how to have a nightmare

First, brush your younger daughter’s hair while you watch Man Vs. Food together on the couch. Attempt a French braid, like gentle-eyed mothers in poignant dramas do. Admire your lopsided attempt. Then realize the French braid is one of many, many things that you will do for your daughter that she will never see for herself—not without the help of mirrors or photographs. This is motherhood, you think: a French braid.

Your older daughter is having a sci-fi sleepover at your mother’s house, three blocks away, where the two of them will discuss Seekers and Blood Rage in earnest. Tonight you and your younger daughter get to watch whatever you want. She has chosen Man Vs. Food, because she likes watching it with her dad. She thinks you will like it too, because Daddy likes it and you and Daddy like the same stuff.

The thing is, she is right. This kid, she calls it like she sees it. Admire her for this, for saying what is true: you and Daddy do like the same stuff.

Feel the perennial, private ouch—the bit of the wound that never heals, no matter what you do. For whatever reason—and you are pissed off at God or Gaia or the Force or the big black random Nothing or whatever possesses people to buy yoga mats, certainly, about this turn of events—you are that person.

You wish you had known that you were that person and would be that person for keeps, back when everyone was telling you that you would eventually be like everyone else—that is to say, over it. You wish that you had had a water gun, back then. You wish that you had simply squirted every well-intentioned individual between the eyes when they suggested, Get out, go, life will be so much better, you’ll see, it’s your only option, back when you were, quite frankly, losing your f*cking mind, and all the words ran together like paint, turning to gray, to brown.

Think, Just watch the nice man and his nice sausage. Behave. Tell your heart and your mind you will let them run riot later, if they will just let you have a half-hour of ridiculous reality TV with your favorite pixie creature.

Your heart and mind consult each other. Thirty minutes? Okay. You are granted a momentary pardon.

It is surprisingly satisfying to watch a man gobble a three-foot sausage while people cheer. Think, If the ladies can do it, you can too, gentlemen. Think better of saying this aloud. Instead, say, That’s a pretty big sausage. I think it’s as tall as you. Do you think he can do it?

Oh, yes, she says, nodding. I think he’s pretty capable.

Capable. She surprises you, endlessly. Note her long lashes, her jagged mismatched teeth, her faerie magic. Tonight, as your boobs nuzzle your knees, and you feel the sadness clawing at the back of your throat, it seems impossible that this creature could have come from you. But she did, you are sure of it, despite the fact that she resembles no one in the family. Sometimes, you wonder idly if she could have been fathered by a friendly, procreative stranger who perhaps climbed through a window when your then-husband was away on business. 2003. No, that was before the sleep meds that keep you, for the most part, asleep when you are supposed to be.

Well. One less thing to worry about.

Continue to focus on Man Vs. Food, like a normal human being who can watch TV without inner monologues hijacking the experience. You have been to the same restaurant in Minneapolis, the one where the Man is battling the Sausage of Sausages. Say to your younger daughter, I lived there, before you were born. It’s a great place to live. You wish you could wave a wand and show her you, then. Would she recognize you?

She gives you the benefit of the doubt, nearly all the time. She would recognize you, easily. She would tell you that your hair was pretty, you think. She would say, Show me your room. Is that Ferf? I wish I could remember him more.

I’d like to go there, she says right now. Can you believe you walked right there, Mommy, right where he is? I’d like to go to Pittsburgh too, to have dessert for breakfast. At that place. With the Belgian waffles.

Say, I’d like that too. Say, Your great-great-great-grandmother Fanny is buried there. I’d like to visit her grave someday.

We have a lot of Fannys in this family, says your younger daughter.

I suppose we do, you say. Two Fannys does seem extraordinary, for one family.

After the man defeats the sausage (although the side of potato croquettes nearly did him in), shut off the TV. Head upstairs with the pixie. Talk to each other in tobacco-plantation faux-Southern accents while you brush your teeth.

Suggest to her that you make a short film together. She likes this idea, with a few caveats. First, she must be a character who is four years old. Second, her character must wear princess clothing all the time and drag a toy duck on a string behind her.

Say, I can write that. Can you cry on cue?

She thinks about this. She shakes her head. I don’t know how to do that, she says.

That’s okay, you say.

After brushing teeth, tuck your younger daughter into bed beside you. Remind yourself that she will not always want to sleep with you, especially when you get older and reek of pee and despair. These are the good times, now. Ha! Ha ha! You still smell okay, most of the time, unless people are just being polite, which you suppose is possible. Realize that there are a few people willing to sleep with you, in the S-E-X way. No. You must actually smell all right. Feel momentarily relieved.

Read three chapters of Junie B. Jones: Shipwrecked, out loud, in your best stuffed-up-nose grumpy-tomboy voice, the one that enthralls and delights your younger daughter. You are good at reading Junie B. Jones aloud. If you could find a way to include that skill on your CV, you would.

Crack her up. Crack yourself up. Think, That MFA in Acting comes in handy, at least five minutes a day. She will surely remember this when I smell like pee, and subsequently take pity on me. Maybe she will even give me a room behind the kitchen, or on top of the garage.

Stop after two chapters. She bribes you, like she always does, with an offer to pet your hair or rub your back, if you will read one more chapter. Motherhood is dirty like that, full of more negotiations than the back room of a drug cartel.

You agree to the bribe. You love having your hair played with more than just about anything. You will be Junie B. Jones for another chapter if it means your scalp will get some TLC.

Third chapter down. Put away Junie B. Jones in the shelf of the headboard that is not actually attached to your bed (and probably never will be, at this point). Kiss your younger daughter and pull the sheets up to her chin. Miraculously, she falls asleep almost right away, her time clock still wonky from her recent trip to California with her dad.

You have already taken your sleep meds. You forget the deal you made earlier this evening with your heart and mind. Drift off to sleep beside your flesh-and-blood (wait, no, yes, of course she is, of course).

Your heart and mind are displeased with you. They wreak havoc as you sleep, what seems like hours of cruel mazes and violent situations and the usual dream-humiliations (no bra, not enough clothing, no bathing suit, must use a stranger’s, no money to take a bus or a taxi, where did the eyelash curler go?). As usual, you are completely alone in the dream. You can find no one to trust, no one to help, and you are in terrible danger, with uncurled lashes. In the dream, you run and run and run, straining to find something familiar, a landmark, an intersection, a face.

Wake up, blessedly, finally, in tears. You are disappointed that all that running does not count toward your weekly training, but it is better, you suppose, to be awake. The nightmare will not quit. It follows you downstairs. It questions your taste in coffee. It tells you that you are lucky, very lucky, that the creamer is still good. It tells you that next time, you may not be so lucky, that you may not get off so easy. Just wait, says the nightmare, you haven’t seen anything yet.

Bite your tongue. It’s no use, talking back to the nightmares. Let the tears come. Sip your coffee. Wipe your nose on your sleeve. Upstairs, there is a little girl still sleeping, a little girl who sees all that is good and right and true in you, and in the world. This will not save you, not at all, but you can still let her sleep. She will wake up in her mother’s bed, knowing she is welcome, knowing she is home. She will wake up thinking that the house smells good, like her father’s coffee, like her mother’s coffee.