in blossom. A gentle breeze blew around her and pinkish petals drifted through the air, floating into her palms as she reached out to touch them. Then suddenly, as her fingers closed around the blossom, everything vanished and she was left standing on a wasteland. The ground was barren and bare, with tufts of dry grass scattered across the empty field. A few trees remained, stripped down, their skeleton fingers grasping at the wind.

  May felt a knot of fear twisting in her throat. She looked out to the horizon to see a figure walking slowly towards her and, before she could see more than an outline, before the figure was anything other than a shadow, May knew who it was.

  ‘Rose,’ May whispered, as the woman reached her, looking exactly as she remembered: thin and tiny, dressed in a twin set and pearls, with those little sparkling blue eyes and an enormous smile on her lips. May thought of the café, the chocolate flapjacks, meeting this old woman who’d touched her heart and saved her life, and the memory shone bright in her heart as though it was yesterday.

  ‘I knew it was you,’ May said softly. ‘I hoped…’

  ‘Did you?’ The old lady smiled. ‘So why the desolate landscape, my dear?’ She threw a tiny birdlike hand in the direction of the wasteland. ‘Why ever would you conjure up this?’

  ‘I suppose I was scared.’

  ‘Of what, my dear?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ May admitted.

  ‘Well, enough of that,’ Rose said. ‘Let’s brighten this dream up a bit.’

  And, with that, she snapped her tiny fingers. Instantly the landscape disappeared and they were sitting back in The Cocoa Café, the place they’d met over two
years ago, at the table where they’d sat and talked, and May’s life had changed forever.

  ‘A reunion.’ May smiled. ‘It’s a shame we can’t eat flapjacks too. I haven’t had them in so long.’

  ‘We can eat whatever you want, my dear,’ Rose said, laughing, the sound tinkling through the air. ‘This is your dream, after all.’ She clicked her fingers again and a plate piled high with chocolate flapjacks appeared on the table. May grinned and two steaming mugs of hot chocolate materialised into their hands.

  ‘Perfect.’ May sighed happily.

  ‘Perfect,’ Rose echoed, ‘and, funnily enough, that’s exactly the topic I came to talk to you about, before it’s too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’ May asked, suddenly anxious. ‘What’s wrong? I thought everything was okay now. I took all your advice last time. I was courageous and compassionate. I came here; I sold my books; I met Ben. I’m not a miserable thing any more. I’m helping people; I’m being a bright light in a dark world, just like you said. I’m no longer drowning my sorrow in vats of chocolate, and I haven’t given up my life and my sense of self for a man, not since that disaster with Jake when I became all needy and clingy and let my world revolve around him until he ran away screaming… Well, I – I thought everything was just perfect now. I thought I’d got it right this time.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry so much, dear,’ Rose said, patting May’s hand with her tiny wrinkled fingers. ‘There’s nothing very wrong yet, and there needn’t be anything wrong, so long as you don’t get attached to the idea of perfection.’

  ‘What?’ May frowned, thoroughly confused.

  ‘You have the idea, my dear, that when you find the right relationship it will be “perfect”. But this is not true, at least not in the way you think of perfection – as a life together without upset or upheaval, where you always agree, see life in the same way and want the same things –’

  ‘But… but,’ May stumbled, ‘we do – we are. That’s what it’s like with Ben. That’s how I know he’s my soulmate.’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Rose sighed and sipped her hot chocolate. ‘I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but a soulmate isn’t what you think it is.’

  ‘What?’ May asked, feeling anxiety rising in her throat. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, my dear,’ Rose said gently, ‘like most people on the planet, you have a rather highly polished view of love: romance, sunsets, long walks on the beach and all that. You think that once you meet “the one” everything will fall into place. You’ll match perfectly. You’ll never disagree, fight, feel attracted to other people, get angry or want to hurt each other. You think that being soulmates means a total absence of pain, conflict, anger and fear.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t it?’ May frowned again.

  ‘No.’ Rose nibbled a chocolate flapjack. ‘A soulmate is not someone who never challenges you, always agrees with you and sees everything exactly the way you see it. A soulmate is someone who helps you to grow, to have courage when you’re scared, to forgive, to see another point of view; someone who will be gentle with you, and honest, a mirror that won’t hurt you but will show you the truth. So you can learn both to love yourself the way you are and to be, at least most of the time, the happiest, kindest and most compassionate version of you. And so sometimes, when you lose your way, he’ll challenge you. If you get caught up in the trap of money and fame, striving for things that you think will bring you happiness, he’ll remind you –’

  ‘Are you saying that’s what I’m going to do?’ May asked. ‘Because I don’t think so. I think I’ve learnt all my life lessons now. I think it’s all going to be fine. I’ve been through the pain, I’ve got it all worked out.’

