This was nothing so mundane as a wet dream coming to unsettle the prudish mind. These were dreamscapes filled with anxiety and dread. Sometimes they were of crowds, pulsing and restive. At other times they held a terror of the simplest things, fears that lay buried in his subconscious, overwhelming him as he lay in bed and burned, night after night, unable to wake.
Perhaps it came from too many years spent tracking people who vanished, often inexplicably and without a trace. People who left behind family, friends, and colleagues to wonder what had gone wrong in a country as advanced and enlightened as Canada, where such things were not supposed to happen. Lately, the dreams had taken on an even more personal tone, leaving Dan feeling vulnerable and exposed.
The worst was the dream of the empty bucket. It was hard to believe he was paralyzed by the sight of a child’s pail sitting empty by the edge of the sea. Usually it was a variation on one he’d owned when he was four: galvanized steel, purple, with a plastic handle and a string of white seashells ringing the edges in soft undulations.
In his dream, the sun danced brightly on the water and the sand felt warm beneath his feet. But always, as he approached the bucket, a surge of despair overtook him like an unseen tide. He was consumed by an urge to grip the handle and lift it clear of the waves lapping at its sides. Then, to his horror, he watched as the water poured through the rusted-out bottom. Dan felt this presaged something dire about his life, as though it too could never contain anything for long. Somewhere in the distance, his mother was calling.
He turned instinctively from her voice, not wanting to see the breasts dangling beneath the open blouse. Not wanting to see her nakedness. If it was one of her bad days, she would be sloppy, her hair uncombed. Her breath would smell. On bad days, Dan was afraid of seeing her. He would try to hide from her in his dreams.
On nights like these he woke to sweat-soaked sheets, trying to clear his head and fight off a sense of numbing loss. Amazing how the images can resonate in your mind for years, he thought. He still remembered that trip to the beach, the wearing away of a hazy afternoon as his mother and a man who might have been his father got drunk. Then, later, stumbling on the pair in the bushes as she straddled the man lying prone beneath her. Dan recalled his fascination with her exposed breasts and something standing erect between the man’s legs.
When they left the beach that day, he forgot to collect his pail. They were halfway home when he remembered. But the man would not go back for it, despite Dan’s wailing. To quiet him, they stopped at the Dairy Queen and bought him a banana split. Dan still had a photograph of this outing, or one just like it, where he sat at the shore filling his pail with sand. It was the last summer of his mother’s life. She would die at Christmas, locked out in the snow all night after a drunken argument with his father before succumbing to pneumonia soon after. It was one of a handful of memories he retained of her. By the time he was grown, she’d been reduced to an outline. Except lately, when she returned to haunt his dreams.
Mornings were never easy.
Dan lay in bed, hoping this false start wouldn’t colour the whole day. The sooner he got up and tackled his duties, the sooner he’d feel normal. Whatever normal was.
He stumbled to the shower, first hot then mind-numbingly cold, till he felt revived. Next, he dried himself off and slung the towel over the shower rod. The glycerine-tinged eyes of some off-hours werewolf stared back from the mirror. A thin red line edged down the side of his face like a contour on an elevation map, the reminder of a doorframe he’d encountered when he was ten. Stubble had sprouted overnight, marking his face like a stain that could not be wiped away. His chest needed a clipping too, he noted, but that would wait for another day. He ran his fingers through his hair once, twice, then shook and pressed it into place. Wash and wear was good.
As he shaved, he listened for sounds of life from downstairs. None. His son had likely already gone to class. Lately he thought Ked had been avoiding him, getting up early and heading out before they could talk.
Not this morning, however. He came downstairs to find a handsome young man in pajamas sitting at the kitchen table, a ginger retriever near his feet. The dog looked up momentarily then turned away.
Dan glanced at the clock and frowned.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?”
His son gave him a doleful look. “Earth to Dad — it’s Saturday.”
“Oh, right.” Dan winked. “Just checking to see if you knew. You’re lucky you have weekends, you know. I don’t have the luxury.”
Ked shrugged. “So take the day off. You’re your own boss.”
“Can’t — too much to do.”
Ralph grumped in the corner then turned on his side to catch the sun streaming through the French doors and across his tawny fur. Outside, the trees were filling in, buds popping into leaves, their branches growing heavy with green again.
“I can make pancakes,” Ked offered after a moment.
“Sounds good,” Dan said. “I’m hungry.”
“You look grumpy.”
“I’m not.” He smiled as if to prove it. Probably not convincingly, after the tortured sleep he’d had.
His son stood and went to the cupboards. He brought down a box of mix and reached for the measuring cup.
“Buttermilk okay?”
“Works for me.”
Dan watched as Ked prepared the batter. Darkness edged the boy’s cheeks and chin, making him look older than usual.
“Saving on razor blades these days?”
“Ha-ha.”
Ked glanced over, seriousness etched on his features. His mouth twitched. He seemed about to say something, but the words weren’t coming.
“What?” Dan said.
“Just — I don’t know. How do you know when you like someone?”
“Like?”
Ked shrugged, turned back to the bowl of batter.
“You know.”
Fifteen. It wasn’t the easiest age. Teenage trauma, the turmoil at finding life’s unanswered questions plotting your doom and staring you in the face each morning when you looked in the mirror or read it in the faces of others around you.
“Do you want the simple explanation or the complicated explanation?”
Ked shrugged again without looking over.
“Dunno.”
“Okay, then let’s start with simple. You go to school five days a week, more or less, and at some point you realize there’s a face you see every day that stands out from the others. You start looking forward to seeing that particular face. It resonates with you. You feel excited when you see her in the crowd.”
He watched his son. Ked focused on the bowl of mix, turned up the burner, dribbled oil in the pan.
“Good so far?”
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes you want to talk to her, just her alone.” Dan held up a finger. “But where you can talk to almost anyone else with no problem, this particular person seems like the hardest person in the world to get together with and just be yourself.”
Ked’s mouth grimaced.
“Sometimes you feel really stupid around her, no matter what you say.”
His son sighed. “Yeah, that’s for sure.”
Dan tried to hide a smile, but Ked was too focused on the frying pan to notice.
“Why?”
“Why?” Dan thought this over. “It’s hard to say. Nerves, hormones.