Dream On by Kerstin Gier

Author:Kerstin Gier [Gier, Kerstin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781627796552
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

IT WASN’T REALLY a gigantic paw, because Spot’s paw was rather small by comparison with the rest of him, and he was patting my cheek with it. The cat was sitting on my chest, purring loudly, and I was so grateful to him for waking me from my dream that I didn’t even scold him. In fact, I let him go on sitting there and tickled him under the chin until my pulse had calmed down a little. I’d never before longed so much to be back when a bad dream was nothing but a bad dream. There was a large lump in my throat, because the tears I’d shed in my dream had all gathered there. But I knew that if I gave way to my urge to cry it would be like breaching a dam—there’d be no stopping it. So I tried to concentrate on the soothing sound of the cat’s purr and just not think.

However, Spot wasn’t there simply to be tickled under the chin. He gave me a gentle reminder in the form of another pat on my cheek.

“How did you get in here, anyway, kitty?” I cautiously put him on the floor, switched on the bedside lamp, and got out of bed. Someone must have opened my door, because I’d definitely closed it before going to sleep.

“Or have you found out how to push door handles down?” Spot was still purring as he rubbed around my legs. I glanced at my alarm clock. Three thirty. Presumably the cat wanted to go out on his usual nocturnal mouse hunt. Normally, Grayson was responsible for letting him out (it was also Grayson who had to remove the dead voles that Spot brought home and left on the doormat), but today Spot seemed to have chosen me to open the door.

“Okay, come on, then,” I said, and Spot went out the half-open door ahead of me. He waited at the top of the stairs as I checked that Mia was in bed and sleeping peacefully (she was). Downstairs, I opened the door from the kitchen to the terrace for him, and as usual he suddenly wasn’t in any hurry, but sat in the doorway washing himself, while I stepped from foot to foot to keep warm as I slowly froze into an icicle. All the same, I watched Spot regretfully when he finally felt like setting off. There had been something comforting about his presence. Or at least, it had kept my thoughts occupied. When I went back to bed, I felt sure I’d have the images from my dream before my eyes at once: Henry taking off his bathrobe and plunging into the whirlpool; Henry smiling at B; Henry saying, in a deep voice, A woman like you shouldn’t let anyone treat her so badly.

A woman like you … Instead of going back to bed, I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. Without glasses or contact lenses, I couldn’t see myself very clearly, but even so I knew I couldn’t compete with B.

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