I am in a hillside town, old and with historical buildings all around. There are vacant lots with trees, there are schools and museums and alleys winding through and between buildings. Leaving my friend at her campsite, I promise to return for dinner and overnight, then make my way downhill to where my family stays. On the way, I pass through a high school, the students are welcoming and friendly, hip and mellow kids. Showing one of them my broken Swiss Army knife, I advise him to stay away from the cheap models of this brand. I feel the warmth of carnal interest from him, and I feel close to him for a moment. He has a girlfriend to go find, and I head on, down the hill.
My phone rings, and it's my youngest sister, choking out the news that Mom has had a heart attack. She is in the hospital. My sister is overwrought, and can't or won't tell me what the prognosis is, or mother's condition. I become angry, my old default state of being, and hang up on her, heading home fast. An old family friend is there with my siblings. They fill me in on Mom's condition. If she survives she will have to wear some kind of device on her leg, changed daily, to regulate her blood consistency. The family friend reminds us that he wears one. I think of the stent in my own heart and that it rarely bothers me. (Even in my dream, I know I have no such thing) My siblings disdain me, my anger puts everyone off, and I am sad that I've been relegated to the status of my childhood, that my anger is all anyone validates or sees in me. Everyone is disappointed in me, and looks at me with trepidation and tsk-tsking. My youngest sister is not there.
Heading back up hill to the hospital, I cannot find my camping friend, who in waking life is the best friend I have. I call the hospital on the phone, no one will talk to me about my mother, and she can't speak on the phone. I know that she is going to die, and want very much to get there before she does. I am distressed at how my family perceives me, that my anger is all that defines me for them, that the rumor of it has reached people ahead of me. I try to get to my friend who is camping, but no luck. I locate the area of her campground, in a long dark hall with pillars and shadows, but she is not there.
I come to the house where the young man I met before lives with his family. Now, my siblings are traveling with me, we're all in the yard. It's Christmas, or some other family-gathering holiday, and the young man sits on the far side of the living room, half his face shaved. A relative speaks to me out the window, speaks to me about my mother, and about pain. I feel sadness at my anger, at my expected disruption of the family unit. I am the one to be upset with, my anger is the issue. I know that my mother will die, and that's all I care about, but somehow I can't get to the hospital. I know she will be dead before I get there.
I awake to remember that she is dead, took her own life back in January. I am angry.