October 10, 2005

"Is Everett in bed yet?" Phil asked, peeking his head into Everett's bedroom. Audrey shook her head. Her son still refused to fall asleep, and Audrey was running out of options. He was in his pajamas and curled up in his brand new bed, but he still wouldn't close his eyes. She had done everything, yet Everett was still staring at the ceiling, wide awake.

"Do you want to try getting him to fall asleep?" Audrey asked, desperate to go to bed herself. She had other things to do that night, and she didn't want to stay up the whole night, especially when she had work the next day. "I've tried everything already."

"I can try," Phil said as he entered the room. "Everett, do you want to hear a bedtime story?" When the little boy nodded, Phil picked out one of Everett's favorites and started to read.

"Mama!" Everett shouted suddenly.

"What is it, Everett?" Audrey asked.

His still limited vocabulary didn't allow him to elaborate, so Phil and Audrey could only guess at what their son wanted. "Maybe he wants you to read the story," Phil said.

"I already read him a story, and he didn't fall asleep," Audrey argued.

"Yeah, but you can do all of the silly voices," Phil said. "I'm thirty seven years old, and even I find that to be supremely entertaining."

"Entertaining isn't what we're looking for when we're trying to get him to sleep!" Audrey exclaimed. It was starting to get late, and Audrey had no real desire to argue with her husband. In fact, the two of them had already agreed to watch a movie later that evening. They just had to get Everett to bed first.

"Maybe you could try rocking him," Phil suggested.

Audrey groaned, but she did give it a try. To her surprise, Everett did finally fall asleep. Once it was obvious that he was in a deep sleep, Audrey placed him onto his bed, tucked him in, and planted a kiss on his forehead. Then, Phil and Audrey left the room and headed into the living room to watch a movie, or more realistically, half of a movie before Phil fell asleep in Audrey's arms.

Audrey had just started the movie when Sylvie ran into the living room. "Sylvie?" she said. "What are you doing out here?"

"Mommy!" Sylvie exclaimed. "I had a bad dream!"

"What happened?" Audrey asked as she held her daughter close to her. Sylvie quickly dissolved into a crying mess, but from what Audrey could deduce, Sylvie's nightmare involved a clown, a killer lamp, and some sort of monster that sounded suspiciously like a raccoon. The whole dream sounded more surreal than scary, but Audrey could see how the dream could terrify a three year old.

"Mommy, how do I make it stop?" Sylvie asked as Audrey handed her a tissue.

"You just have to remember that it isn't real," Audrey said.

"That's hard!" Sylvie complained. "It seemed so real!"

As she looked into her daughter's tear-filled brown eyes, Audrey thought of her own childhood. Like Sylvie, Audrey had been plagued with nightmares as a child, but her grandmother had given her a spider web to catch any evil that floated through the air. It was a tradition: one that Audrey had failed to pass on to her children. Audrey was planning to make a dreamcatcher for Everett - in fact, she had the supplies for it in front of her - but she was ashamed that she had never done the same for Sylvie. Perhaps Sylvie was a little bit old for it, but it was better to do it late than never. It might just help Sylvie ward off her nightmares. "How about this? I'm making a dreamcatcher for Everett, and I'll make one for you too. It's a charm from my tribe, and the web will catch any harm that might be in the air, just like a spider web catches whatever comes into contact with it," Audrey said, quoting her grandmother. "Do you think that would help?"

"Yes, but I want you to tuck me in first," Sylvie said.

"Okay," Audrey said. She followed Sylvie back to her bedroom and tucked her in. Then, while Phil was engrossed in the movie that they were watching, Audrey worked on the dreamcatchers. She took a piece of willow and bent it into a circle, just as she had watched her grandmother do for her thirty years earlier when her first dreamcatcher fell apart. If Audrey was lucky, these dreamcatchers would last a little bit longer than that. Then, she began to stitch.

As Audrey tied the string around the hoop, she thought about how she should have done this much earlier. Why hadn't she realized earlier that her children might need a protective charm? She was sure that her sisters' children had spider webs to protect them. Not only had she failed to do her job as a Chippewa woman, but she was certain that she had failed as a mother.

When she said this to Phil, however, he disagreed. "Audrey, you're a great mother," he said.

"I'm not," Audrey insisted. "I shouldn't have waited this long to make dreamcatchers for my children."

"Audrey, my mother never made a dreamcatcher for me, and I turned out fine," Phil said.

"That's different," Audrey said. "Your family didn't even know what a dreamcatcher was when you were growing up."

"You're right," Phil said. "Those things didn't become trendy until I was a teenager. Anyways, Audrey, you're a wonderful mother. Don't let this get you down. Think of everything that you've done for our children."

