In my dream I am a child again, small enough to fit snugly against my mother’s side in

bed as she gently rubs my back, something I used to beg her to do every night. It wasn’t even

the pampering I wanted, although I relished the feel of her cool, dry hands on my bath-warm

skin; I simply basked in any attention my mother gave me. On the nights she would go out with

my father I would sit on the edge of the bathtub and watch her do her hair and makeup. I would

mimic her movements as she brushed on blusher or made slight adjustments to her dark hair,

which always smelled of apples. She would tuck me in before they left me with the babysitter

and when she leaned over me for a kiss goodnight I would inhale her scent, apples and Ivory

soap and Sand and Sable perfume.

    In the dream I can smell her soap and the clean aroma of her hand lotion. I open my eyes to

look up at her as she reads beside me in bed and take her in, from the red highlights in her hair to

the freckle on the back of her left hand. My rational mind, the part that realizes this is only a dream,

feels a little pang at the sight of that freckle. It was as much a part of my mother's landscape as her

laugh, which could make strangers turn toward her on the street at the sheer joy it exuded. I want to

kiss the back of that hand and make her tell me she loves me. I want to hear her sing to me once more.

I relish the feel of her cool hand on my back beneath the hot, itchy material of my nightgown.

But I don't have the strength to tell her any of these things. In the waking world, my mother is

long dead, having drowned in the Kentucky River when I was ten years old.

    “It’s not completely his fault, you know,” she says suddenly, without looking at me.

I shake my head in denial of her words, but I can’t speak. In this dream I can never get

the words out.

    “You should visit him. He’s there all alone,” she says, and suddenly her eyes are the hollow

sockets of a corpse, the way they always were in my childhood nightmares. I find myself imagining

tiny fish nibbling at her eyeballs and then push the thought away. Again, I shake my head vehemently,

but she’s gone. I’m left with only the good clean scent of her and the question I’ve been wanting to ask

for years burning on my tongue.