Every morning, I would hear my mother tell me to eat breakfast, then I would hear her say, “Calla! Bite your way through!” No reason. Just the way myGrandma used to say.
I’d been eating breakfast from morning until night. It was a tradition. I ate it mainly because I enjoyed it. Besides, this is the time when I would find out what was for dinner. And if you knew my mother, you would already know, by this point, she doesn’t like to eat.
The doorbell rings. It’s lunchtime. I let them come to the door, ready to be greeted by a brown-skinned greeted by a granny in aitans-style apron. She has a compact kitchen with a gas fired pizza oven, thick bottom oven to cook the pizza, a salamander to handle the acids, and a large steam table for the pasta. We sat down.
“Here’s your food,” she’d say, handing me a bread bowl.
I’d ace it off with my best Caesar salad ever.
And I’d have him bring me a cup of water.
At that point, I graduate. I became a writer. I fell out of a building. My life was in a big hole in the ground. But I’ll never forget this day. I was having a drink with some friends. And I looked around. I saw this beautiful woman. She was reading a book as usual, but her eyes were filled with something dark and mysterious. It was a man, and he was writing something on a computer.
“Are you finished yet?” she asked.
“Yes, I think I’ll finish,” I replied.
She took a sip of water, and her eyes returned to normal. But something in her hand felt funny. She’d taken this drink too far.
“There is something wrong with this water,” she said.
We sat in the office that day for coffee. I pestered her with questions about why she made the water taste so funny and how it affected the taste of the food. But she wouldn’t tell me. She was too embarrassed. But I knew she didn’t think anything was wrong with it.
That night I found myself thinking about water, or what it is made of. That day was the third time I had a really bad dream. And in my dream, water had nothing to do with it.
In my dream, I was a lonely, scared little boy, staying in a strange hotel room for the first time. The only thing that could make me calm down was the light of nature. And in that strange hotel room that was providing a host for my anxiety was — a beautiful, whimsical little watercolored cupid-shaped cupcake.
Of course, in the waking world I would have to find a way to get my water back. I would have to brave the scary levels of water in my dream or face the facts of life: Being hungry doesn’t get any easier. But I would have the answer to my problem, in a way. And that was a much better option than facing depression, knowing that I would never get my water back.
My dream that I would find a way to get my water back is kind of sad. In it, my parents are gone for a week, and I am a little boy, still claiming to be a little boy, who has to face the world. But that dream can be proven a little more likely.
I did have a little brother. Of course, he wasn’t always a happy child. In fact, he was anything but a happy child. But look what he turned out to be. A wonderful, smart, considerate child. Very considerate, and smart enough to be able to understand and solve his big sister’s big sister’s problems, which were wide and varied.
He is fifteen years old now, and though he still sometimes acts like a kid, there are times when he sounds more like a young man. At fifteen, he was able to understand and solve her problems, which were mostly relating to her not being able to use her middle name.
“Her middle name is Waterom,” he would say.
“What?” I would ask.
“Her middle name is Waterom.”
“Oh, that’s so cool,” I would say.
“Yes, I’ve heard that before.”
“?But you never told me that,” I pointed out.”
“Yes, I’ve always heard that,” he said.
“?Since before you were born you’ve always known,” she said.
“?Since before you were born,” she said again, “there was this big thing inside of you that was very special.”
“?Yikes,” I said.
