Song: "Tears In Heaven" by Eric Clapton

* * * * *

One thing often occupied my brain and that was Harry's keepsake box. In the dream, Cathryn said it was hers and that I should return it, but Harry said it was both of theirs. How would I return it to a dead person anyway?

My first day back at work after the New Year, before Harry had gotten the offer on his house and moved in with me, I had scoured the shelves in the third floor stacks, hoping to find some kind of explanation for Cathryn's dream message about having left the lotus box there. I found nothing, obviously. Of course, after Harry moved in and I found the box with his belongings, I finally decided that I must have seen the box somewhere in his house and not made a conscious note of it and that was why it appeared in my dreams. The idea of Cathryn sending me an email, for heaven's sake, bordered on ludicrous.

The Sunday after Harry moved in, we informed both sets of parents of our new living arrangements. Harry's parents were thrilled, albeit understandably cautious. My parents were outright floored, considering I was usually the most level-headed in our family, but my whole whirlwind relationship with Harry had taken everyone by surprise, even me. Ultimately they gave us their respective blessings and told us to let them know if we needed anything. We reiterated that Harry's parents were more than welcome to stay at my place when they came for Harry's birthday since we had the sofa sleeper, but they said they would give it some thought and let us know.

As I laid out my clothes for the following work day and started to get ready for bed, Harry launched another surprise at me. "So, I'm going to start working on something."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Like a job," he answered casually.

I looked up and screamed happily. "You got a job!? When? Where?" I jumped on his lap and kissed him.

"Will you trust me if I tell you I can't share a lot of the details yet? I don't want you to think I'm keeping something from you. I just want to wait to tell you about it in more detail. Later. I promise."

That sounded odd, but I decided it wasn't a big deal, as long as he was happy with what he was doing. "Okay, just don't keep me in the dark too long. I'm excited to know what it is."

"I'll tell you more about it when the time is right," he assured me. "And one more thing. I'm going to finish law school in the fall. What my stepdad said made sense - I've already come so far, I might as well get the degree."

"Will you have to pay for it, though?" I asked, pushing him back on the bed because I felt like I was going to fall off his lap. I climbed on again, facing him and listening intently. Harry looped his arms around my back to keep me balanced.

"No, it's a done deal. I spoke with Mr. Metler again and he said it was already paid for. He also bought me some time on the finish date because I've been away for so long. It was really good of him to do that for me. I owe him that much at least."

"Just so you're not doing it only because you owe him. You should be doing it for yourself," I said.

"I am," he assured me. "I am, really. It's an exceptional opportunity and I realized that I would be foolish to walk away from it."

"Okay, I trust you," I said, kissing him squarely on his beautiful mouth. "And I'm proud of you."

Harry and I fell into a comfortable routine in just a few days' time. He was out most of the day while I was at work, but he was usually home by the time I was, so I assumed his job kept approximately the same hours. I was continually curious about what kind of job would have to be kept a secret and I spent considerable time racking my brain to come up with possibilities. I couldn't figure it out, so I kept reminding myself to be patient and he would tell me, as he said, "when the time was right."

It was odd but I looked forward to seeing Harry after work now more than I ever had, even though I had come home to him numerous times before. It was simply more exciting now that it was "official." The second weekend in our shared space, we were both excited that Friday had come so we could look forward to the weekend together. We planned to get a few groceries in the morning and then tuck in for the weekend, just like we did in our earlier days together.

Now that we no longer had occasion to stay at Harry's, I hadn't had anymore Cathryn dreams. Until that night.

I woke up feeling agitated again by the thought of that lotus flower box. How did I know about it before? I couldn't accept that Harry's late wife had told me about it in a dream, that was just too bizarre. Even so, why was she asking me to find it and return it to her? I had nothing to do with it and it wasn't mine to "give back" to anyone.

I tossed and turned, playing out the various possibilities in my head. I had convinced myself that I must have seen the box at Harry's place before we packed all his things and moved; even if I didn't remember seeing it, my subconscious could have grasped onto it and wove it into a dream. I'd considered that possibility so many times before, but the dream still haunted me.

I tried burrowing further into Harry's embrace to calm my racing heart and mind, but it didn't help at all. I decided to get up and have something simple to eat and maybe do a little bit of reading to relax and distract myself. I got a cup of yogurt and grabbed a novel that had been lying on an end table collecting dust for far too long. I couldn't even remember where I had left off. I had just decided to start again from the beginning and skim over it until I refreshed my memory, but I never started because I heard a voice.

Her voice.

"Regan."

I looked up and saw Cathryn standing there, wearing that same purple gown, only now it seemed more gossamer, ethereal, a fabric which I couldn't identify.

"Hello," I choked out a whispered greeting. "Are you angry?" I was referring to the fact that Harry now lived with me; in fact, it felt odd that she would be in my own home as I'd only had experiences of her in what was once their shared house.

"No," she chuckled, a sound which reminded me of Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. "I'm not mad. Harry needs you and I know you love him."

"Okay," I whispered again.

"He has the round gate. Tell him to give it back."

"Wha-? I, I don't know what that is," I told her.

"He does." With that obscure message, she faded away.

I yelled out after her, wanting to talk with her more, wanting to know more about her now that I knew she approved of me. Instead, I shouted into the darkness of my room, sitting up in shock at my own voice reverberating loudly against the walls.

"Oh, my god," I said, clasping my hand to my racing  heart.

Harry turned on the bedside light, clearly startled by my outburst. "Regan, sweetie, you okay?"

