Dreaming of Kate

By Dana Caldarone

Danny Dalton has come to the conclusion that his life is merely a series of illusions. Things that he is certain must be true, turn out to be not true. To complicate things, the fictional character he has been writing about has been haunting his dreams. He has come to know her... and has fallen in love with her. He has fallen in love with a woman who exists only in his dreams and in his unfinished novel... or does she? In an addition, Danny has found himself making a connection with a suicidal teenager. Will he save her or will she drag him down with her. Expect the unexpected in this trilogy... including Danny's escape to an island you may never have heard of.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dana Caldarone
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370646883

Dana Caldarone

If you've read my first published novel, No Permission Needed, you know more about me than most everyone, except for the members of my immediate family and the closest of my friends. For those who like to compartmentalize people, I am a simple man. I teach. I ride. I love my family. And now, I suppose I have to add that I write... again. I do these things with passion. Some would say I am obsessive. Call it what you like, it's the only way I know how to do things. If there is more you'd like to know about me or about the writing process that resulted in The Green Mountain Dream Trilogy, just contact me through Facebook or through this website. I'd be happy to answer any of your questions and I'd be interested in any thoughts you have about the story or the ideas behind it.

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my school friends. I will not embarrass them by naming them here, but they know who they are. They are some of the finest teachers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. They are also some of the finest human beings I have ever met. Their dedication to our students, to their fellow teachers, and to our school in general, is impressive.

But beyond that, they have been there for me every day, offering their never-wavering support through the tough times that many others never even noticed I was going through. As well as making a difference in their students’ lives, they have made a big difference in my life and I will be forever grateful to them for that. They bring me such energy and hope. My life would be hollow without them.

So, I find myself having written another trilogy in which the threads of fiction are woven together with the actual experiences of my life and the people I’ve known and become close to. Just as my school friends have become important parts of my life, some of them also became the basis for important characters in this book, in ways only they may see.

For their part in making this novel a reality, I am very grateful.

Prologue - Danny

I have come to a point where I believe that much of my entire life has been an illusion. Nothing more than an illusion. You think you know your life. You think you know what to expect. You think you know what you are capable of and what you are not. You think you know the people around you. Particularly the people you care deeply about. You think you know what they have done and what they will do. You wake up in the morning believing that you know how your day will go. You think you know what will happen, what most other people will do, and what you will do.

Until you realize that you know nothing.

What you thought you knew was just you imagining people and events to be what you expected them to be. What you needed them to be, so that your life would remain orderly and predictable and secure. So much so, that you ignore the facts that contradict your version of reality. Until actual reality smacks you in the face… hard. And you can no longer deny that it is what it is, and not what you needed it to be.

This is a troubling revelation to come upon because, at that moment, you realize that the journey you were on was a mere fiction in your mind. You see that the sails of your ship, the rudder, the anchor… were all illusions that you invented to put an order to your life. These illusions allow you to remain sane and brave, as they protect you from seeing that everything going on around you is not what you believed it was. They keep you from seeing that what you expect might happen, might end up being as far from reality as it could possibly be.

And when the ship you thought you were on, disappears out from underneath you, as illusions will do, you find yourself in the water, fighting for your life. You find yourself needing to make difficult decisions about whether to try to save those around you, at the risk of losing your own life in the process, or to reluctantly let them go and simply try to save yourself if you can.

Hard choices. Very hard choices…

Book One Chapter 1 Danny May 2010

I was in college, on the verge of graduation from the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. It had been a good four years. I’d made important friends. Well, actually only two real friends. I suppose, right off, that makes you think there’s something wrong with me. Only two friends? And there is a lot wrong with me, but it’s too early to tell you about all that. I’d left Middleboro, Massachusetts, where I was born and raised, the only child of John and Cecelia Dalton, and headed to school in Maine at the University of New England. It was during my time at UNE that I’d made important connections to a world that had previously been beyond me. I’d learned so much about myself and who I wanted to become. I’d learned valuable skills that I believed would make me better at what it seemed I’d always wanted to do.

I wanted to write novels.

