I wish I could say I’m surprised, but honestly I’m not. I'm barely off the plane before I have my first argument with my brother. It’s a new argument, at least, not one of the usual ones, but I’m sure we’ll hit all the old favorites before too long.

Bob just got his full unrestricted driver’s license two months ago, and he came out to the airport to pick me up, which I honestly do appreciate. I suppose I could give him some credit and assume that his skills have improved since the summer, but – no. I don’t feel quite that generous. Or lucky.

“No, Robert, you’re not driving. What part of that do you not understand?” I only just noticed, I do the same thing that my parents do – when I’m annoyed with him, I call him Robert instead of Bob. I’m sure I’ve been doing it for years, but this is the first time I’ve ever been conscious of it. At least I never use his full name. When Mom or Dad were really angry at me, that’s what I’d hear. “Sara Katarina Barnes, come downstairs this instant!” is usually how it went.

“Like you’re so much better,” is his witty reply.

“Well, yes.” The truth hurts sometimes. “You remember, I’m the one who mostly taught you, and I remember exactly how well you did. I’m not getting in the car with you driving, simple as that.”

“Yeah, and since you’re the oldest, what you say goes, is that it?” He makes a face.

“I hate to pull rank,” I say, but obviously that’s a lie. I do it all the time with him. It might be a crummy way to treat my little brother, but it does have one advantage – it usually works. “Basically, yes. I’m the oldest, and I said so.”

He grumbles while we walk to get my bags and he grumbles while we go out to the car, and he grumbles all the way home, except for asking me if Beth will be visiting for a few days like she did over the summer. It’s funny, that was the first time in his life he ever called himself Robert. I assume he thought it sounded more grown-up and mature, for all the good it did him. At least Beth was nice about it. She didn’t torment him too much, even though he gave her every opportunity to.

I actually do almost feel vaguely bad about dashing his unattainable adolescent fantasies concerning my roommate, but she won’t be visiting for the holiday. Once I break the bad news he resumes the grumbling, and he keeps it up all the way home. When we finally get there, I park the car, and Bob’s out the door and on the way up to his room to do whatever it is that he does in there before I’ve even turned the engine off.

I bring my bags up to my bedroom, and then I head for the kitchen, fix myself a sandwich, settle down and wait for Mom to get back from the vet with Lumpy.

Even though I’ve been away at school for the last two and a half years, Lumpy is still definitely my dog. Mom and Dad gave him to me when I was twelve – he was my big Christmas present that year. It was a huge surprise. I’d always wanted a dog, as far back as I can remember. Right after my brother was born, the day Mom and Dad brought him home from the hospital, I have a very clear memory of asking if we could take him back and exchange him for a puppy, because a puppy would be much more fun to play with. I kept pestering my parents for a while but I’d pretty much given up hope, and then that Christmas morning there was a huge box under the tree. It was shaking and there were yelps coming from inside it. I opened it up and there he was – a beautiful golden retriever puppy.

He didn’t have a name at first. Dad told me that since he was my dog, it was my responsibility to name him. I couldn’t think of anything right away and obviously naming him was a really important job – who knows how he’d turn out if I gave him a bad name? It took almost a week, and how he finally got the name Lumpy is, he liked sleeping in my bed during the day when I was at school. When I came home, he’d still be there and I thought to myself that with him there the bed looked all lumpy, and there it was, that was the perfect name for him.

Everyone else thinks it’s an appropriate name because he sits around a lot and doesn’t do all that much and they think he isn’t very smart, but they’re wrong. He’s definitely smart – he understands everything I say to him, and he does whatever I tell him to do and he plays with me all the time when I’m home. I think the reason he doesn’t respond as well to anyone else is that he can tell they don’t love him the way I do. At any rate, it’s an hour later when they finally get home. I hear the car coming up the driveway, and I run out to meet them. I hug Mom, and I go and let Lumpy out of the car.

Just like always when I come home, he’s happy to see me. He jumps on me, he licks my face, he wags his tail frantically. He doesn’t do that for anyone else. And I have to tell him how wonderful he is, “Lumpy, you’re such a good boy! Yes, you are!” and so on. After a couple of minutes of that, he finally calms down enough that we can all go inside. “What did the vet say? How is he?”

Mom answers, “He’s fine, honey. We have to give him the new worm pills and they recommended we try this new food for him, but he’s perfectly healthy otherwise.” Mom told me a couple of weeks ago that he wasn’t eating as much as usual, and he’d mostly stopped barking at the squirrels outside. So I was concerned about him.

