“When dreams finally descend,” Lilly said, “we wake up.”
“That’s probably true,” Henry said, laughing.
It was a hot day, a day that would require lots of water. I remember mountains a half-day’s walk in the distance. He said he was going to them and that we would maybe see him again in a two or three months. We’d just let him off, an hour’s ride out into the desert.
“I’ll follow them north,” he’d said.
We spoke little on the way. Henry watched the flat land pass. He watched the clouds. When Lilly spoke, she whispered. She whispered, “What do you think the cat’s doing? Do you think she’s sleeping?”
I felt the road beneath the accelerator pedal, the staccato thrump, thrump, thrump of cattle guards, pebbles under the tires.
I whispered a response: “Probably sleeping.”
Henry appeared at the house a few weeks before this drive. He had a big pack and a weathered book in his hand. Over dinners we talked about French films and Mexico and, of course, dreams, which is Lilly’s research. We said that we should see each other more. He took allergy pills and repaired his sandals on the porch. Small red ants walked on his hands while he restitched the straps and hammered on new rubber soles. Lilly watched him work. She watched the ants. When he was ready to leave he told us so. He asked would I drive him and drop him off in the desert near the mountains and that he knew exactly where.
“This is good. This is the place,” he said. I eased off the accelerator and slowed to the shoulder. Lilly, Henry, and I got out of the car. I opened the trunk. Henry pulled the pack out and put it on, smiling with the labor of it. He said, “Thanks.” Then he started off toward the mountains in the distance. He stopped, turned and waved, and Lilly and I waved back.
We drove home without words. Maybe Lilly was imagining the cat. Lilly might’ve been wondering if cats dream when they sleep. Do they watch themselves in their dreams, if they do dream? But I suspect another possibility. Something in her might’ve been wishing she was Henry, a wish we might’ve shared on the drive home. While the cat slept.
