Dreamwalkers

By S. M. Schmitz

My father used to tell me our pasts shaped our presents and our presents shaped our futures and that we could never really get rid of our pasts. The deeds of our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers before them lived on forever, and we would have to live with the choices they made as well as our own so he would warn me to choose wisely. But I never understood my father. Not until my thirtieth birthday. And then everything changed 

After losing his father to suicide, Gavyn Cooper becomes convinced that his dad’s odd ramblings were nothing more than the product of mental illness. But on his thirtieth birthday, Gavyn begins having vivid dreams that transport him into the world of Caleb Ellis, a young man who lived on a sugar plantation in 1835, and he is forced to question not only his own experiences but his father’s as well. Now, Gavyn will have to make a choice between following in his father’s footsteps or writing his own future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. M. Schmitz
• Release date: Feb 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781530338467

Book preview

Prologue

My father used to tell me our pasts shaped our presents and our presents shaped our futures. As a child, the only thing I heard was presents and was unbelievably disappointed when there were no presents in my immediate future. By the time I reached adolescence, I had the same opinion most teenagers held of their parents: my old man was just crazy. Because the older I got, the more insistent he became that we could never really get rid of our pasts, that the deeds of our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers before them lived on forever, and we would have to live with the choices they made as well as our own so he would warn me to choose wisely.

But like I said: I was convinced my dad was nuts. One day, when I was fifteen years old, I came home from school to a house with two cop cars and an ambulance in the driveway, and one of those cops stopped me on my own porch and wouldn’t let me go inside. And it was that stranger, this cop whose name I can’t remember even though he told me his name, that sat me down on our front porch swing and said, Gavyn, I’m so sorry. Your father ended his life today. We can’t let you go inside right now. I’m going to take you to your grandmother’s house, ok?

I can’t remember if I told him that was ok or not.

I’ve spent almost fifteen years cycling through periods of blaming my father for abandoning me, feeling sorry for him because he really must have been crazy, hating him and loving him, feeling guilty and blaming myself for his death, and always… always wanting him back.

But honestly? I never understood my father and what he seemed to be warning me about until my thirtieth birthday. And then everything changed.

Chapter 1

S urprise ! Riley squeaked and clapped her hands together as I walked into the kitchen.

I had to stop and yawn and scratch something and rub something else as I tried to figure out why the hell my wife thought I should be surprised about walking into my own kitchen. And then I remembered. It was my birthday. My thirtieth birthday.

God, Riley, I groaned. "One, it’s 6:30 in the morning. Would you please stop being so chipper this early in the morning? And two, I already told you. There’s nothing to celebrate about the death of my twenties."

Riley poured coffee into a mug then handed it to me.

"Because it’s your birthday, I’m going to let you get away with that. And I’ll be thirty next year. It’s no big deal. We’re supposed to grow old together. Remember the whole vows thing?"

I took a sip of my coffee and grimaced because, as usual, it was too hot and I’d burned my tongue.

Look at my head, I told her. "Are all of my hairs gray yet? Are they all still there?"

I actually bent my head down for her to look. She shook her head at me and rolled her eyes.

I made you your favorite breakfast. Eggs benedict. And the hollandaise sauce is from scratch, not that powdery crap they sell at the grocery store.

I set my coffee cup down and put my arms around her. Thank you. I really don’t deserve you.

She smiled up at me and said, so sweetly, I know.

I don’t know what I’d do without that woman.

I’d been serious about not wanting anyone to make a big deal out of my birthday. I’d warned Riley and my friends that I didn’t want a party, and I’ve always hated surprise parties anyway. Actually, ever since I was fifteen, I’d hated surprises. Besides, I already had big plans for the day. Apparently, wanting to celebrate the day of my birth by staying home and binge watching The Walking Dead wasn’t an acceptable excuse for my boss, so I had to go to work, but after that, I was hitting the gym, coming home to a cold beer and catching the second half of Monday Night Football. The Texans were playing, and I wasn’t missing the end of the game for a stupid party.

I had one of the most boring jobs man had ever created. Riley and I lived like fifteen minutes away from the Johnson Space Center so I couldn’t help thinking everyday as I drove into work that I was passing honest-to-God astronauts, and here I was heading into the city to convince doctors to push my company’s drugs onto their patients who probably didn’t even really need them.

There’s probably a special circle in Hell for people like us. And our eternal punishment is actually having to take all the shit we’ve handed out over the years.

So on the morning of my thirtieth birthday, I drove into work wondering what would happen to my male-soul burning in its pharmaceutical-circle-of-Hell if I had to take all of those estrogen pills that were supposed to lessen the symptoms of menopause.

If I’m going to tell this story, then I should tell it honestly: I thought it would be pretty cool if my burning-male-soul-in-the-newly-created-tenth-circle-of-Hell grew breasts. It would give me something to do while I was burning for eternity.

