Living Without Dreams

Chapter 8 - Finances, Furniture and Religion

The Abernathy family arrived at Richard and Marion's beach house following their pizza dinner at the farmhouse shortly after eight that evening. Susan took Jessie and Zackary directly the guest house to get them ready for bed, while Greg went up to the main house to visit with their hosts. Anticipating another early day the next morning, Susan dressed for bed too; then pulling her robe on over her nightclothes, she went looking for Greg.

"What are you doing out here?" Susan asked as she found him standing in the chilly night air, leaning up against the rail of the lower balcony alone, staring out at the blackness offered by the ocean at night. In the distance, lights could be seen on the horizon as ships coming and going from the Los Angeles harbor passed by, and along the shoreline, the lights of the city rimmed the shore, defining where the land ended and the water began.

"Praying," he told her. "And thinking."

Susan nodded. Thinking she'd interrupted him, she turned to go back inside.

"Please stay," Greg said.

"Are you sure? I know you need to pray," Susan said.

"I do. But you do too, and I need you ... so stay with me?" he asked.

"I'd love to," Susan assured him and she came to stand by his side, wrapping an arm around his waist. "So what are you thinking about, Greg?"

"My conversation with David today," Greg told her truthfully.

"Why? What did he say?"

"David said very little. He instead asked me for an account of my ... our experiences beginning with this past April," he said.

"Beginning with your vision," Susan guessed.

"Beginning before then," Greg said. "He was particularly interested in the change in our patterns of dreaming since we married; in our honeymoon and the fact we chose to take it at the mission; and the timing around our being there and Karen going into labor."

"With me delivering her child," Susan realized.

"Yes," Greg confirmed.

"I suppose David feels those things are significant?"

"I am certain he does. He asked me a great number of questions about the events surrounding Peter's birth. I believe if you were willing, he would like to ask you about it too," Greg told her.

Susan studied her husband. "Perhaps I will sometime, but not until things get back to normal," she said.

"Susan, we are in a completely new place, with extra people who are a part of our daily lives. I doubt things will ever go back to what we considered to be normal before we got here, ever again," Greg reminded her.

"Maybe not everything will ... but some things should become more that way, eventually," Susan said. "I was thinking about the baby we lost ... how I want to feel normal physically again so I can turn my attention to why this whole thing has bothered me the way it has. I think I need to understand those feelings in myself before I'll be ready to talk to somebody else."

"Not necessarily," Greg told her. "It bothers you because we lost a child ... a life given to us by God. I would expect it should bother you; for quite a while. You shouldn't feel you have to have resolved those feelings within yourself before you can share them with others."

But Susan considered what he was saying and shook her head.

"No? Do you disagree with some part of what I just said?"

"Not really ... but that's not exactly what I meant," Susan said. "I do feel all those things you mentioned ... and you are right about all of it ... but this child Greg ... your child. I ..." Susan's voice faltered and she stopped talking. Greg glanced at his wife where she stood at his side and saw she'd set her jaw against the tears. "I can't talk about it with anyone else ... not yet," she choked out when she could.