“Good. You had me a little scared.” I notice that Mom seems a bit distracted; whenever I come home from school she usually spends ten minutes hovering over me, telling me how much she missed me and all of that. But not today. Once the subject of Lumpy is done, Mom moves on to the question of holiday plans and I learn why she’s not her usual self.

She’s got a surprise for me. Apparently, she got a phone call last night from someone called Helen Alderson. It takes me a minute to process that. Alderson is Brian’s last name – Helen must be his mother. Mom tells me that she called to invite all of us to dinner on Christmas Eve. Mom patiently explains to me how very confused she was; she had no idea why some strange woman was inviting her family to dinner. It took her a while to realize what was going on. It wasn’t “some strange woman,” it was my boyfriend’s mother. Obviously it didn’t help that I haven’t mentioned Brian to my parents yet.

The truth is, I haven’t mentioned him because he’s all wrapped up with the nightmares. I still haven’t decided what – if anything – I want to tell them about that. It’s not that I don’t think they’ll believe me; it’s just that I can’t imagine what good could come of it.

And I am a little bit afraid of what they’ll think about how fast things have moved with me and Brian, and how hard I’ve fallen for him. Probably because I have moments where I’m a little afraid of how fast things have moved, too. Even though I’ve been the fast one.

Maybe especially because of that.

Anyway, I tell her about Brian. I give her a heavily-edited version of the story. I leave out any mention of dreams or nightmares at all; I tell her we met at the nightclub, something about him caught my eye, and we hit it off immediately. I tell her that Brian’s a freshman, he’s two years younger than me, that he hasn’t had a real girlfriend before and I’m the one setting the pace on, well, everything. I tell her how thoughtful and kind he’s been to me, how I’ve been feeling very stressed out with final exams and thinking about the MCATs in the spring and how he’s helped me so much.

As we talk, I can see her relaxing a little on the whole subject; I’m not sure how good a job I’m doing convincing her about Brian – I think it’s more that she’s putting herself in my shoes remembering times when maybe she didn’t tell her parents right away when she had a new boyfriend.

She also knows I’m not telling her everything. I can see in her eyes that she has a very clear idea of what I’m leaving out – and obviously the dreams aren’t the only thing I’m editing when I talk about Brian. I can also see that she’s perfectly happy not to hear the things she thinks I’m leaving out. I’m glad we agree about that, anyway!

I was able to sleep peacefully all night long. Maybe it was just being in my own familiar bed at home, or being a couple of hundred miles away from the people whose dreams I’ve been seeing. I don’t know, and as long as it keeps up I don’t really care why.

I take my time getting around in the morning; the house is very quiet. Thankfully, Bob’s still in school most of this week, so I don’t have to fight with him about who gets to use the car today. Not that it would be much of a fight anyway, but it’s easier if I don’t have to argue with him over every little thing.

I need the car today because I’m meeting Aunt Kat for lunch. I find what seems like one of the very last parking spaces at the mall, and I make my way over to the restaurant. It’s precisely 12:05 PM according to my watch, and since we were supposed to meet at noon, Kat’s probably already been here for twenty minutes. I wander into the restaurant and I spot her right away.

There’s the obligatory hug and kiss on the cheek, of course, followed by a little bit of small talk before we get to the important stuff. I see that she’s got a bottle of wine on the table already – I’m sure Mom’s talked to her and given her instructions to find out more information about Brian.

Aunt Kat – Katarina Wells to be exact – isn’t actually a blood relative. What she is, is my mother’s best friend, my godmother, and also one of the very few people in my life who I can tell absolutely anything to. There’s Beth, and now there’s Brian, and there’s always been Aunt Kat. My whole life I’ve gone to her first for advice, before any of my friends and definitely before my parents. And she’s always, always, always been there for me.

The thing about her isn’t just that she’s there for me, but she’s there with exactly the right thing to say. Like the night I lost my virginity. It was awful, I’ve said that before. When it was over Richard drove me home, and I managed not to go all hysterical until I got out of the car and he was gone. But between the driveway and the front door, I totally lost it.

Aunt Kat just happened to be over at our house; she was sitting with Mom in the living room having coffee. I opened the door, took one step in, and I think they both knew more or less what happened as soon as they saw me. I was a complete disaster: clothes all wrinkled, hair a mess, crying uncontrollably.

They sat me down on the couch, got me a big glass of water, and I told them everything that had happened. Any other time, I wouldn’t have told Mom any of it, but at the moment I wasn’t thinking rationally, if you could call it thinking at all. I’m sure she was surprised, disappointed, upset, take your pick, but she didn’t say anything about that, she just comforted me and held me and told me it was going to be all right.

Kat did the same thing for a little while, and then she took me upstairs to my room. She sat next to me on my bed, and then proceeded to tell me how disappointed she was in me.

