Page 1 of Dream a Little Dream

Chapter One

The Attic

I was an orphan again. Despite my best efforts, somehow, that kept happening. I was also a thirty-four-year-old redhead who lived alone and hadn’t kissed a woman in a year and a half. But who was counting? Apparently, me. There was also a grocery store I was in charge of that was losing money, and I had my aunt’s entire attic to clean out, full of all of her prized possessions and mementos I’d been too grief stricken to sort through until now.

The familiar grief swooped and settled. My Aunt Lindy was gone. It had been three weeks since her heart attack, and the reality was only now starting to settle. Lindy had been my rock after I’d lost my parents at eleven years old, the person who’d shown up to every school function and snuggled with me in my bed on the nights I was scared of jarring claps of thunder or was missing my old life.

Lindsay Renee Bright, my mother’s sister, had been one of the good ones, and I vowed to be one, too. I’d make her proud and always try to mirror her kindness, her warmth, and her unwavering belief that the world was a wonderful place. I also hoped to stay a little silly in her honor and not take things like “stupid trash day” too seriously. I’d celebrate it instead with the little rhyming song that she’d sashay her hips to as she pulled the cans down the drive.

In the meantime, I had to figure out what to do with her things, all left to me. The volume overwhelmed, accumulated from over sixty years of experiences and memories made. Her crowded little home three blocks from the bay was just as she’d left it, and up here in this attic were all the keepsakes and important signposts from her life’s journey. The certificate for volunteer hours she’d put in at the hospital. The oldfishing pole my grandfather had used to teach his kids to fish. The jar of playing cards, each pack collected from a different city she’d visited. I smiled at the impact she’d made not just on me but on everyone she’d come in contact with. Each person was better for having known Lindy, and that was the best possible legacy. I hadn’t had it in me to do much with her home until now. But the time had come to pull myself together and blink back the tears.

But grief, for me, wasn’t new.

My parents were killed in a head-on collision twenty-two years ago while returning home from their anniversary weekend away. They’d splurged on an ocean view room at a fancy hotel my mother had been dying to stay in. Before she left, she told me the restaurant there was known for their amazing lobster. I never found out if she’d enjoyed it.

It had apparently been instant, their deaths. Everyone acted like that information should serve as a great comfort, but it didn’t ever take away the fact that I didn’t have parents anymore. And they’d been great parents for every year of the eleven and half we’d spent together. I still had very vivid memories. My mother loved chocolate ice cream and early evening game shows. My father was a sports guy who’d taken me to games every chance he got. Baseball had been his favorite, but honestly, any sport would do. He’d never been much of an athlete himself, so he’d made it a point to learn absolutely everything he possibly could about the sport, the players, the league, and the season as a form of compensation. Losing them both had been the tragedy of my life. How was I now losing Lindy, too?

I leaned back against the structurally necessary wooden post smack in the middle of the musty room. My Aunt Lindy’s attic, as always, was warm and damp, one of the reasons I generally avoided it. The box in my lap held a twine-bound bundle of my mother’s cards, letters, and pressed flowers, all of which had been a joy to sift through after so many years. I’d taken the afternoon and just absorbed the words she’d saved from her friends, relatives, and my mother herself. Distractedly, and as I still sorted through my feelings of panic and shock and who knew what else, I still clutched an old to-do list of my mom’s that included picking up a cake topper for my parents’ wedding. I blinked down at the faded swoops and dips of her penmanship. She’d had beautiful handwriting, even better than my own, which I took pride in. I ran my thumb across the blue ink, a time capsule transporting me back to a happier time. Memories flew by in fragments. Dance partiesin the living room when I’d brought home As and Bs on my report card. Watching TV all together on the couch when I was scared of the howling winds in the middle of the night. My mom crying when our cat, Figgy Pudding, went missing, only to have her come wandering home a week later.

My life was definitely divided in two parts: before the accident, and after. I wondered if this loss would do the same. Who would I be now that I was completely without family? I wondered about starting one of my own someday. It was a momentary consolation.

“I’m here!” I heard the sound of the front door below, and it jarred me into the here and now. Jonathan had arrived, thank God, my best friend and other half. He’d planned to give me some time to sort through the attic on my own before meeting me here and helping where he could—from both the emotional and logistical standpoints. I needed him now more than ever.

“Hey, Savvy. Did you hear me?” Jonathan called.

“Down in a sec!” I called back.

As I gathered the haphazardly strewn cards and letters and placed them back in their twine binding, I reflected on my own trajectory. My life was certainly feeling battered these days.

My doctor felt strongly that I needed a vacation or outlet for all the pent-up stress I carried with me, but I preferred to press on and try to see the good in life. Because there had to be an infinite amount of joy out there if others were scooping it up and making it their own. I just needed some time to catch up with the rest of the world.

“Hey. Just checking in on you.” Jonathan, with his soulful brown eyes and dark hair neatly styled with tea tree oil pomade, blinked at me with the tenderness of a good friend on a hard day. He’d somehow made his way up the ladder without me hearing him, which could have easily led to a fall.

Concern struck. “You should have asked for my help. Now I have to murder you.” I was protective of him, always would be.

He shrugged, leaning on the forearm crutch that had aided his climb. “And ruin the surprise? Never. I live to shock and impress. Just look at you. You can’t take it, murderer that you aspire to be.”

He was attempting levity on what he knew was an emotionally charged afternoon. I attempted a smile for him. Our relationship was laced evenly with one part humor and one part sincerity. We leapt back and forth without notice, which I loved about us.

“Results are pending.”

He shrugged as if to sayyou can’t win ’em all. But there must have been something about the look on my face that alerted him to my new level of stress. He tilted his head. “What’s going on?”

“I’m emotional. My heart hurts and my aunt is gone.” I offered a halfhearted shrug.

“Fuck a duck.”

“I know.” Silence hit and we shared a laugh. Lindy would have loved that comment.

Jonathan chewed the inside of his lip and leaned more fully on his crutch. I could tell he was uncomfortable, which meant sincerity was on the way. “Savvy, I want you to know that I’m going to have the perfect words for you, but they’re as of this moment, not yet assembled. I’m in the deep end with you, though.” He opened his mouth and closed it. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through. Let’s start there.”

Jonathan and I had been inseparable ever since the day he’d organized a Gay-Straight Alliance our freshman year of high school and I’d been the only other person to attend the first meeting. I firmly believe it was meant to be just us. We’d come out to each other that day, discontinued the less than successful club, and become best friends instead. With a graduating class of only a hundred and sixty students, we’d been the only gay kids in the mix until Lorelei Newman brought home a wife from college years later. Damn her for stealing the spotlight—and marrying first, too. But that had done it. Next, James Garza and Brett Lunsford were miraculously a couple and not just teammates on the town’s recreational softball team. Devyn Winters and Elizabeth Draper, the most opposites attract story ever, were now living a few streets away in absolute bliss. The list didn’t end there. We now had anactual gay populationin little Dreamer’s Bay, South Carolina. Who’d have ever predictedthat? Jonathan and I had simply been ahead of our time. A trendsetting duo.

“Okay.” He paused as if trying to keep up with the organization happening in front of him. “Tell me. What is your plan for all this?”

The shift in topic was the reprieve I needed. I could breathe again. “Simple. I go through each box, each belonging, each greeting card, and figure out what to keep and what to get rid of.” I turned to him, the finality of it all weighing on me. “Isn’t it interesting how it comes down to this? A bunch of things and furniture trapped here instead of with her. They’re all just sitting around alone in boxes without their person.”

“It is. But don’t lose sight of the memories, Sentimental Sandy. We had a lot of fun here,” he said with a gleam.

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