When you're ready, come home

She woke up gasping, tangled in sweaty sheets that felt like the cold kelp from her dream, dragging her down by the ankles. She had been underwater; salt filled her nose, and black waves roared in her ears. She was clawing her way to the surface, and there was no one to hear her silent scream. Then, the darkness shifted and gave way to the soft morning light in her apartment.

Her eyes darted up to the ceiling, then to the nightstand, where the quiet tinkling of her alarm's chimes reminded her she was safe and it was all just a dream. She looked to her left and saw her small mutt of a dog, Herbert, sleeping nestled under her boyfriend's arm. Grant was sleeping, one leg kicked out from under the covers, and an arm laid over her stomach as if he was trying to anchor her to the bed.

She pressed a palm to her cheek and then her chest, feeling the damp sweat and her heart pounding, but it was slowing to a normal pace. The movement woke Herbert, and he gave one sleepy wag of his tail. Leah looked at him and smiled, gently rubbing his head.

"It was all just a dream," she whispered, like he might argue otherwise.

He just sighed and dropped his head back down, nuzzling in for a little more of a morning snooze.

She laid there for a moment and let her eyes adjust to familiar shapes; the bookshelf stacked with all of Grant's Stephen King paperbacks, the guitar in the corner he kept meaning to tune, her church music binder poking out of her bag and reminding her to practice this week's anthem.

She touched her throat without thinking, feeling the dryness, that feeling she'd had for the past six months that her voice was stuck. Locked behind her ribs, and there was an ache she wasn't ready to open and understand.

She quietly slid out of bed, careful not to wake Grant or the pup again. She knew he'd ask her what the dream was about, and she didn't know how to describe it other than that there was water, fear, and that strange hush when you know something is watching. Waiting.

She padded into the kitchen, avoiding the nails in the old pre-war building's floor that the landlord had yet to fix after a water pipe burst two years ago, warping it all. That's New York for ya, she thought as she sidestepped the worst of the warping and prepped the coffee maker for the morning's coffee.

She filled the water tank while humming to herself; a bit of a Puccini, or was it Verdi? She couldn't remember. The line caught halfway in her throat and fell apart, snagged on a knot of old grief and new that she couldn't swallow.

She braced her hands on the counter, blinking back the sting in her eyes. Thinking of the old loss and the new that came bubbling up.

Her father would have told her to sing through it. Her brother would have teased her but asked for an encore.

Her gaze drifted to the fridge door. There was her little family; a chip clip magnet held up the photo; her mom, dad, and brother had come for her early December graduation. They were so proud she'd sung the national anthem to kick off the ceremony. She was wearing that cheap cap and gown while they were bundled up in their winter coats, but she had to show off that she was graduating. She remembered the brief argument with her father before the picture was taken, just as many family pictures had been taken before.

At least her father had seen some of her performances after college, up until he passed last Christmas, well after she'd stopped auditioning. Her brother had passed suddenly in the middle of her first year in grad school, a week before he was to visit and see her in her first lead role at the conservatory.

She wondered what they would say if they could see her now, an assistant at a tech company, earning a good paycheck and a nice enough life, leading the soprano section at a church on Sundays, but with no grand halls, no stage lights.

Grant always said she was too in her head about it.

"You make people feel something every Sunday." He'd gently remind her, "That's more than most singers ever get."

She touched the edge of the photo, then turned to the sound of soft tip taps of Herbert, watching her like he knew what she was thinking.

"It was just a dream." She told him again, and with a noncommital mlem from him, he moved to sit patiently at his bowl and wait for his breakfast.

She chuckled and got on with her morning.

By 8am, she was out the door in a sundress. It was going to be a hot one; she was already dreading the wait on the subway platform. Why the hell had I thought getting bangs just before summer was a good idea? She thought, grateful that she remembered to charge her hand fan last night.

She was able to squeeze onto the first train that arrived, between a woman expertly applying fake eyelashes and a man blaring some chatty podcast. She closed her eyes and tried to find some calm, but all she could think of was the ocean again. Those black waves, the salty air in her lungs, she shivered.

By 8:45am, she was at her desk. The open floor whirred with that low drone of too-bright LED lights, too many meetings, and not enough daylight.

She was good at this; at juggling, at smoothing, and at understanding the complex people dynamics of the team she supported, as well as all the hundred tiny details her executives couldn't be bothered to remember or know.

She answered the flurry of morning Slack messages. She always knew it was going to be a chaotic one when her top exec messaged with 'hiiieeeeeee' before his ask. Booked conference rooms, fielded passive-aggressive calendar wars, and sent off a gift basket to a potential new hire engineering was hoping to get. People liked her. She was useful, trusted, and thoughtful. But not really seen as anything except a support resource.