Not because I had sex, not because I was stupid or careless or anything like that. She was disappointed, she said, because I didn’t listen to my instincts. I’d told her a couple of weeks before that I was having some doubts about Richard. I couldn’t say why, there weren’t any tangible reasons, just a gut feeling.

That’s something Kat always said, for as long as I can remember: always trust my feelings. And I completely ignored them; she was absolutely right about that. We talked all night about it, and by morning I was feeling much better.

I just realized that, to the casual observer, I must sound like quite the fragile little mess. Always crying and screaming and running to the nearest available help when anything bad happens. I don’t think that’s really fair, though. The whole thing with Richard, for example. I was seventeen, I thought I was in love, and I was pretty delusional about him. So what? Who isn’t, at that age? Looking back it’s easy to say, “what did you expect from him?” and looking back of course I was crazy to imagine it could have been anything like my romantic fantasies. But that’s the whole point: at the time, you don’t know – at least I didn’t. I made a mistake. I trusted when I shouldn’t have and said yes when I should have said no. I don’t think I’m the first girl in history to do that.

And of course, I was horribly upset and I thought the world was going to end, or at least my little piece of it, because that’s how everything feels when it’s happening to you. I still feel bad about it, because I was so stupid, but I learned from the whole experience so it wasn’t a total loss in the end. And as for running for help, isn’t that what your friends and family are for?

With these stupid nightmares, well, I won’t apologize for freaking out about them. I’d like to see what anybody else who starts seeing psychic visions of a serial killer would do. I don’t think there’s an instructional pamphlet for that anywhere.

I’ve gotten a bit off track here, I suppose. The original point was that Aunt Kat’s probably the person I trust more than anyone else, and we’re about to get to talking about what’s been going on with me recently. I go through the whole story – well, the most important parts, anyway – and she’s surprised, frightened and appalled by turns. I tell her about the dreams, about the articles in the newspaper, all of it.

“Do you believe me?” I ask her when I’m finally done with it.

She answers immediately. “Yes.” Then she stops to think for a minute. “Of course, I believe you. Your brother, if he told me something like this, I’d think it was just one of his strange little things, some sort of odd fantasy. But you, no. I know you’re telling me something true.” She sort-of frowns. “Or at least something you believe is true.”

I don’t say anything. I had this exact same conversation with Dr. Ritter and I don’t want to explain myself all over again. I want her to accept it at face value, but I guess that isn’t reasonable. Would I accept it at face value from someone else? Probably not.

“You have to admit, what you told me is pretty far out there, Sara,” Kat finally says, more because one of us has to say something to fill the silence than anything else, and it clearly wasn’t going to be me. “Like I said, I do believe you, but it’s pretty hard to wrap my mind around it.”

“I know.” I wish I didn’t, but, boy do I know. “I’ve tried to think about it logically. I mean, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m training to be a scientist. I know how things work, physically. This – this doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit anything I know, or anything I’ve read. It shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t how people’s brains work.” That all sounds great, and it’s all true, but my brain doesn’t seem to know that.

Kat empties her glass of wine before she answers me. “That doesn’t matter, Sara.” She pours herself another glass. “Should and shouldn’t don’t matter. Sense doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s happening, and you have to figure out how to cope with it. And it’s all on you because it’s in your head, nobody else’s.”

She’s absolutely right. When I close my eyes, when I’m asleep, I’m alone. Whether I’m at home and Mom and Dad are just down the hall, or I’m in the dorm and Beth is six feet away, or I’m with Brian and I’m in his arms, I’m still alone inside my head. Nobody can make the nightmares stop, nobody can turn off whatever switch got flipped in my brain that’s making me see them.

But I notice that she looked away from me for a moment there. She didn’t say anything about the fact that what I’m seeing in the nightmares is really happening out in the world. That two girls have died already. That I’m the only one who knows what’s really going on. She still won’t look me in the eye. She’s waiting for me to say something about it, because she can’t bring herself to. Well, neither can I.

She’s known me my whole life, and this is the first time she’s ever held back on me. It’s also the first time I’m glad she did. She finishes her second glass of wine in one gulp, and pours a third. She looks back at me, and for a long time, neither of us says anything. Finally she can’t stand it anymore and she asks me, “So tell me more about your boyfriend?” and I’m more relieved than I can say that she’s changing the subject.

Just like that, it’s Friday – another night without nightmares, too! – and Christmas is three days away. After lunch with Kat, I was able to get most of my shopping done. There’s just one person I don’t have something for, but he’s the most important one of all and I’ve been having no luck thinking of the right gift.

