Waltz of Her Life

"No honey, not at all. Hayley had more fun eating pizza and playing all those games anyway. Besides, it was cheaper."

He moved his hands down to her shoulders, which always caused her muscles to melt and her eyes to close. "What were you and your mother talking about?"

She shrugged. "Oh, nothing. The usual."

"Really? Well you were talking really softly, like you were trying to make sure I couldn't overhear anything."

She'd read in a magazine that guys usually couldn't divvy up their attention like that. They were usually focused on tasks at hand. It amazed her that her husband could do this. Still, she didn't think she could tell him the real reason she'd called her mother that night. "It was pregnancy stuff. Girl talk. I kept my voice down because I didn't think you'd appreciate hearing it."

"Okay," he said "But you know you can talk to me about anything, don't you?"

"Yes, I know."

Soon he finished his massage, kissed her good night and headed upstairs to get to sleep himself. Linda turned out the light, slipped beneath the covers of the daybed and lie flat on her back, propped up by pillows, wide awake. She wondered how long it had been since she'd been lucid. Had it happened at all while she'd been married? She'd thought not. The last time occurred when she still lived in the row house on the hill. It was like riding a bike, though, something she could never forget. It would help if she had the mask with the lights.

Maybe she could get lucid without them. She closed her eyes and sighed.