My office was filled with the sort of crap you’d expect a pharmaceutical sales rep to have in his office, like one of those annoying and ridiculously embarrassing luggage bags on wheels crammed with samples of estrogen pills and anti-depressant pills and erectile dysfunction pills, and I think maybe a pill that was supposed to treat premenopausal women with hypoactive sexual dysfunction. I have to admit: I didn’t know that was a real thing until the samples and brochures and the long list of potential side effects I was supposed to memorize landed on my desk.

This job was my punishment for ignoring my mother and stubbornly insisting on majoring in mass communications.

There’s probably a circle in Hell for that, too.

My first appointment on the morning of my thirtieth birthday was with an old family doctor, and when I say old, I mean he was probably like Jonas Salk’s lab partner or something. His waiting room was always too warm and I had to take off my jacket and loosen my tie as I sat in one of the eggplant purple vinyl chairs that made those humiliating farting noises every time I moved.

A pretty brunette reading what appeared to be a four-year-old copy of Newsweek peeked up at me and grinned with each awkward movement. I grinned sheepishly back at her and picked up one of our competitor’s brochures from the table beside me. Apparently, they thought it was some problem to have an erection lasting longer than four hours.

Dr. Robert Higginbotham finally came out and called me back – not some nurse or aide, but the doctor himself, because that’s how doctors’ offices must have worked in the days of wagon trains, and Dr. Robert Higginbotham wasn’t a man who liked change. He didn’t even have a computer in his office. The first time I stepped foot in here, I was surprised he didn’t have a rotary phone.

He sat down behind his desk, which was covered in papers and files and books that were probably written by Hippocrates himself and I sat in the equally squeaky forest green vinyl chair across from him. I didn’t bother flashing him my best salesman smile, because Dr. Higginbotham didn’t like smiles. I wasn’t convinced he liked people, really.

I opened my bag-on-wheels and handed Dr. Higginbotham our newest brochure – the one for the sexually underactive pre-menopausal women. The old doctor glanced at the brochure then shook his head.

My patients don’t need this, Gavyn.

He tried to hand it back to me.

"Look, we both know most women aren’t going to talk to you about their sex lives, but if some woman my age comes in here and starts bawling on your exam table because she hasn’t been in the mood to have sex with her husband in over six months, what are you doing to do?" I asked.

That was one of those questions I didn’t want to know the answer to. I really, really hated my job.

Dr. Higginbotham tossed the brochure across the desk toward me. Your answer is to throw a pill at them. That’s your answer to everything.

Actually, my answer would be to try marriage counseling and see an endocrinologist, but that didn’t keep me employed.

Because pharmaceuticals work, Dr. Higginbotham. And our medications change lives. We have the power to make people happy again, to give them important parts of their relationships back, and that’s what this pill is promising. It was seventy-eight percent effective in clinical trials with minimal side effects, if you count an increased risk of ovarian cancer a minimal side effect, "and ultimately, shouldn’t your patients be able to decide with you what’s in their best interest?"

That line always hooked him. And I’m pretty sure he forgot I used it on him every single time.

Fine, Gavyn, leave the brochure. I’ll look over it, he sighed.

I handed the brochure back to him then reached into my bag for a handful of samples.

Here. Just in case. If you decide not to prescribe them, you can toss them in the trash.

Dr. Higginbotham let me leave the samples on his desk and I left his small office and small waiting room with the pretty brunette still reading a torn-up copy of Newsweek feeling like Hell was going to need much bigger circles.

Grayson, my best friend who worked for the same company but had called in sick, called me right as I was logging off my computer at the end of the day and asked me if I wanted to go get a beer to celebrate my birthday. I told him it wasn’t my birthday and he’d gotten the wrong number and hung up on him.

Given we’d known each other since we were seven, I didn’t think that would work. It bought me exactly four seconds of silence before he called me back, told me I was an old asshole, then hung up on me.

I waited until I was on my way to my car in the parking garage to text Grayson and let him know I was going to the gym and he should join me for a game of racquetball. Then we could go back to my house, order a pizza, have a few beers and catch the end of the Texans’ game.

He took far too long to text me back, which is how I knew something was up. I started wondering if Riley would file for a divorce if I just checked into a hotel for the night and refused to come home.

And being me, I just called her and asked her.

If there’s anybody in our house that doesn’t normally live there, I’m going to check into a hotel for the night. Will you divorce me when I get back?

Riley thought about it for a second. Yes.

Riley, I sighed, I told you I didn’t want a party. And you know I hate surprises.

There’s no problem then. The surprise is obviously ruined so just get your ass home and try to look happy about it.

You know what I’d look happy about? A beer, a football game, and you in that red lacy bra and thong you never wear.

"Maybe I am wearing them but you won’t find out if you don’t stop being such a pain in the ass and just come home so we can celebrate your birthday."