We’ve only known each other for three weeks. There’s so much I don’t know about Brian, and I want my first Christmas gift for him to be special, something he’ll always remember. I’ve been getting more and more worried that I won’t be able to think of anything.

But last night I found inspiration – in the sports section of the newspaper of all places. There was an ad for a big memorabilia show today, in Philadelphia, at the Spectrum. There’ll be pro athletes there, players from the Phillies and Eagles and Flyers, signing photos and all that sort of thing. Brian’s not the biggest sports fan in the world, but he does follow them, and of all the local teams, he follows the Phillies the most. And he’s got something in common with my father – they both have the same favorite player, Mike Schmidt, who just retired this past season. And who, conveniently enough, will be at the show.

So I decided to take the car and go there, and wait in line however long it takes, and get Mike Schmidt’s autograph for Brian. He’ll love it. He has to, right?

I was going to try to get one for Dad as well, but he saw the ad too, and since he’s off from work today he was thinking of going himself. So we’ll go together, just me and Dad. My brother couldn’t care less about sports, and Mom wasn’t interested in waiting in line for hours.

Right after breakfast we get in the car and Dad is as excited as I think I’ve ever seen him. He's a huge sports fan. I remember back in 1980, when the Phillies won the World Series. They had a victory parade the day after, and Dad took off from work. He kept Bob and me home from school, and he dragged Mom along too. We all went to Philadelphia and spent the day watching the parade. The whole time he was weeping, tears of joy, literally all day long. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever seen my father cry.

The entire ride up, Dad is reminiscing about that, going on and on how he can’t believe he’s going to actually get to stand two feet away from “Mr. Schmidt” and maybe even – perish the thought! – shake his hand.

It’s a very long ride.

We finally get there, park the car, and Dad goes to the trunk, opens it up and pulls out a box. He takes out his official replica Phillies uniform and puts it on, and then he hands me a Phillies cap to wear. Now that we’re properly outfitted, we start walking into the arena. I’ve only ever been here once before, to see the circus, and in my opinion this is kind of a circus all its own. Most of the people around us are wearing jerseys for the Phillies, or the Eagles or one of our other teams. And most of them have this distant sort of look, just like my father does now. As though they’re on a pilgrimage or something. All I want is a nice Christmas gift for my boyfriend.

For the two hours we wait in line, Dad acts like the people waiting all around us are long-lost relatives. They’re rehashing every play from the World Series. It’s amazing. Most of them, my Dad included, start to get less talkative and more nervous as they get close to the front of the line.

Finally, we arrive. There’s a table piled high with photos of Mike Schmidt in action and behind the table, the man himself. My first impression is that he seems smaller in real life than he looked when he was playing. And it’s weird to see him in a suit instead of his uniform. But it’s definitely him.

He looks at Dad, waiting for him to say something, but in the presence of his hero my father has lost the power of speech. I forcibly grab Dad’s arm and shove it towards Mike Schmidt, and Schmidt dutifully shakes it. “You’re his idol, sir,” I say for him, and it’s obvious from Schmidt’s bemused expression that this is far from the first time today he’s encountered a scene like this.

“Who do I make it out to?” he asks, taking a photo from a stack on the table by him.

“Could I have two? One is for my Dad here. Howard Barnes,” I answer, and the great man quickly signs a photo of himself. “The other one, it’s for my boyfriend, I wanted him to have something really special for our first Christmas together,” I babble, and then realize I haven’t said his name. “It’s Brian, please,” and he signs a second picture while the people behind us in line glare at me for wasting so much time. I grab the pictures, mumble “Thank you, sir,” and drag Dad away.

He recovers his wits a few minutes later, and we wander around the show some more. He gets a couple more autographs, and then we – finally! – head out of the arena. When we’re back at the car he carefully and reverently takes off his replica uniform, folds it neatly and puts it back in its box along with my Phillies cap, and then we’re off.

We stop at McDonalds for a quick bite on the way home, and we just sit for a few minutes after we’ve eaten. Dad is staring longingly at his autograph. “This is beautiful,” he says, a faraway look in his eye. I look at Brian’s gift. Mike Schmidt signed it, “Brian – Go get ‘em, slugger! – Mike Schmidt, #20.”

He’s going to love it. How could he not? I just stare at the words, picturing Brian opening up his gift, imagining his reaction, feeling him holding me, kissing me…

There’s a sound, my Dad clearing his throat, and I’m back in the here and now. He looks at the picture in my hand, and then, with a very odd expression on his face he wags his finger at me. “I think I need to meet your young man.”

“You’re going to, Dad. On Sunday.” What’s going on?