At lunch, she sat by the window with yet another sad salad. She couldn't even remember what was in it. Not giving it enough thought whether it was nostalgic or sadistic, she scrolled through her old voice memos. Putting on her headphones, she pressed play on an old voice lesson recording. Her voice floated through the speaker as she wove through an aria from La Boheme. The music stopped as feedback was given from her teacher in the recording. She couldn't make out the words, but she did hear herself laugh on the recording. She hadn't laughed like that in a long time. She replayed the final line where, like the waves in her dream, she softly but powerfully rose and then folded beautifully over the final note, letting the closing piano part bring her back to reality.

She was startled when it cut off. She wanted to play it again but couldn't. Pulling her earbuds out and dropping them in her bag, she threw away her unfinished salad and went back to her desk.

After work, she and Grant fell into their evening routine. She was curled up on the couch, reading, while he sat beside her with his headphones, the only sound being his fingers tapping out frantic fight combos on his controller. Herbert was snoozing, but not deeply enough in case they wanted to feed him dinner early. The chicken sausage was defrosting for one of their regular, easy weekday dinners.

Grant turned to her, grinning between levels. "This game is so scary, you'd hate it, but it's so fun!"

"Probably, but I'm glad you like it." She laughed, kissing him on the cheek as his eyes went back to the game.

Leah drifted back to her book, feeling the hum of the city outside, the warmth of her boyfriend's quiet joy, and the steady beat of her own heart. She was content. She was. She thought.

Then why had she reread the same a dozen times? Why couldn't she get that dream out of her head all day? Why did she feel restless and like she was forgetting to call someone back?

That night, when she had the dream this time, it was different.

She was standing alone on a rocky beach that looked too obscure to be on a map. Maybe Maine? Maybe not. The moon hung full and low, pregnant with bright light and secrets of the night, turning the waves silver. Her feet were bare; she was in her normal shorts and t-shirt sleep attire. But the air felt anything but normal. The surf tickled her toes, icy and electric.

The ocean hummed at her, and the melody threaded through the wind. It was familiar to her; she knew it by heart but couldn't name it. She opened her mouth to sing along. The usual hesitancy, that woeful blockage, was gone. What came out rose pure and whole out of her, unbroken by grief. It filled the beach, riding on the waves, echoing back to her until she couldn't tell where her voice ended and the sound of the waves began.

A voice, not from a person, bigger but not booming, whispered through the crash of the water.

"You hear us now."

"Who are you?" she asked, her warm breath misting in the cold night air.

"It's not who we are that you need to know, but who you are, Singer?"

The tide rushed higher, swirling up around her shins. She could feel long strands of kelp coiling around her calve, not tight but firm. Like an embrace, like an invitation. She didn't fight it. She sang again, the unknown song, with words she didn't know but understood, spilling out of her so purely that she almost wept with relief. The waves answered.

"When you're ready, come home, Singer." The voice sounded distant as if it were a buoy in the night drifting away.

She looked down as the kelp around her legs slipped free and drifted back into the dark waters. She laughed then, a sound that tasted like salt and freedom. Her reflection in the black water shimmered; her own face was glowing but lit from within like something wild, cracking the skin open from underneath.

The waves whispered a final phrase, but she couldn't quite catch it.

When Leah woke, the sunlight was already bleeding through the blinds. She looked around when she didn't feel the comfortable warmth of Grant beside her but settled when she saw Herbert lying in a ball beside her. Grant's note sat on his pillow:

Coffee's on; I went to an early breakfast with Fred and then the gym. I'll be back by lunch. Love you!

She stretched under the covers and rolled to get out of bed, her toes wiggling on the hardwood. She paused.

There were wet, sandy footprints on the floor and tiny smudges leading from the bedroom door to the bed. She sniffed and smelled a faint tang of brine. Her heart skipped a beat.

She looked down and gasped when she saw a small tangle of kelp lying half-hidden under the corner of her nightstand, still damp. She crouched and picked it up, the wet strand cool against her fingers. The smell of the ocean clung to her skin, and her fingers were wrinkly like she'd been in the tub too long.

Herbert woke up and hopped down from the bed, pressing his nose to her ankle and flopping for belly rubs like nothing had happened.

She turned the kelp in her hands, and she could almost hear the ocean again. Not loudly, but a soft hum under her ribs, like a reminder and a promise.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, her heart drumming steadily in contrast to the chaotic, muffled sounds of the city behind the windows.

A smile tugged at her mouth as she looked down at Herbert. Bending down to pet him, she rubbed his belly, and her smile grew.

"It was all just a dream. Wasn't it?"