And with my parents’ promise to continue to support me while I finished and then, hopefully, published my first novel, I felt secure in the knowledge of what my immediate future would be like. The only doubts I had were about whether what I wrote would be good enough to be published. And even if it was, would enough people actually want to read what I’d written? Enough, that is, to make a career as an author even a possibility for me? I didn’t really know. But I had enough confidence in my skills to keep pursuing my dream. I’d heard, particularly during the previous two years, that I could write… from people whom I thought should know.

So, I woke up on graduation day with a good idea of how the day would go and how the days that followed would go. My parents would drive up to school and probably arrive early. My father, the self-employed professional handyman, would seem unaffected. I knew he never really saw the purpose of me going to college at all. He was a smart, but somewhat unpolished, practical man. There was nothing overly subtle about him. Still, he could be charming when he wanted to be. And you could count on him. Always. I knew he looked at college as an expensive diversion from living life itself. But he also knew I’d worked hard for four years and I thought he appreciated my efforts.

My mother, on the other hand, would be excited about all of it. She had wanted a college education for me since as far back as I could remember. If she was at all disappointed about my ambition to write instead of pursuing something else, she never showed it. It might have been all those years of working behind the counter at the bank that made her want so much for me to do more with my life. I suspect she didn’t really like it there at the bank, yet she never let on.

But for me, graduation would be no more than ending a chapter and beginning another one. That’s all it would be for me. I’d graduate and we’d celebrate with my two college friends, Andrew and Artie, and their families. And then we’d go home. My friends and I would go our separate ways, but we’d stay in touch… or at least promise to. Although, so often we make well-intentioned promises that we just can’t keep.

I wasn’t certain what to make of college in the beginning. I was stuck in a triple because of overcrowding in the dorms. A temporary problem, the college said, until they finished construction of the new dormitories. Construction was behind schedule, but that didn’t stop them from increasing enrollment that year. So, I was stuck in a double-size room that would be occupied by three of us. I wasn’t thrilled. As an only-child, I could barely imagine sharing a room with one guy, let alone two. But then I gradually got to know Andrew and Artie. Andrew, the pre-law student, with a huge heart and an even bigger brain. And Artie, who was also really smart, who towered over both of us, and who initially seemed slightly obsessed with joining the rugby club and little else.

My plan to keep to myself, to keep my distance from them, turned out to be impractical and unnecessary. After a while, they seemed like such good guys to me. They were so friendly, so smart, so interesting, and so willing to have my back when I needed support… even when I didn’t ask for it. They seemed interested in understanding who I really was, without judging me. In my life, I had never had friends like them. Nothing even close. Still, I resisted them as best I could in the beginning. I am, after all, an introvert. It is my nature to withdraw. I think there is a reason that introverts act the way they do. I think they desperately want to connect with other human beings in a positive way. But they’re afraid. Afraid that if they try, if they take the risk, they will get hurt. I’m no different. I was of afraid of the risk I would be taking. So, I resisted.

But they wouldn’t let me. They were persistent and eventually wore me down and we became best friends. It was a friendship between the three of us that would last all four years of college, even though after the first year, we weren’t all stuck in the same room together. Artie was the first to go, ending up in a room with a rugby-buddy, sophomore year. And junior year, Andrew and I ended up in singles. But the friendship between us endured. I would never have predicted that outcome when I’d just started school… but there it was.

In spite of the surprises of the previous four years, on graduation day I thought I knew exactly what would happen. In my mind, the chapter was as good as written and all that was left was the reading of it. But when my parents didn’t show up early, as they’d said they would, I began to wonder what might have happened. They were both rise-and-shine kind of people. Of course, I called them both, but neither picked up. I waited as long as I could for them, with Artie and Andrew doing their best to convince me that it was probably something we’d all laugh about later. But finally, there was no more time left to spend waiting, so we went off to the graduation without my parents.

I remember feeling a little ridiculous in my cap and gown, as if it was Halloween and I was dressed up to disguise who I really was. But I knew it would make my mother proud to see me like that, and maybe even my father, although it was unlikely he would show it.