I was breathing fast, trying to slow it down. "Yes, I'm fine. I just had a dream."

He rubbed my back and said, "Tell me about it." It wasn't a question.

"Harry, I'm all right. You need to sleep. Don't worry about me."

"Regan," he said, now sitting up. "You were yelling Cathryn's name. I want to know what your dream was about."

I sighed and said, "Fine. I'll just warn you that you might think I'm crazy."

We turned slightly to face each other. He pushed my hair back out of my eyes and said, "Most dreams are crazy." He gave me an assuring little half-smile, coaxing me to continue.

"Well, I should first tell you about the other ones I've had."

"Okay," he agreed.

"That first night I slept at your place, after our fight, I had a dream." He nodded, encouraging me to go on. "Or...this is the part that might sound crazy, but I'm not sure it was a dream. I had gotten up to get a drink and I...uh...saw Cathryn in the kitchen. She talked to me."

"What did she say?" Harry asked. He seemed too calm for the fact that I just told him his dead wife spoke to me.

"She wanted me to tell you it was time to go. I was afraid to tell you because, well, I wasn't sure if it was a dream and I didn't think it would make sense. But I also worried that maybe it really meant something, like you should go...away from me." A few stray tears trickled down my cheek.

"Oh, sweetie," Harry cooed, tugging me closer to him. Together, we moved to sit up against the headboard and he drew me into his embrace. "Cathryn would love you. I know she would. But I think that was just a dream because I remember you waking up next to me and saying you had a nightmare."

"Yeah," I whispered. "But then the last night we were at your place, I dreamed that she sent me an email. Remember when I asked if she took your name, and you told me that she hyphenated it?"

"Mhm."

"I had been preparing things for the book dedication just using the name Cathryn Styles but she signed the email in the dream Cathryn Metler-Styles. So it was kind of weird when you told me that she hyphenated her name."

"I agree, that's a little weird, but you saw the state of my house when we first started, Regan. There's a very good chance that you saw a piece of mail addressed to her or something like that, and it just didn't register in your conscious mind when you were doing the book dedication."

"That's true," I said, feeling lighter as I verbalized the unusual content of my dreams. "Anyway, in the email, she asked me to find the lotus box and return it to her." It felt like Harry flinched when I said that, so I asked, "Does that mean something to you?"

"No, sweetie, like I said, it was ours. We bought it together. I have to admit that it's a little strange that she specifically mentioned the box. Maybe you're just curious about what's in the box," he suggested. "If it really bothers you, I can show you."

"I don't know," I sighed. "But she also said that the round gate was in the box. And that doesn't make sense at all, does it? How would that tiny box contain a gate of any kind, right?"

"Right," he answered dryly. If I didn't know better, it seemed like he became physically uncomfortable just then, his body stiffening slightly when I mentioned the round gate. But I was still on edge from the dream, so I wasn't necessarily relaxed myself.

"So I figured that I must have seen that box at your house somewhere too, that's why it even came up in the dream." I paused for Harry to verify that, but he just hummed in response. "Now, this dream I just had - it was so real. I had gotten up to get something to eat, or at least I thought I had. I sat down on the couch and I was going to start reading a book I hadn't picked up in forever."

"And?" His voice sounded hoarse now.

"She was here....I asked if she was angry that I was with you and she said no, that you needed me, and..." I had no idea I was getting emotional until the tears came streaming out and I was sobbing. "She said you needed me and that she knew I loved you."

Harry tightened his grip around my shoulder and wrapped his other arm around from the side. He kissed my head and shushed me, rocking me lightly to help me to calm down. Finally, I was able to finish. "She told me that you have the round gate and that you should give it back."

He didn't respond at all to that last part of the dream, and he didn't loosen his hold for a long time, yet I felt something was off in his reaction. "Do you have any idea what any of that means?"

"I don't really know, my sweet." He sounded sincere, but not quite like himself. Why, I had no idea. 

"I know this is silly but will you come out to the living room with me, just to prove it was only a dream?" 

"How will you prove that?"

"I was eating a Yoplait strawberry-banana yogurt and I was going to start reading The Girl on the Train again. I started it months ago, but it's been sitting on the end table collecting dust."

"All right, let's go," he smiled warmly, once again proving that he didn't think I was crazy.

I flipped on the light switch and found no evidence of my yogurt on the coffee table, and the book was still splayed open on the end table with a visible layer of dust settled on top. "Well, I guess it was just a dream," I said, sighing in relief.

"Of course it was," he chuckled. "There are no such things as ghosts." He walked past me to the fridge and looked inside just to placate me. "Besides, there's no yogurt, remember? We were going to pick some more up when we went grocery shopping." 

"Right." I sighed again. "I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry, my sweet. I can understand that you feel like you're living in Cathryn's shadow or that you have to somehow live up to her memory, but you don't. I honestly think this has all been in your head, but I think now that it's all coming out, you probably won't have silly dreams like that anymore." He stood in front of me, our chests almost touching, and he took my face in his hands. "Please believe me when I say that Cathryn would very much approve, and  wherever she is, she knows how much I love you. And I know how much I love you and that is very much." 

I giggled at his adorable affirmation of love for me. "I love you, too, Harry. And thank you for listening to me."

We went back to bed and I drifted to sleep easily this time, enclosed in Harry's arms. I couldn't say the same for Harry, however. It seemed to me that he didn't sleep much the rest of the night.

* * * * *

More clues! Are you getting curious?

Don't forget, the story is drawing to a close and I'm already racking my brain for new story ideas after this one :D