I said it with a reassuring smile, indicating it was neither a secret nor a topic for further conversation. I didn’t add car onto the accident or elaborate with dead uncles or an anguished mother. It was just an accident now. Something unfortunate.
On the lunchbreak of my second day, I took a walk around Page. Like Marjorie, the little city had a welcoming charm. I liked its southwest, touristy bustle in the middle of the silent desert. The lake to the north and the Canyon to the south. A Navajo reservation lay out east, Marjorie told me, and I saw several shops selling Native American art.
I stepped into one of these shops on a whim. The glaring dry heat of the desert—so different from Louisiana’s wet, green smother—was immediately quelled by a whirring air conditioner and soft light.
The shop was a wonder of First Nation artwork and artifacts. I meandered along shelves of turquoise jewelry, gorgeous pottery and animals carved from wood or stone. On the wall hung small tapestries or rugs with simple but beautiful prints. From the ceiling hung dream catchers. Hundreds of them.
A dark-haired man with a leather-fringed vest and turquoise bolero called from the counter. “Let me know if I can help you with anything.”
I smiled, about to tell him I was just looking, thanks, when I spotted a print on the wall above the register. I stepped closer, peering at a modern graphic of a man with his eyes closed. The details of his face only black lines against a smoky red backdrop. In the space above his eyebrows were shadowy figures holding bows and arrows, feathered headdresses spilling down their backs.
“This is beautiful,” I said. “What is it?”
“Dream walker,” the man said. “The sleeper is dreaming and the spirits who have crossed over are showing him a great battle that took place a long time ago.”
“The sleeper is the dream walker?”
The man nodded, and when he spoke, his voice sounded old. Older than his years. “A man—or woman—in greater harmony with the realms that exist under the surface of our waking life.”
“Under the surface,” I mused. “Does one have be Native American to be a dream walker?”
The man rubbed his chin. “One only needs to be alive to sleep. And in sleep, we all dream. And if all of us sleep and dream, it stands to reason that many of us walk.”
I thought immediately of Evan. I smiled. “I think so too.”
My eyes raised to the dream catchers. One had a fine net like a delicate spider web, three feathers hanging down from strings of bright blue beads. Such a familiar blue. I hadn’t planned on spending any money but I couldn’t leave the shop without the dream catcher. After work, I took it the houseboat and hung it over the bed. I lay looking up at it that night, rocked by the waters.
I’m here, I thought. I’m home. Waiting for you. Come back to me.
In that twilight place just before sleep, I imagined dream walkers in the skies above me, catching my words in their nets and walking them to Evan to guide him home.
Two weeks passed. I finalized the purchase of the houseboat and spent the remainder of the prize money filling it with everything a home needed: pots and pans, towels and sheets. I couldn’t do anything about the dated fixtures, but I could add as many personal touches as my little budget could afford. I set every placemat or dishtowel or soap dish in its place like they were plugs in a dam, guarding a reservoir of optimism against leaks. Still, as the days passed in Page, my hope began to crack. Streams of what if trickled down the stone structure.
What if Evan’s freedom came at the worst cost? What if I misunderstood his cryptic words? What if the river was too strong and didn’t let him go? That was the biggest what if of all.
On good nights, I lay in bed, feeling the boat sway beneath me and listening for footsteps on the dock outside. I imagined the phone ringing. Pretended the harbormaster told me I had a visitor at the marina. I remembered Evan’s promise to me and sent my silent call to the dream walkers until I fell asleep.
On bad nights, I called to Evan to come home with tears streaming down my cheeks, inching closer and closer to despair. The cold reality of that river was stronger than hope. The undertow had been too powerful. He’d been a fool to test nature. She always wins. I wept to sleep, then bolted from nightmares, a scream at the back of my throat and the feel of Evan’s hand pushing me through the black water. I clung to those square inches of skin on the back of my leg, where the last sense memory of Evan’s touch lived. I wondered if I’d ever feel his hands on me again.