I also remember wishing I could be down by the ocean instead of at that ceremony. I actually picked The University of New England partly because it was so close to the Maine seashore. I’d always loved the ocean. Not that I was a sailor or a fisherman of any sort. Or even one to lie out on the sand with beach-goers. I wasn’t. I just felt a connection with the ocean that made me feel at peace when I was near it. But it was graduation day and I knew the ocean would have to wait.

I was still certain that I would eventually find my parents at graduation before the proceedings began, but they weren’t there. I called both of them again. Still no answer. I looked for them in the crowd after the ceremony began, but I couldn’t find them. I tried my best to reel in my imagination. It is my biggest asset as a writer and, at the same time, my biggest enemy. I told myself there was no need to think about this as a novel with an ominous outcome looming. I chastised myself for being on the edge of foolish fear about their absence.

When graduation was over, my phone finally rang, but it was neither of them. The caller I.D. said it was Jordan Hospital. I almost ignored it, but then somehow, I knew I shouldn’t.

Hello? I said.

Is this Daniel Dalton?

Yes. Who’s this?

This is Karly Miller calling from Jordan Hospital in Plymouth. Are you related to John and Cecelia Dalton?

Yes. They’re my parents. Why are you asking?

I’m calling to let you know that they were involved in a car accident today and that they were transported here. We would like you to come to the hospital as soon as you can.

Are they okay?

I can’t give you any more information at this time, Mr. Dalton. As soon as you get here, someone will fill you in on their condition.

Can I speak with either one of them?

I’m not with them right now…. but all your questions will be answered as soon as you get here, Mr. Dalton. Just come to the Emergency Room and identify yourself to the person at the desk. Do you know how to find us?

I paused, knowing that I wasn’t getting the whole story. But I also felt certain that I was not going to get the whole story from this person on the phone, no matter what questions I asked.

Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can, I said.

Please don’t rush, Mr. Dalton, she said quickly, hoping I would hear her before I ended the call. Drive carefully… please.

I will, I said.

I looked back to my friends, Artie and Andrew. I would have trusted them with my life. I knew they would always be my friends no matter what. Having come to know me as well as they had, they were able to read my face like it was an open book. Their faces showed their concern. I felt myself starting to withdraw. I couldn’t help it. It’s what I’d always done in situations that were uncertain.

Is everything all right? Andrew asked me.

I’ve got to go to the hospital back home now. My parents were involved in some sort of car accident there.

Are they going to be all right? Artie asked me, with a look of concern on his face.

I’m sure they will be, I lied. I just wasn’t given the details of their injuries. I should go now.

I’ll come with you, Andrew said, taking a step toward me.

No, I’ve got this. You guys go ahead. I’ll give you a call when I know what’s going on, I said, with more confidence in my voice than I actually had.

Are you sure? Artie asked.

Positive, I said. I’m gonna go grab some things and head out. I’ll talk to you guys later.

After a nerve wracking two-hour drive to the hospital, I was sat down in a room and told that my parents had died in a crash. Another vehicle had hit them head on, just a few miles from our house on Route 44. The crash was so severe that they were both killed, as was the driver who came across the double yellow line to hit them. The air bags had deployed, but hadn’t actually done their jobs. The safety they were supposed to provide was just an illusion.

And just like that, my entire future changed.

I changed… as a human being. And not for the better. Even then, I knew that event was the beginning of a cascade of events that would take me places I never imagined I could go. I would never be the same again.

At the hospital, they treated me like a fragile piece of crystal… which, in fact, I pretty much was. They insisted I schedule grief counseling to help me cope with my loss. They insisted that I make an appointment with my primary care physician in a few weeks. They wanted to know if there was someone who could come and get me. But I told them that there wasn’t and that there was no need for that, anyway. I didn’t breakdown and cry. I held it together. I told everyone at the hospital who asked me that I was okay and then, after spending hours there, I just went home.

There was nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

So, I drove back down Route 44 to my home in Middleboro. Back down the same road my parents had died on earlier that day, as they tried to get to their only son’s graduation. I went home to an empty house. A house that I expected to be in, but not alone. Not like that. Certainly not under those circumstances. I had no brothers or sisters. My relatives all lived over-seas, plane-rides away.

