In Your Dreams

by Gina Ardito

  “Look who’s talking,” he scoffed. “You’ve come a long way, baby, from the abrasive Xavia, Warrior Princess, I first met here. Contel’s influence, I assume?”

  Her laughter grew louder, rippling her aura in colorful waves. “Aren’t we a pair? Two miserable old souls enjoying a momentary lapse of happiness, thanks to two strangers. I have Contel; you have Isabelle. Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah. Weird.” But he didn’t want to talk about attitudes, or Contel, or anything weird. Only one topic mattered to him. “Seriously,” he said, leaning forward to close the gap between them. “How is she?”

  “Isabelle? She’s fine. Looks good. Healthy so far. Little baby bump.” To demonstrate, she arced a hand over her own flat belly. “Looks cute on her. I can see why you like her, you know. She’s sharp and prickly, but with this soft gooey center. Kind of like a milk thistle. Or maybe just a female version of you.”

  “Funny,” he remarked with a grin, “I thought that more closely described you.”

  “Okay, so we’re three of a kind. Maybe that’s why I like both of you so much.”

  The compliment slid off him like oil. Baby oil. “You sure she’s okay?”

  “Health-wise, or are you looking for my approval to take her to prom?” A snort of derision escaped her lips.

  “Health-wise, you idiot.”

  Xavia leaned back in her chair, swiveled from side-to-side. “I’ll avoid the whole ‘glowing’ crap most people use to describe pregnant women. I always thought the glow came from heartburn anyway. But in Isabelle’s case…who knows? Maybe the glow’s leftover astral dust from her time with you. Do you ever think about what this baby might be like—with a living mother and a father who’s nothing but excess energy? Think he’ll have any weird qualities like a visible aura or some kind of superpowers? Maybe she’ll be able to project between realms or have an unusually high threshold for pain. Or—”

  “Enough!”

  Xavia flinched, then smoothed her ruffled exterior. “Sorr-ree. I was just speculating.”

  “I get it, but the truth is I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this baby. That’s why I’m asking you. How is Isabelle? Really? Is she okay? Anything unusual going on?”

  “She’s got hyperemesis. That means she constantly throws up. Sucks for her, but it actually means the baby’s strong. My grandmother always said the hormones and stuff flooding the mama’s body ratchet up the nausea. The sicker the mom, the stronger the baby. Other than that, she’s fine. Happy for the most part. She’s at total peace with her choice on the matter—though, she is worried about you.”

  “Worried about me? Why?”

  “She knows you were punished by the Elders for traveling to her during that radiation session. Thinks it’s her fault. She said she told you she didn’t care what happened to you if it meant you’d be with her when she underwent the gamma treatment. Now, she feels guilty.”

  “She shouldn’t.”

  “I told her that, but she don’t listen. Another thing we’ve all got in common. A trio of stubborn asses, that’s what we are.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “I don’t frickin’ know. Why don’t you just pass her a note in study hall and leave me out of it?” She waved him off with the cacophony of bracelets. “Go on. Get out of here. I’ve got work to do and so do you. I promise I’ll keep an eye on your girl. And the baby. And the tumor.”

  Chapter 22

  After Dr. Regalbuto’s quick departure, Justin returned to sit at her bedside, wringing his hands, and staving off any hope she might return to slumberland and Xavia.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Let’s just say I’m disappointed,” Isabelle replied, sitting up again.

  “You scared me,” he whined. “All that talk about d-dead p-people and g-ghosts.” His voice shook with an overload of emotion. “I d-didn’t know what to d-do. I d-didn’t even t-tell Tony what you told me.”

  “And yet, you called Dr. Regalbuto.”

  “I had to tell somebody. You were talking crazy. I was worried about you.”

  “You’re right.” She plucked a stray thread off the sheet’s hem and twisted it round until she formed a complicated knot. Crazy to think anyone would believe me.

  Well, really, what did she expect? If the situation were reversed, would she believe him?

  Not a chance.

  She never should have told him the truth. Secure in his under-forty age, he couldn’t fathom death as a pending future and not as a faraway finality. Not that she blamed him. Before her diagnosis, she wouldn’t have believed a dead person could come back to Earth at all, much less come back and impregnate a stranger.

