A borrowed dream

He woke late in the morning, numb in body and soul. The fire had gone out sometime in the night. Looking out the window he saw a thick white blanket covering everything in sight, the first real snowfall of the winter. He put on his coat and walked outside to the wood pile. Gathering an armful, he walked back into his frigid cabin and began working on rebuilding his dead fire.

As the wood caught, he began to think about spring and the time he spent gathering the wood he was burning. He and Susie had just arrived at the cabin they had inherited from her uncle. Her uncle was a lonely man after the death of his wife, and she had often exchanged letters with him. He was a poet, and had several of his poems about southern Wyoming published in collections about the west. He had died while walking in the woods, and was found by a neighbor a few days later. Susie took the news of his death very hard.

It was no surprise when the lawyer arrived to read her uncle's will. In addition to several thousand dollars and the deed to his property, there was a letter with advice on running the ranch, surviving the Wyoming winters, and everything he knew about happiness and marriage. With some of the money he left, they bought train passage west to Laramie and a wagon loaded with the things they needed to start their new life. There was enough money that they didn't have to struggle to live, and could take their time adjusting to their new lfie.

The fire, though it warmed his body, didn't seem to take the chill from the cabin or the pain from his body. He put some water on for tea, Sue had always preferred tea to coffee, and took the tea pot, a cup, and a saucer from the cupboard. The tea set had been a wedding gift from her mother. Sue would pull it out on the infrequent occasions they had company.

Over the summer she had made friends with a woman and her two daughters. They lived about 10 miles away and visited whenever work on their farm would allow. When they would come over, Sue would bake a cake and set the table for tea. For hours they would sit and talk about cooking, kids, and what it took to make a comfortable home, so far from the cities they grew up in. She would still be smiling a week later, reorganizing the kitchen or cooking something new.

He threw on his coat again and went back outside. The snow was falling faster and had nearly filled his boot prints. He wasn't sure how long he had been inside. In the small shed by the woodpile he took out a mattock and a spade. He walked to the stand of aspen trees where Sue used to read, and stopped, lost in memory.

In September, she had asked him to walk with her and have a picnic. As they wandered through the aspen, leaves having already turned their golden yellow, a breeze started the leaves shaking. She had been reading about the aspen trees. The bark could be used for medicine or added to flour to make bread. The sap was edible and sweet. About how they shared a root system and were all part of the whole.

She told him how she wanted their family to be like those trees. Useful, beautiful, and each new life a small part of a greater whole. She told him that she was expecting their first child. He cried and she held him. They made love under the trees. Afterward, they lay there and talked about the future. How many children they wanted. Adding a room to the cabin. How beautiful everything was and always would be.

He started by clearing the snow from the ground. He used the mattock to outline a space, two feet by six feet, and broke the frozen top layer of dirt loose, shoveling it into a pile with the spade. After a few minutes, he began to sweat and shake. Whether it was from the exertion or the sickness, he wasn't sure. When he couldn't swing the mattoc anymore, he walked back to the cabin.

Sitting by the fire, he wept with frustration and pain. He knew he didn't have the strength to go back outside. He wasn't sure that he had the strength to do anything at all anymore. He warmed the tea that was left in the pot in a kettle on the stove, poured another cup, and sat on a chair next to the bed he shared with his wife.

Sue had spent nearly two weeks in November at their neighbor's house. For him it felt like a lifetime. He spent his free time laying out and building the addition to the cabin, in anticipation of their child in the spring. He visited once. She was staying busy caring for the two little girls, keeping house, and nursing her friend, who was in bed with a fever. When she finally returned home, she was brimming with joy. Mothering those girls had renewed her excitement about their budding family. He surprised her with the progress made on the addition and they spent the night dreaming about the future.

About a week after she came home, she didnt get out of bed. For two days he sat by her while she writhed in pain, leaving only to check on the livestock. She was so ill that he didn't dare leave her long enough to get help. On the third afternoon, after milking their cow, he found her dead. That night it started to snow.

He got up from his chair and tidied the home they had spent half a year of happy marriage in. He washed and put away the teapot and his cup. He swept the floors and tidied the bed as best he could with Sue still lying in it. He brushed her hair. She looked beautiful, if cold, lying in the bed they used to share. When his heart couldn't take it anymore, he went to the fire, burning hot now, and moved the burning pieces of wood about the cabin. He stood in the doorway until the furniture and the curtains caught fire. The smoke brought tears to his eyes, but didn't account for the pain in his chest. When he couldn't take it anymore he walked out the door.

He sat in the snow by the woodpile to watch the cabin burn. He was happy here for a time, but it was always someone else's dream. Perhaps he could have made something of it if it was his own, but winter had come and he didn't have the heart to try.

One day somebody would come to this place, wonder what happened to the people who used to live here, and on top of the ruins, build a dream of their own. Contented, he closed his eyes. He dreamed of Susan. He dreamed of the aspen in the fall. He marveled at the fact that they had dared to dream at all. The snow began to fall again.