Dreamer (With a Happy Ending)
an excerpt

Arriving home she is grateful, having slept so fitfully the night before. Her boss had even commented on the dark circles beneath her eyes and she herself felt as if she hadn't actually slept. Well, she thinks, that is what she gets for falling asleep on the floor. She parks her car and gets out, only to pause in closing the door and stare at her one window, the living room one, which faces the street. Her light is on. But her light could not be on. She never forgets to turn her lights off. Perhaps she had forgotten? It happened to everyone. With this she tries to reassure herself, even though she knows, knows, that she does not forget such things. It is as integral a part of her routine as systematically locking every single lock on her door in the mornings and evenings. But even these, she soon finds, are not all locked.
She takes a few steadying breaths after finding two of them unlocked. Her hand on the doorknob, she briefly considers her options; either she's going crazy and really did forget to turn off not only her light but also forget to lock her door completely, or there is someone in there right now. A burglar... or a murderer. She slides the pepper spray out of her purse and readies it in one hand while turning the knob of the door with the other. Slowly, the door billows inwards, revealing first the plain white wall of the immediate entranceway, then the white tiles, then the white carpet a few feet beyond, her other pair of white boots, the living room with the bleached furniture she had slowly collected from the sides of the road over the past year, and her mother standing on the other side of the door, her arms crossed and a frown plastered on her heavily made up face.
“Ah...! Mom...?”
Her finger slips off the top of the pepper spray container, but her arm still holds it at the level of her mother's face.
“Rebbecca!” cries her mother, arms still crossed. “Where have you been? Weren't you expecting us?”
“Us?” mimics Becky and looks around her mother to see her father sitting complacently in the white armchair. That particular piece of furniture had been an accomplishment, taking quite a bit of bleach to remove the various grey and red stains from its surface, to such an extent that the noxious fumes had led her neighbors to complain to her landlord, which caused her to be place on probation for two months. But that was another time and, if one believed the theories put forth by modern physics, another place.
“Well, yes dear, it's been weeks since we've heard from you, let alone seen you,” says her mother. “Why don't you ever call? Why don't you ever answer our calls? I am your mother, you know, and I'm not to be shut out from your life!”
“I've been... busy, mother,” says Becky half-heartedly. She pushes her way through the door and is especially careful in relocking each lock. “How exactly did you get in here?”
“Your landlord let us in.”
Becky finishes with the last lock and turns her full attention to her mother, her mind racing from the single key her landlord possesses for her door to the door of the spare room and the gingerbread bed. She takes a step to the side under the pretense of hanging up her coat and chances a glance that way, but the door is safely shut with no signs of tampering. She takes off her shoes and brushes off the bottoms, placing them carefully side by side before turning back to her mother. Her eyes fall to her mother's boots, which are still on, and the faint traces of snow and grim on her carpet. She winces but attempts a smile when her gaze reaches her mother's face again.
“So aren't you going to give your mother a hug?” asks her mother, finally un-crossing her arms.
Becky stifles the interrogation she was preparing as to how exactly her mother had gotten into her apartment, deciding she likely doesn't know herself, and gives her mom a stiff hug.
“Now, what about some tea,” says her mother vaguely, turning from Becky to enter the kitchen with her boots still on.
Her daughter winces again but manages to restrain herself from yanking the boots off of her own mother by thinking of how she'll simply wipe it up later, no problem, no mess. There's nothing too stubborn for bleach. She takes her own place on the white sofa, her knees pressed carefully together, one eye on her mother busying herself with heating the water in the kitchen and another on her father. Mr. Confer casts a smile as blank as his mind at her, his wispy white hair carefully combed over the top of his equally pale head by his wife. He stares around the room with increasing interest, as if he has never been there before. And he might as well never have been, considering how his mind holds about as much thought as a sieve does water. Becky is always pleasantly surprised when he remembers her name, considering how often he remembers his own.
“Would you like a cup of tea, George?”
Mr. Confer looks confused for a few moments before remembering that his name is George and answering in a feeble voice, “no thank you, I don't think I like tea very much.”
“Yes you do, George, and you'll have a cup, too,” retorts her mother.
“Okay. I'll have two, then.” He smiles at Becky again. “She sure knows how I like my tea, Eleanor does.”
“Yeah, she does,” says Becky noncommittally.