  After her fatal prognosis, though, she’d undergone a dramatic one-eighty regarding her coming demise. If Santa Claus popped up and told her life after death existed, but only if she licked all the elves’ boots, she’d get on her knees and tell those critters to line up. Mortality trumped pride—hands down.

  A sharp pang of loneliness struck her. Despite being surrounded by people who cared about her, she’d never in her life felt so isolated. She had to face facts. If she couldn’t get Justin on her side—Justin: her bestest bud for decades, who knew all her secrets and loved her anyway—no one would ever believe her. No one alive, that was for sure.

  And yeah, okay, Xavia was a hoot to hang with. But Isabelle didn’t need a stand-up comic these days. She needed Sean. Sean, with his Pacific blue eyes and strong presence. Calm, funny, wonderful, sexy-ass Sean. Sean, who came to her aid when she needed him, even though he knew he’d get in trouble for it. Sean, the ghostly father of her child, who, although a dead man, made her feel more passion than any man alive.

  Wow. Talk about unlucky in love. She sure could pick ‘em. Her ex-husband was a cheat, and the current man in her life was a spirit, locked in some other world, forbidden to see her.

  Jeez, no wonder Justin got scared. Her revelations about ghosts and dead cops must have totally freaked him out. Now, she’d have to backpedal away from this situation and keep her mouth shut about Sean.

  No reason to talk about him anyway. He was gone. For good.

  “It was just a joke, you know,” she told Justin. “I was punishing you for being nosy.”

  The relief easing the tension lines around his jaw and brow only alienated her further.

  “Well, I didn’t find it funny. You scared the hell outta me.”

  Yeah, we pretty much covered that already. “Okay, binky. I get it. I’m sorry.” She struggled to look contrite.

  He chewed on the corner of his lower lip. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?”

  So much for contrite. “Let’s talk about something else. How are things in the antique biz?”

  “Good. In fact…” Brightening to his usual mischievous puppy self, he shot to his feet and held up a hand. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”

  “‘Stay there,’” she muttered, then shouted out to him. “Where am I gonna go?” Her gaze traveled from the tube in the back of her hand to the infusion system, pumping fluid into her body to keep her from dehydrating. “I’m on a pretty short leash here, you know.” And an even shorter fuse.

  The squeak of rusted wheels rolling on the hardwood floor sounded, growing louder, until Justin returned, pushing an old-fashioned pram. “Ta-da!”

  She studied the white wicker carriage with its heart-shaped cutout window and scads of eyelet dripping from the edges. Skinny wheels the size of bicycle tires would make pushing a child in this nineteenth century transport an unwieldy chore. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Isn’t it adorable?” He preened.

  “It’s prissy and impractical.”

  “So am I.”

  She laughed. “True. But you’re also too big to ride in it.”

  “It’s for the baby, silly!”

  “Oh, right. The baby. Little Justin. Or little Tony.”

  “Little Isabelle,” he countered while leaning into the pram.
He pulled out a pink balloon-shaped rattle and shook it. “Koochie-koochie-koo!”

