In my dream, I see a mobile home. It’s a double-wide trailer near a stretch of Florida road. There’s a dirt road leading up to the small house. I can see the mailbox:
7743 Oaktree Rd.
In my dream, I float inside the house. There are beer bottles everywhere. The carpet is stained and tattered. There are people wandering around the house.
There’s a woman, a mother, slaving away in the kitchen. She’s trying to get dinner ready before she has to go to work. She likes dogs and horses, but she’s never been able to afford either. I can sense that the only reason she’s still with her husband is that she can’t afford a divorce.
I sense the father, a hard worker who ignores his wife. He knows she cheated on him once, but he truly believes she’ll love him again when he gets that big promotion. He’s busy digging through the sofa cushions looking for the remote. The game’s about to come on.
There’s another man next to him. He’s not that old. This one’s name is Jack. He’s here to earn his GED away from his cocaine-addicted mother. He’s sitting with his feet on the furniture.
The dream draws me towards the room of a girl. She’s older than me with headphones on. She’s listening to music through a rectangular device. It’s not an mp3 player. I try to read the writing on the front of it. It says “wall” or “walk”-something. Boys are singing into her ears about the “Right Stuff”. The dream draws me into her body. We’re connected. We turn our head and look at a corner of our room. A vine has crept through a hole in the floor. It has crept upward along the corner of her room. At the tip of the vine are several buds. One of them has blossomed into a teal-colored flower. We smell the sweet scent of the flower. A voice speaks to us: “We are Tree.”
Suddenly, I’m awake. The morning sun is trickling through the balcony windows. I look over at the tree mural across the room from my bed. Its bright glow has dimmed. Curious, I get up and examine the painting. Yesterday, there wasn’t enough time to study the mural, but I can see, along several of the branches, small, blue flower buds. My dream drifts back to me. Did the girl in my dream paint this mural? I look closer at one of the flower buds.
It blossoms right in front of me.
“Mom!” I cry as I hurry across the house to the master bedroom. After banging on their door, my father groggily opens it.
“What?” he groans.
I peek past him. “Where’s Mama? I need Mama. MAMA! Come quick! There’s something weird in my room!”
Resigned to her role, my mother gets up and follows me back to my room. My father comes too.
“Okay, Sweetie,” she yawns. “What’s the problem?”
I point at the wall. “Look!”
My father squints. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s right here,” I say, running to the wall. I scan it for the blue blossom.
“What are you looking for?” my mother says, walking up behind me.
“A flower, a flower,” I yelp, “it was here just a second ago.”
My mother kisses my cheek, saying, “It’s a pretty big mural. It’s probably there somewhere.”
“No, you don’t understand,” I explain. “The flower bloomed right in front of me.”
My father throws up his hands. “Beloved, it’s just a painting. Paintings don’t move.”
“But this one did!”
My mother hugs me. “It’s okay. Flowers aren’t dangerous. If you see the flower again, try smelling it. Your father and I are trying to rest. Okay, Sweetie?”
Pouting, I respond, “Okay…”
My parents leave. I sit down on my bed and curl into a ball. I look at the mural. The blossom is back.
“I hate you,” I say aloud.
The blossom closes.
I grab Mr. Cuddles and clutch him until I feel better. It could be worse, I tell myself. It could be monsters. Mama could be right. It is a flower. Flowers are pretty. They don’t hurt people. I like flowers. I look back at the wall. No blossoms.
“Maybe I’m just crazy.”
Sure, I still feel normal, but maybe that’s how it starts. ‘Next thing you know I’m running naked through the woods. I peek back at the wall. Nothing. Maybe it’s stress. Moving is hard. I am stressed. I miss my friends from Tougabrook Elementary. I’m going to fifth grade soon. I nod my head.
“Yep, I’m stressed.”
This is too much for a ten-year-old to handle. I look at Mr. Cuddles’ brown, furry face.
“Are you gonna help me, Mr. Cuddles?”
