What I Dream - Bonnie Smetts

Mrs. Curtain grabbed my arm with her hands like bird claws digging into skin.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Curtain. I’m gonna miss you,” I whisper into her ear. She’s wearing her yellow sweater but I can see she’s as stirred up as she ever can get these days. I have to pull her hands from mine when we’re done hugging. She’s clinging onto my like a dog trying to climb out of a pond.

“Come on, honey. Let’s get in the car.” The nurse from the home, as big as a refrigerator, takes little Mrs. Curtain, now as frail as a ten year old, from me.

“Mr. Curtain, I’m gonna miss you. Thank you for everything, all the time.” I hug him but it’s like hugging a tree, he’s hardly looking at me or anything. “Thank you,” I say to him quietly. He’s not listening, he’s not hearing. I mean I want to thank him for being so nice to me when I was little, and trying so hard to make me a Baptist when there really wasn’t any hope to that. “Thank you.” I hug him a last time.

“OK, then. Ready to go, then,” Sydney says to us, to no one. “Thank you, Rawling.” What else can she say? We know she’s saying goodbye too. We’re all saying goodbye, but nobody’s really saying, goodbye and we’ll never see each other again.

“I’ll keep in touch,” she says, knowing we both know she won’t. I was the one calling when there were the emergencies with the Grands, not her. And then everybody’s packed into the car, Mr. Curtain waves a little wave, and they’re off, down the main street of Nordeen.

And I’m standing in front of the Elmhurst Rehabilitation Home, alone. I never dreamed the Grands would leave like this. I take a step as if I’m walking home, back to my room above the diner, and stop. Mr. Curtain had given me his car. Talking about what I’d never dreamed about, I’d never dreamed I’d have nice big car.

I stand in front of the big, dusty car to get used to the idea it’d be mine. Then I slide on in. Mr. Curtain had left the keys in their right place, he’d left his keychain dangling, a big gold “C” hanging from the end of the keys.