This morning before sunrise as gaps of light turned charcoal pewter and deep gray, I wiggled my fingers against sheets cooling as Jerry's warmth disappeared.

He was having coffee somewhere and I was left with a cold lump in the mattress.

He was up early and half way to Manhattan. I was half way nuts.

The closet gaped from across the room, drenched in shadows where a growing silvery dust bruhed the edges of Things That Made Me Afraid. A wild toothed child infested with daemons from the Scary Movie I Should Have Never Watched was there.

I got up and got Lily.

One minute later after I had a mouthful of her nose tail ear and paws, she was back out in the living room.

I tried Ozzy next. Shuffling him and his snoring back out the door a few minutes later I decided to turn on the closet light and try to sleep another hour.

Looming and invisible was Father Dream with nimble fingers twirling and tugging gently, wrapping my fading consciousness into a skein winding winding and winding. My thread slipped between his fingers.

Dreams. Jerry's daughter does not talk with me much in real life. She says hi if I say hi. She says bye if Jerry tells her, say bye. But as morning quietly nudged against darker remnants of night hiding in corners, Erica sat on my bed where the dogs had been. Propped up on one hand, she talked and jabbed with the other. Her hair was combed out soft and shiny as her lips blurred and eyes swelled with excitement

I woke without hearing anything. What did she say?

Out again, Father Dream was not through. And he was not nice.

I walk into a country home. A tired but cozy cape with lots of natural wood and light. This is my friend Erin's house. Through a large front window I see a yard quelled by autumn. She is upstairs and I arrive in her home unannounced. Her husband turns to me, glasses and a baseball cap, he just looks at me then away.

What am I doing here?

Erin comes down and I apologize.

I'll be leaving, I tell her. I don't mean to barge into your home, I say.

It's OK, Kendra.

Relief. Erin, Your neighbor's dog…then we hear barking and angry young women cross the yard like toy sail boats, hair flying as they pass by the large window and bang on Erin's door.

Erin seems fine, I think. She is fine. Fine and nothing is wrong. But everyone is too quiet and watchful. The sunlight outside somehow stays out there, never making squares and crosses and rectangles of light on her living room floor.

I am late, I say. I have to call the editor.

I skip on a swath of grass separating back stoops from weathered wooden sheds. Searching for Erin's I find it, flanked by a little deck. Calling and ringing and garbled voices: I hear the editor say, You sound like you're calling from the hereafter!

I know, I yell into the phone.

Erin's home and family and daughters and outdoor shed and deck are just specks in a broad, tall grass field in Pennsylvania.

With my bright red new cell phone jammed on my ear I ask the editor if I can be late. I do not know how long it will take to get home. But the phone echoes. He is here. This barn board etched and weathered by rain cold sun and wind is his desk.

I have to tell you my dream, I say. I drive a convertible along a narrow path between hedges. A fox bites me and I can't shake him loose. Are you in the hereafter, he asks again. I am in a cemetery and wildlife is everywhere, swarming the open-topped car.

The hereafter? In dreams I think we see it sometimes.

I was afraid this morning and turned on my closet light. I am a baby.

Returning from work I pass the old farm house on my right near a forgotten field of goldenrod, spiked grasses and ragged asters. A fox hops out. He sees me and darts back toward the field, then changes his mind. He saunters ahead of me, then dips down along shallow ground.