I speak for him. “Of course, I’ll help you, Beth. You’re my best friend.”
I pick up my stuffed cow. “How about you, Miss Moo-sey?”
“Moo-oo, of course, I’ll help you-oo.”
I interview all of my stuffed animal friends, and all of them agree to help me. Everything’s gonna be okay.
My parents eventually wake up and make breakfast. My father worked out something with the cable company, so now I can watch cartoons in the family room. My mother calls me to the kitchen for breakfast. Our family room has an open-air connection to the kitchen. Between the kitchen and family room is a dinette set. A freestanding counter stands next to the dining area. A bowl of fruit sits in the middle of it.
“Dear,” my mother says to Daddy, “These plums you put out are delicious. I’ve been eating them since yesterday.”
My father’s sitting at the breakfast table. “They are delicious. I think the real estate agent left them here, either her or the groundskeeper.”
“We have a groundskeeper?” Mama asks.
My father shrugs. “The grass is cut.” He turns to me. “Are you excited about your new school?”
“No,” I answer between spoonfuls of cereal.
“Why not? It’s a top-tier private school. They’re Presbyterian.”
“What’s ‘Presbyterian’?” I wonder aloud. “Are they like Catholics?”
My mother answers with a smile. “No. They do worship Jesus Christ, but they’re not as strict.”
“Oh, okay,” I acknowledge with satisfaction. “I hate strict rules.”
“Me too, Beloved,” Daddy agrees. “Me too.”
Mama gives my father a look. “Anyway, Sugar, I’m sure you’ll make lots of new friends there. Your daddy’s going to go there tomorrow to pick up your uniform.”
I stop eating. “Uniform?”
My father gloats, “Yep, you’re going to a uniform school.”
“But you said they weren’t strict,” I whine.
“I said they weren’t as strict as Catholics,” my mother explains. “They still have rules. It’s for your own good, so the other girls won’t make fun of your clothes. Do you remember Cathy and Keisha?”
I lower my head as I remember the troublemakers from my old school. I concede, “Okay, Mama.”
After breakfast, I walk around outside the house. My parents are still trying to unpack everything. I wander around the front yard looking at the greenery. Blue flowers seem to be everywhere here. They’re not violets. I can’t help but wonder what they are, especially since they’re blooming in August.
I shrug my shoulders. Daddy said global warming is making the plants act weird. I smell one of the flowers near the porch. It’s sweet and familiar, like my dream. A song pops into my head.
“You got the right stuff, Ba-baay!” I sing. “Girl, you really turn me on.” I trot towards the driveway.
A cool breeze blows along the driveway. The flowers in the bushes nearby dance in the passing wind. As I’m watching them, one of the flowers seems to turn towards me. It closes and then opens again, like an eye blink. I close my own eyes. I open them again and all the flowers are blowing in the same direction again.
“Stress,” I declare, “I’m under too much stress.”
I head back towards the front porch. Apparently, my mind is having trouble adjusting to this whole “school uniform” idea. The cure for stress, my mother says, is relaxation. There’s gonna be a lot of TV-watching before I’m ready for school.
When I get to the house, a squirrel scurries onto the porch. It stops to look at me and sets something down in front of me: another blue flower. Then the squirrel just sits there, staring at me.
I’m not going to run away screaming. That would be giving in to stress, so I take in a deep breath and close my eyes. I exhale as I open them.
The squirrel is still there.
“You’re weird,” I tell the squirrel. “Stop being weird.”
It cocks its head to the side.
I point to myself. “I’m not the one being weird.” I point at the squirrel. “You’re the one being weird, and the weirdest part of all is that blue isn’t even my favorite color. It’s purple.”
The squirrel scampers off and I kick the flower off the porch. Once inside, I sit down in front of the TV. I have a lot of stress to relieve. After a full day of mental relaxation, I kiss my parents good night. My father takes me to my room and reads me a story. The mural behaves and its glow helps me to fall asleep again in this big, new house.