He’s still got that expression. He’s looking at me as though he’s noticing something he’s never seen before. “I see so much of your mother in you. I don’t think you realize how like her you are,” he says, finally.

I do, actually. I look a lot like her. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was young, and if you didn’t know it you might think you were looking at me. I start to say that, but he shakes his head.

“It’s not just that you look like her,” he says, reading my mind. “It’s – well, I was watching you just now. I saw how your eyes lit up when you were thinking about your Brian.” How long was I staring at that picture?

“Nobody else has eyes like yours. Nobody else’s are that bright. Nobody else’s light up the way yours did just now. Except…” and now he chokes up a bit, and he has to have some water before he can go on, “Nobody except your mother. How you looked just now, that’s how she looks sometimes, when she’s looking at me.”

Oh.

Oh, my.

I didn’t expect that. “Um – I – I don’t know – Dad, I’m not sure what…” As I’m babbling, it hits me. I’ve heard this before. From Brian, the night we met, at the club. He said something very similar to me, and suddenly I’m feeling dizzy, and warm. I have to hold on to the edge of the table to steady myself.

“I saw it, honey,” he says with a gentle smile. “I see it right now. You’re done for. This Brian, he’s in your heart. You can’t hide that, and you can’t fake it, either.”

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my father. But he’s right. Brian’s in my heart, that’s exactly how it is. There’s no point pretending it’s not true. And it’s such a relief to have someone really and truly get what I’m feeling. Even if it is Dad.

“Can I ask you something?” My voice is very small and very far away. I still need to hang on to the table for support.

“Always. Anything. You know that,” he says.

I already know the answer, but I want to hear it anyway. I let go of the table and my hands are shaking. “Sometimes when I look at him, when I look into his eyes, I mean really look into them, and he catches mine, it’s like everything else just disappears. Like we’re the only two people in the whole world. Even if we’re in a crowd, or at the movies or wherever. Isis it like that with you and Mom?”

He reaches across the table, takes my hands in his. “Boy, you do have it bad. Worst case I ever saw. Or the second-worst, anyway.” He lets go of my hands. “It was. It was exactly like that.”

“Was?” What does that mean? Why not “is?” That’s not what I was expecting to hear at all! Dad reads my mind again. “I can tell you the exact day that it stopped being like that. October 12^th, 1968.”

Wait. October 12^th. That’s my…

“What? I don’t understand. October 12^th is my birthday. 1968, that’s when I was born. I don’t…”

He rolls his eyes, laughs. “For a girl who’s got a 3.7 grade average in pre-med, you’re pretty slow on the uptake.” I still have no idea what he means. “Before we had you, it was just how you said it. When we were together, when everything was right, there was nobody else in the world but us. And I know it was the same for her.”

He has to take another big gulp of water before he can go on. “But from the minute we first saw you – perfect beautiful little you – after that, I couldn’t ever imagine the whole world disappearing. Because if it did, then you’d disappear too. And I never want to imagine a single minute without you in it. If you ask your mother, she’ll tell you exactly the same.”

I feel tears running down my cheeks as he says that, and I’m out of my chair and hugging him. I can’t get any words to come out, but they’re not necessary.

We don’t talk much on the ride home. We’re both lost in thought. When Dad parks the car, Mom is there, opening the front door, and she starts to ask how our day went. I don’t give her the chance to talk; I run to her and throw my arms around her, and I hold on tight. I don’t let go until she makes a sad little moan and wheezes, “Sara, honey, I can’t breathe!”

I let her go, and she grabs my arms, stares hard at me. “What happened to you today?” I don’t say anything right away, I’m concentrating on not crying again, but it’s difficult. I feel a single tear roll down my cheek, but then I’m able to get control of myself. I’m just looking into her eyes, trying to see what Dad was talking about, trying to see in her what he saw in me today.

“I love you, Mom. That’s all. I just wanted to make sure you knew.” I can see it. It’s there. It’s always been there, I just never paid enough attention to really notice it in her before. “You do know, right?”

Now she hugs me back, just as tightly as I did a minute ago. “Oh, Sara. I know. Of course I know!” Out of the corner of my eye I see my father, standing by the car, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an expression quite so full of contentment as he’s got right now. He watches me and Mom for a while, then, just when we let each other go, he comes up and grabs the both of us. We’re there for what seems like a long time, holding each other and not noticing the cold at all.

Finally, after what might have been a couple of minutes or maybe an hour, I’ve lost all sense of time, Dad lets us go. He asks Mom, “Is Bob upstairs?” and she nods. “Sara, go get your brother. We’re all going out to dinner. My beautiful family deserves a treat tonight.”