"Thanks, Phil," Audrey said, smiling. She finished up her first dreamcatcher and set it aside to begin work on the second one. Phil still hadn't fully convinced her that she hadn't screwed up in some way, but she was feeling a little bit better. Besides, her first dreamcatcher hadn't turned out too badly. It almost looked like the one that Audrey had as a child, with its web-like design and the feather hanging in the middle. Hopefully, she would do as well on the second one.

As the movie continued on, Audrey worked on her second dreamcatcher. She made the second one a little bit larger than the first, but still no larger than her hand, just as she remembered her grandmother doing. Audrey hated that she only had old, faded memories to work off of. If she was a better woman or a better Chippewa, she might have paid more attention to the elder members of her family, but she was trying her best. Audrey concluded that her effort had to count for something.

Audrey finished just as the movie did, and by the time she was done, Phil could barely keep his eyes open. "Phil, do you want to go to bed?" she asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"No, I'm fine," Phil said, despite his heavy eyelids. "As long as you're awake, I'll stay up."

Audrey shrugged and asked, "Can you help me hang these up then?"

"Sure," Phil said. He insisted that he never wanted to miss a moment with Audrey, but she was convinced that one of these days, it would kill him. He had to wake up much earlier than Audrey to get to work on time, and with two small children in the house, sleep was scarce.

Audrey passed him a dreamcatcher and said, "Go hang this one up in Everett's room. I'll put this one in Sylvie's."

"Okay," Phil said as he quietly entered Everett's bedroom. Audrey clasped the other dreamcatcher in her hand and sneaked into Sylvie's room. Phil and Audrey had worked so hard to make the kids' rooms perfect, but it was hard to see it in the dark. When Sylvie was a baby, Phil had wanted to paint a mural on the wall, and although Phil, as an engineer, was excellent at plotting out where the paintings should go, he couldn't paint them himself. Audrey was no artist either, so the two of them enlisted Molly Reinhart, a professional designer, to paint the nursery. The two of them had moved Sylvie out of that room when Everett was born, but Phil, Audrey, and Molly decorated Sylvie's new room in the same bright colors in order to please the little girl. Sylvie, of course, loved the paintings of the animals that she had seen in the local zoo, and Audrey appreciated the art as well. Sylvie and Audrey even had the same favorite animal: the peacock.

Now, Audrey found Sylvie's bedpost and draped a dreamcatcher over it, hoping that it would keep her out of harm's way. Sylvie was still curled up in her bed, completely unaware of what Audrey was doing. She looks so peaceful, Audrey thought. Audrey hated to disturb the moment, so she ducked out of the room and gently closed the door, glad that her daughter was finally sleeping soundly. All Audrey wanted was for her children to be happy, and for now, she had finally succeeded.

She returned to the living room and found Phil lying on the couch, his eyes barely open. "Phil, you look tired," Audrey observed. "You should get some rest."

"I'm not tired," Phil insisted. "Why don't we go out to the lake?"

"That sounds nice, Phil," Audrey said. She put the supplies for the dreamcatchers away and put a light jacket on. Phil did the same, but he looked like he was about to fall asleep. Audrey still didn't think that this was the best idea, but Phil seemed certain that he didn't want to go to bed, even though both of the kids were already asleep. Then, she and Phil went outside.

Audrey smiled as she saw the moon shining on the lake. When she first moved to Clearwater Lake, she was nervous about living several hours away from her family, but the lake here reminded her of home. Seeing the lake in the moonlight reminded her that Chief Lake and Clearwater Lake weren't so different. Her life had changed in so many ways in the last ten years, from leaving her hometown to meeting Phil to having two beautiful children, but there were still a few things that had remained the same.

As the water in the lake glowed softly in the moonlight and small waves crashed into the shore and made Audrey's toes wet, she looked up at the stars. It was harder to stargaze in Clearwater Lake than in her hometown thanks to light pollution, but she could still make out a few constellations. She grinned as she stared up at the stars, and for a moment, she felt small underneath those balls of gas. Who cared what she did in comparison to the matters of the universe? Who cared what kind of mother she was, or what she did or didn't do? The earth itself was no more than a speck of dust, and Audrey's life was not nearly as important and monumental as she often thought. A massive weight fell off of her shoulders as she realized this. Audrey felt free for the first time since she had moved to Clearwater Lake a decade earlier.

At least Audrey had Phil in her tiny, insignificant life. She rested her head on her husband's shoulder and wondered what she would do without him. Soon, her children would grow up, and Phil would be all that Audrey would have left. That thought scared her, but Audrey found comfort knowing that Phil would always be there for her.

"I love you, Audrey," Phil whispered, and those words meant as much to Audrey as they had the first time that Phil had said them.

"I love you too," Audrey responded. She lay on the beach, letting cold sand get into her jacket, finally at peace with the world.