  That easily, the world renewed its revolutions and, for Justin, their friendship returned to normal. For Isabelle, on the other hand, the distance between them broadened.

  ~~~~

  Sergeant Tim Hobart, USMC, wore his full dress uniform to court, although one pants leg dangled, empty, from the knee down. Even civil formalities called for dress blues. An hour ago, his divorce became final. Life didn’t get much more formal than that. Of course, Sheila had packed up and left ten months earlier. Now, a quick swipe of the pen across documents, and he would, from this day forward, be known as somebody’s ex-husband. Another door in his life, not only slammed shut, but dead-bolted.

  Tonight, to celebrate his newfound freedom, Tim planned to get rip-roaring drunk with his buddies one last time. Tomorrow, he’d shove his sidearm in his mouth and end all his suffering in one final blaze of glory.

  “Not if I can help it,” Sean grumbled at the image on his board, that of the soldier—a war hero, for fuck’s sake—rolling his wheelchair through a crowded hallway in some anonymous town hall. Alone and forgotten.

  Sean knew the symptoms of PTSD all too well: the night sweats, involuntary jumping at loud noises, the quick turn to anger, reluctance to leave the house for any reason, the feelings of numbness and alienation. The aftereffects of horrific experience were responsible for the majority of offenders in Probation. The insidious, crippling reaction known as post-traumatic stress disorder was especially heinous to war veterans. Tim Hobart was no exception.

  Sean watched him go through his day, reviewing the repertoire of messages he’d considered possible to turn the man around. When, while maneuvering his wheelchair out of a pub, Tim paused to pet a stray cat near a dumpster, Sean had his game plan.

  Later that night, Tim collapsed on his bed, still clothed, nearly delirious from too much bourbon.

  “Okay, pal.” Sean rubbed his hands together. “Let the games begin.”

  He weaved the dream the way a writer builds a great story. He created a get-well get-together, inserting Tim into a room filled with other handicapped veterans and dozens of fluffy kittens. One animal in particular caught Tim’s eye, a long-haired smoke gray kitten with topaz eyes. The kitten kept knocking its head against Tim’s chair, almost as if the tiny beast demanded the marine’s attention.

  “I got you, little guy,” Tim said as he scooped up the ball of silver fur and placed it in his lap. The kitten rose on its haunches to chew on Tim’s shirt buttons. Tim pried the claws out of his garment without tearing the fabric and rapped the cat’s front paws with an index finger. “Forget it, cutie pie. You ruin this shirt, I’ll be using your fur to make a new one.”

  “That’s Diamond.” An aide, one of the young ladies who’d brought the animals, handed Tim a plastic mouse. “Here. Squeak this for her. It’s her favorite toy. We’ve sprayed it with catnip.”

  Sure enough, the kitten went nuts every time he squeaked the mouse, rubbing her furry face against the toy nose, purring loud enough to rival a jet engine. After a while, Diamond tired of the game, grabbed the toy with both paws to tuck it underneath her chest, and curled up on Tim’s lap, content to allow this new human to rub her head between her ears.

  “Aww, how sweet,” the aide remarked on her second go-round through the room. “Diamond really likes you.”

  “Yeah,” Tim said, surprised at his growing affection for the kitten. “She’s a pretty little thing.”

  “I’d promise to bring her back next week,” the aide said in a sorrowful whisper, “but she’s scheduled to be put down tomorrow.”

  Tim’s heart cracked. “Why?”

  “Diamond’s blind. No one’s ever gonna adopt her. Nobody wants a blind cat.”

  “She may be blind, but she’s gentle, and pretty, and smart. Look at her. She’s the cutest ball of fur I’ve ever seen.”

  “That’s not enough,” the aide said. “Most families want a ‘normal’ pet. Between jobs and kids and extracurricular activities, there aren’t enough hours left to take care of a special needs cat. Humans are generally too stressed to deal with a handicapped animal. We get pets all the time that have become ill or handicapped and now the family no longer wants them. A lot of those injured animals have to be put down, due to space constraints and medical bills. We don’t have enough room or money to house them all. It’s a shame, too, because so many of them—like Diamond—just need a little love.”

  He glanced around at the other so-called normal kittens. Some were aloof, some were a little too aggressive in their play, some were too docile. Diamond, in his opinion, was perfect. Why couldn’t anyone else see that?

  Maybe it wasn’t the cat who was blind. Maybe it was the people who would allow this tiny creature to be destroyed because of a minor flaw that didn’t make her any less of a good pet.

  “What if I wanted to adopt her?”

  The young woman shook her head. “That’s nice, but really, there are much better cats here, if you’re interested.”