I sighed and gave up because as any man who’s ever been married knows, there comes a point when we’re really just wasting valuable brainpower by continuing to speak.

On the drive home, I found myself thinking the only thing that could have made my thirtieth birthday any worse was to get in an accident. Although if I were to get in an accident, it would get me out of the goddamn birthday party I most certainly did not want to be going to in my own fucking house.

I was a bucket of old-and-probably-graying-and-possibly-balding-and-maybe-on-the-verge-of-needing-those-ED-pills-sunshine by the time I pulled into my driveway. My suspiciously empty driveway.

I walked up to my front door and noticed the lights were off inside. I thought again that I really needed to remind my wife just how much I loved her… and how much she owed me. As I unlocked the door and turned the knob, I braced myself for shouts of Surprise! and Happy Birthday! and other obnoxious proclamations that were supposedly reminders that I had miraculously survived another year. And really, given some of the stupid shit Grayson and I had done in our younger years, it probably was a small miracle.

But the house was as ominously quiet as it was dark, except for the flickering lights coming from our bedroom. I took my jacket off, and for the first time that day, actually felt like smiling.

Riley? I called.

She stepped out of our bedroom wearing a sheer red and black teddy and high heels, still every bit the goddess I met all those years ago as a senior in college, and one of my earlier fears was immediately alleviated: I didn’t need those ED pills just yet.

So no party? I asked.

Riley tilted her head and smiled at me. Don’t worry, Birthday Boy. I’ve got a party waiting for you.

And suddenly, turning thirty didn’t seem so bad after all.

Chapter 2

Caleb Walks through My Dreams for the First Time

C aleb , my father called.

I stopped on the stairs and looked down at my father.

Yes, Sir?

I’m going to New Orleans for an auction. You can run things without me here?

Yes, Sir.

My father nodded at me and walked out the front door and I watched him leave then bounded down the steps. My younger sister who had just left her room on the second floor reprimanded me.

Really, Caleb, you’re nineteen years old. You’re a grown man. You mustn’t act like a child.

I just smiled at her and offered her a juvenile mock bow.

I found my mother sitting at the breakfast table waiting for her children so she could eat and I kissed her cheek gently and told her good morning. She smiled up at me and told me I hadn’t combed my hair very well. I apologized and promised to do a better job next time but Abigail, my sister, looked far too smug about it.

Of course, my mother didn’t have anything critical to say about her.

Agnes, one of our house slaves, brought in the breakfast plates. I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the slab of fried ham lying next to the biscuits on my plate. It’s not that I didn’t like pork. I was just so tired of it. I couldn’t understand how my father could be one of the wealthiest sugar cane farmers in Louisiana yet beef remained a luxury for Christmas and Easter only.

My mother caught my expression anyway and scolded me. Again. And Abigail looked far too smug about it. Again.

As soon as breakfast was over, I followed Abigail to the sitting room and put my hands on my hips with the sternest expression I could manage.

Father’s gone to New Orleans for at least several days, and has left me in charge. You’ll treat me with the same respect you treat him or I’ll have to tell Mr. Jacobson he isn’t allowed to call on you.

Abigail’s eyes narrowed at me, and she hissed, You wouldn’t. I’ll tell Mother!

I shrugged and crossed my arms. Go ahead. I’m the man of the house in Father’s absence. It’s my decision.

Truthfully, I liked William Jacobson. He was only a year older than me and came from a wealthy family, a good family. And I knew my father approved of him as well. I had no intention of actually turning him away if he showed up, but Abigail didn’t need to know that. We’d been tormenting each other for sixteen years. I saw no reason to stop now.

So be it, Caleb Ellis. But I expect that you’ll treat Mr. Jacobson with the same courtesy Father shows him.

I bowed for her again and smiled, and even though I know it’s impossible to hear someone rolling her eyes, I was pretty sure I heard my sister rolling her eyes at me as I left the sitting room.

Over the next four days, William Jacobson called on my sister twice, and both times, I was a perfect host. I kept an eye on them, just as my father would have, and my mother herself served them tea while they sat in the parlor. I even offered to chaperone them so they could take a walk in our orchard where we grew fig and pecan trees.

On the fifth day after leaving for the auction in New Orleans, Father finally returned. We heard the horses’ hooves and the rattling wheels of the carriage as they approached the Big House, and Mother was the first one up to greet him at the door. Abigail smiled at me and in a rare moment of sibling reconciliation, she touched my arm and told me, You’ve done an admirable job, Caleb. I shall tell Father what a trustworthy man you’ve grown into.

I thanked her, but really, I was silently cursing myself for overdoing it. How could I continue to tease her now after saying something like that?

I followed my mother and sister onto the porch to welcome my father home and ask the kinds of questions I knew I was supposed to ask, but not because I was genuinely curious.