"I hope so," she said in a small voice, so thin
and fragile it brought tears to my eyes. "I don't know
if we should leave him alone here while we're at the
beauty salon."
"We'll see in the morning. He had been talking about my going with him to the gallery to retrieve his
works. Maybe he'll forget about that."
"I suppose we can have Jennings keep an eve
on him. He's the nicest of the Eatons' servants and he
has done favors for me before."
"Good. Let's get some sleep." I suggested, and
she nodded, rose, and put her cup in the sink. Afterward, when I laid my head on my pillow. I
listened to the sounds in the grand beach house, the
creaks and groans in the building, the sea wind on the
windows with a sound like fingers running back and
forth over the panes. What a kaleidoscope of emotions
ran through the myriad of dreams being dreamed in
this building tonight. I thought. Everyone had his or
her secrets unraveling and raveling like multicolored
balls of yarn being tossed through the darkness above
and around me.
Was there a place in the night where dreams
criss-crossed, where people glanced into each other's
minds and saw the fear or the sadness or the happiness
for an instant, like passengers on trains passing in the
dark?
And did that make us sympathetic or envious?
Did we long for someone else's dreams, or were we
grateful we didn't have those nightmares?
Somewhere surely there was a common place, a
well from which we all, rich or poor, drew some