  “No. I want Diamond.”

  “But...she’s blind.”

  “So what?”

  “So she’ll never be a normal cat.”

  Tim’s temper flared. “Lady, do I look like I need a normal cat? I want to adopt Diamond. Right now.”

  After much wrangling, he completed the paperwork and brought Diamond home. She slept at the foot of his bed, curled up where his leg ended at the knee, content and forever loyal to the human who appreciated her true worth.

  When Tim woke up the following morning, he was disappointed to discover there was no Diamond near his knee. Tabling his plan to commit suicide, he came up with a better idea. He would leave the decision to fate. He would visit the local animal shelter. If he found a blind kitten there, he’d know he was meant to live—to adopt the poor animal and give it a good home. If not, the dream meant nothing—just a side effect of too much booze and his own self-pity.

  A few hours later, he rolled into the local shelter and mentioned to the pimple-faced youth behind the counter that he’d heard through the grapevine they had a blind kitten, and he wanted to adopt it.

  The clerk stared at him blankly. “Sorry, sir. We don’t have any blind kittens.”

  Tim sighed. Stupid. He should have realized it was just a dream. Still, he wanted to cover all his bases. Maybe the animal’s blindness was a metaphor. “Any handicapped cats at all?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dejected, he turned to leave when the clerk added, “We do have a handicapped dog.”

  He stopped, rolled his chair around again to face the kid. “A dog?”

  “Yes, sir. A German shepherd. Had to have his left rear leg amputated when he got hit by a truck. No one knows where he came from. We found him tied to the fence outside one morning. But he’s a happy guy. Likes to run. Smart. His name’s Sergeant. You wanna see him?”

  An abandoned dog with an amputated leg. Like him. Named Sergeant. Like his rank. He lifted his gaze skyward. Someone up there was sending him a definite message. How could he not answer the call? That’s what marines did. Semper Fi.

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Sean grinned. Another satisfied customer would forget about suicide, saving two lives in the process. And that, my friends, is how it’s done. A movement to his left caught his eye, and he turned to see Xavia rushing toward him.

  “Congratulations, Daddy,” she exclaimed, her smile wider than his. “It’s a girl.”

  Chapter 23

  An exhausted Isabelle cradled her newborn daughter, a perfect bundle of pink skin, blue eyes, and a thatch of white-blond hair. Tony, seated at her bedside, still looked shell-shocked from the ordeal. His normally tan skin had faded to the hue and texture of cottage cheese, and his lips drew together in a tight line. He hadn’t said a word since she’d threatened to cut off his testicles when he pushed ice chips on her for the thousandth tim
e. Not exactly her finest moment.

  All in all, though, she thought she’d behaved pretty well, considering she’d spent a day and a half pushing a twenty-two-inch, seven-pounds-six-ounce child out of a pretty slender part of her anatomy. She didn’t even punch him. Sure, the urge did come over her once or twice. But she managed to hold most of her agony in check. And in the end, she was rewarded with the most adorable baby girl the world had ever seen.

  “You okay?” she asked Tony now. “Want some water or something?”

  He shook his head slowly.

  She had to stifle her giggles, but indulged her need to smile by staring at her baby girl. Isabelle only wished Sean could see the beauty they’d created.

  “Hell-o!” Justin arrived behind an enormous arrangement of pink stargazer lilies, yellow roses, and purple delphiniums. “How are my girls doing?”

  “The big one’s still not lucid,” Isabelle said with a nod in Tony’s direction. “The medium-sized one is exhausted but very pleased with herself. And the wee baby girl is just right.” She pitched her tone higher on the last two words, ala Goldilocks. At last, she let loose with the giggles she’d kept at bay. At this moment, life was close to perfect. Only Sean’s absence dimmed her enthusiasm.

  After placing the flowers on the windowsill, Justin kissed Tony, then Isabelle. “Give me that baby.”

  She snuggled her daughter closer to her chest. “Wash your hands first.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Turning to the sink, he scrubbed and dried his hands, then practically lunged across the bed to scoop the newborn out of her arms. “There’s my sweet little girl,” he cooed as he paced the narrow space between the bed and the window, a gentle bounce in each step. “Have we decided on a name for our princess yet?”

  “Nope.” She was sort of hoping, through Xavia, she might get Sean’s input on her choices. But she didn’t dare mention that idea to Justin. Or anybody else, for that matter.

  “What’s in contention?”

  She shrugged. “Anything but Isabelle, Justine, and Antonia or Antoinette. Or any derivatives thereof.”