The Bleeding Season by Greg F. Gifune Read Free Book Online Page B

would be all right.  The dream Mom had was essentially the same.  He came to her, they talked, he promised he was fine and everything was going to be OK.  It’s the same with you and Donald.  You were both close to Bernard, you both dreamed of him in very similar ways, as if he were contacting you.  It’s not an uncommon occurrence at all.  People dream of loved ones after they die all the time, particularly soon after death.”
    “This isn’t the same thing, this—”
    “Have you spoken to Rick about it?”
    “No, not about this specifically, but I doubt—”
    “Maybe the dreams people have—yours included—really are those who have died making contact.  Was it really my father who came to me in that dream?  I’d like to think so—it’s comforting—and I believe in an afterlife, so assuming that’s true, why would a visitation through dreams be outside the realm of possibility?  It wouldn’t.”  She smiled.  “Maybe that was the only way Bernard could say goodbye.”
    “Fine.  Then if that’s true why couldn’t we have had the same dream?”
    “Essentially, you did.”
    “Not essentially .”
    Toni smiled.  “Alan, first of all Donald’s account is unreliable because of his condition.  When someone drinks the way he does you can’t—”
    “It’s not like I told him about my dream and in some drunken stupor he claimed to have had the same one.  I never even brought it up.  Donald told me  about the nightmare first—and before I said anything he already knew I’d had the same one.”
    “OK, then what did he say when he described the nightmare?  What were his exact words?”
    I stared at her; already aware of the direction in which her questions were headed, and suddenly skeptical of my own certainty.  “He mentioned a few particulars that sounded exactly the same as my dream,” I said, “but I didn’t question him on every little detail.”
    “Well, there you go.”  She raised her hands, palms up, then let them fall and slap against the outside of her thighs.  “You both had a dream where Bernard came to visit you.  In both, he wasn’t alone.  In both, he had come to say goodbye, and in Donald’s he said he had gone to see you.  Is that the size of it or did I leave something out from what you’ve told me?”
    “No,” I sighed, “that’s it.”
    “Just like lots of other people, you had similar dreams. Similar , Alan, not identical—and I’m not saying that isn’t sometimes a little unsettling in itself—but there’s nothing unique or even unusual about it.”  She returned to the counter to fuss with the salad.  “Besides, when you two discussed this Donald was blasted out of his mind.  Add to that the fact that you’re exhausted and haven’t slept or eaten and the two of you are still dealing with the shock and stress and emotional turmoil of the death of someone you loved, and you’ve got a situation that would almost certainly blur your sense of what’s real—or more importantly, accurate —and what isn’t.”
    “You’re—yeah, I guess you’re right.  It’s just…”  I shook my head both in confusion and in the hopes of clearing it a bit.  “Neither of us had a good feeling about it.  It wasn’t like a nice, reassuring dream.  This was a nightmare.”
    “Well if one of your best friends was dead in it, of course it’s a nightmare, sweetie.”
    “That’s not what I mean.”  I was wringing my hands without even realizing it; my palms had again begun to perspire.  “There was a darkness to it, a sense of—I know this sounds silly, but—a sense of evil  to it.  It was like Bernard was going to Hell.”
    Toni covered the salad with plastic foil and slid it into the refrigerator.  “Honey, Bernard committed suicide, and it was a total shock to you guys.  What’s worse, he didn’t even leave a note explaining or maybe shedding some light on why he did it.  It’s a horrible and hideous and painful thing.”  She