  ‘Oh, my dear!’ Rose laughed. ‘The minute you think that, you’re in trouble. Life is always changing, always throwing up new lessons to learn; you’re going to be reacting and responding to things, for better or worse, until you die. You’re not a monk sitting on a mountain top; you’re a real woman trying to do the best you can in an often crazy world. Some days you’ll be happy and centred and kind; other times you’ll be fearful and lost and do or say something you regret. I’m afraid it’s never over, it never stops.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ May sighed. ‘Oh dear, I thought…’

  ‘But you don’t have to worry, my love,’ Rose said. ‘Remember to always have compassion for yourself and everyone else learning their lessons around you; then you’ll be okay, no matter what.’

  ‘I don’t understand though,’ May said. ‘If a soulmate brings you as much pain as any other relationship, then what’s the point? What’s the point of finding someone you really love? You might as well just settle for anyone.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Rose said, ‘it’s not the same at all. The gut-wrenching pain of being with the wrong person feels entirely different from the growing pains of being with your soulmate. Don’t worry. It won’t be the same with Ben as it was with Jake, not at all.’

  May breathed a sigh of relief and reached for a flapjack. ‘Well, that’s good, because I don’t know if my heart could take that kind of pain again.’

  ‘But you still have to be prepared for the growing pains, the life lessons you’ll go through together,’ Rose said. ‘You can’t avoid them. So don’t resist the more difficult things that happen. Because if you try to stick your head in the sand, it’ll only make it more painful in the end.’

  ‘So,’ May asked, ‘how do I not do that?’

  ‘Be honest,’ Rose said firmly. ‘Last night you lied to him. You tried to pretend that everything was fine because you wanted it to be. But when you’re not honest about the way you really feel, no matter how scary that is, then slowly but surely you’ll lose touch with your heart and with your true love.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ May said. ‘I don’t know if I have the courage for this.’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Rose patted her hand again. ‘Of course you do. And, if you let him, Ben will be right there with you. You’ve had the honeymoon stage to help cement you together. Now it’s time for the next stage: going through the fire of self-discovery, seeing each other for how you truly are, with all your unresolved issues, angers and upsets. These have been hidden under the first glow of false love, but they’ll pop up soon enough. They have to so that you can complete all the unresolved pains you carry within you.’

  May frowned. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, your secret fears that you really are unlovable,’ Rose said, ‘that you’ll be abandoned, that all men will eventually leave you like your father did.’

  ‘B-but,’ May stuttered, ‘I thought… I thought –’

  ‘That you had already resolved that?’ Rose smiled.

  ‘Well, yes,’ May admitted. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘There are many layers to your self, many lessons in life you don’t yet know,’ Rose said, ‘so remember: don’t get too attached to the idea of a life without challenges and upheavals. Or you’ll have to pretend that everything is great even when it isn’t, that you feel happy even when you don’t. And that, my dear, is how you lose your heart.’

  May looked at Rose, trying not to get too scared.

  ‘And there will be moments to come,’ Rose continued, ‘and they will be painful if you resist them, if you believe that joy is better than sorrow, that painless is better than painful, that peace is better than anger, and calm better than upset… Because if you think that all the “good” ways of being are superior to the “bad”, then you won’t be able to be true to yourself or the way that you feel. Then you’ll begin to pretend, fake and lie… you’ll judge your partner for the “negative” in him, and you will withdraw. And, my dear, that will be the beginning of the end.’

  By this time May was staring at Rose open-mouthed, having left her flapjack on the table, all thoughts of it forgotten. ‘But I – I don’t want to do that,’ she stuttered. ‘I don’t want to lie, judge, withdraw and…’

  ‘Well,’ Rose said, ‘then you must be willing to keep on walk
ing, through the flower gardens and through the fire. Because you still have more wounds to heal within you, and Ben will help you bring them to the surface. He will tickle and tease you, and everything unresolved inside will come out. But if you don’t want to feel it, if you want to deny any anger, pain, hatred within you, then his tickles will feel like punches and his teasing will feel like slaps.’

  By now May had stood up and was pacing up and down the length of the little café, wringing her hands together. ‘But this sounds awful, absolutely awful. I don’t want to go through this, I really don’t…’

  ‘That’s only your fear speaking, my dear,’ Rose said calmly. ‘If you stand strong in the middle of this circle of fire, you won’t get burned, I promise you. But if you keep darting in and out, not trusting yourself or your lover, then it will hurt; it will brand you with scars that may take years to heal.’

  May looked stricken and stopped walking.

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear, those scars always heal,’ Rose said, smiling, ‘if you can find the courage to remember that a true soulmate is not supposed to “complete” you but challenge you. With his actions and his being, he’ll invite you to look at those things inside yourself that you may not want to see – but these aren’t bad things, my dear, just behaviours and beliefs that may hurt before they are resolved. And if you allow this, it can be a beautiful process.’

  ‘Really?’ May asked.

  ‘Yes, really,’ Rose said, ‘so long as you keep reaching for Ben’s hand, especially in those moments when what you really want to do is slap him and run away. But if you blame him for what he sees and says, it’ll easily be the most painful process you’ve ever been through. And if you try to run from it, then you might be running for the rest of your life.’