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when they had coffee. Mom didn’t want me to,
but Dad caved. I could always get him to cave.
    Well, almost always.
    She held it in her hand for a moment
then returned it to the cabinet and replaced it with one of her
mugs without uttering a sound.
    Once again mixed emotions. Did it mean
she thought I was finally old enough for one of her special
industrial-sized mugs of caffeine, or that she just didn’t want to
remind me more of my father? As if I could ever forget.
    I mean, how could I forget the man who
made me believe the world was mine to command? I did mention he so
spoiled me, right? But it wasn’t about that, and it wasn’t about
things.
    It was about how he made me feel. Like
a princess. I know that sounds uber stupid, but there’s no other
way to explain it. When I was with Dad I felt like the most special
person in the world.
    Only now he was gone, so most of the
time I just felt like … crap.
    “ Any dreams last night?”
she asked drawing me back to reality.
    “ Some. Although it was
weird. Even while I was awake I kept thinking of all my teeth
falling out.”
    “ Damn!” Mom yelped as the
coffee she was pouring me spilled onto her hand. She put down the
cup and stuck her hand under the cold water.
    Was it something I said? Or was it
just an accident? She had jumped and spilled the coffee, but I
couldn’t imagine why.
    After I fixed my coffee, one Splenda
packet and a splash of half and half, I turned on the computer,
Googled dreams and scanned through the list. There it was - losing
teeth – an embarrassment.
    “ This is odd. It says that
when you dream of losing teeth, it’s because you’re afraid of being
embarrassed.”
    Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s a
relief. Your grandmother always said when you dreamt of teeth
falling out it meant death.”
    She didn’t need to say why that
thought weirded her out. I knew she was thinking the same thing I
was – we’d just had our share of death and didn’t need any
more.
    “ Why’d she think that?” I
asked as if I were no more than casually curious.
    Mom closed her eyes as if trying to
remember the past. “She used to also say dream of the dead, hear
from the living.”
    “ That’s a good one to
know.” Sipping my coffee I debated that issue.
    Mom sat down next to me at the table
and half mumbled as if she were talking to herself. “They were all
just ramblings.”
    “ Ramblings? How so? You
mean you didn’t believe any of the things that your mother said?”
Her tone changed immediately and I could tell I pissed her
off.
    “ That’s not what I meant
and you know it. She was just much more superstitious than I ever
was. She believed things…” My mother hesitated and I wondered what
it was she’d been about to say before she thought better of
it.
    “ What kind of things?” I
probed. Mom shrugged her shoulders but I continued to stare her
down until she answered.
    “ She was just different
than other people.”
    “ In what way?” I continued
to put on the pressure. “How was she different?”
    “ More intuitive,” I
guess.
    She was holding something back and I
desperately needed to know what it was. “More info, please. What
does that mean, more intuitive? She made better
judgments?”
    My mother hedged, and finally told me,
deciding I wouldn’t buy into it. “She thought she was kind of
psychic,” my mother said with a light little laugh as if she had
just told a mildly amusing joke.
    “ My grandmother was
psychic? Are you kidding me?” Well this certainly put a new light
on things.
    “ She wasn’t psychic, she
just thought she had a special ability to see some things before
they happened.”
    “ What is that, you mean
like clairvoyant?”
    “ No, not for real. She had
a few dreams…”
    The minute the word dreams exited her
mouth, she knew it was a mistake and that I’d have my own
interpretation.
    She was right, I did.

CHAPTER fivE
     
     
    This was the part of the walk home
that I hated. Up to this point I had