I was alone.

In a way, I had always been alone. I had worked so hard to keep most people at a distance. But now, I truly was alone. It was a condition I had often chosen, but not one I was comfortable having thrust on me. My safety net was gone. My parents had always been there as that safety net, but now they were gone. I called both Andrew and Artie. Both offered to drop their plans and drive up to be with me. But I insisted that they not do that. I told them I needed to be alone for a while and that I would let them know when the wake and the funeral would be.

I still hadn’t cried at that point. I couldn’t. If I even let one tear out, I was afraid there would be no end to them. I was afraid that I would unravel and no one would be able to patch me back together again. There would be a lot of things I would need to deal with. Everything from moving my stuff home from college to my parent’s funeral would be on me alone. There were no relatives to support me that were even in the country. I needed to stay functional, so that I could deal with all of it on my own.

I opened up the big envelopes that held my parents personal effects from the crash. My mother’s glasses. My father’s wallet and keys. My mother’s small purse with her make up in it and a picture of my father and me. Their cell phones. My father’s Leatherman. Only he, I thought, would bring a Leatherman to a graduation. And if I had asked him about it, I knew he would have said, We’ll, you never know. I hardly knew what to do with them. I put them all in a shoe box. I’ll deal with them later, I thought. All of them except for two things. I put my father’s Leatherman on my belt. And there was a little charm that my father had on his key chain. It was a C … my mother’s first initial. I put it on my own key chain. It was a pathetic attempt at trying to keep my connection with them, even though I knew they were gone forever.

In a crazy way, I’d finally got what I’d wanted. After four years of freedom in college, I was not going to be comfortable coming home to live with my parents, even though I knew it was probably my best chance of getting my career as an author launched. I felt pretty guilty about feeling that way, though, after graduation day. As if my thinking that could have had any bearing on what had happened. Of course it hadn’t, but I felt bad about it anyway.

I had loved my parents. They were wonderful people and we got along well. But just prior to graduation, I’d felt certain it was time for me to be on my own. So, I had to make a hard choice. I could find a meaningless job, so that I could live in a place of my own and write part-time. Or I could live with my parents, without my independence, but with the opportunity to write full-time and only sometimes helping my father out with his work as a handyman. Unable to figure out just what meaningless job I could tolerate while I wrote, I had decided to take up my parents on their offer, without ever considering for a minute that living at home might not actually include them.

So, I stayed in that house and I wrote for months and months. I took time to get groceries, to eat sometimes, to sleep a few hours now and then, to mow the lawn, to clean up after myself, to deal with phone calls, and to deal with nice neighbors who kept checking in on me and leaving me food. I gave up on getting haircuts.

But mostly, I just wrote… like a man possessed. I wrote as if the novel had been bottled up inside me and was finally bursting out faster than I could possibly type it. I wrote about characters who existed only in my imagination, but whom I understood better than any of the real people I knew. I wrote about life and death. I wrote about the unpredictable, cruel world. I wrote about love and loss. I wrote about hopelessness and suicide. And in a matter of months, it was done. A work of fiction, shaped by my own experiences. The characters had depth. There were twists and turns, unexpected outcomes. I thought it was good. Dark… but a good story, well told. I actually had no idea if it really was good, though. I was too close to it. It was too much a part of me. My grief. My life. And my nagging thoughts about the possibility of ending it all.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I would be thinking that way. Ending it all? When I think back, my memory tells me that it was the house. As if a house could be or do anything. A house is static and inanimate, right? But it wasn’t that way for me. For example, the stairs. Our house was a small house, with only two bedrooms on either side of the upstairs bathroom. My father was an early riser and, as a kid, I remember hearing him quietly open the bedroom door across the hall from me and walking down the stairs. There were twelve steps. The fifth one on the way down creaked. I remember the creak.

Long after they were gone, I would be nearly awake in the morning and still thought I could hear his bedroom door shut and hear the creak on the fifth step.

Still.

I knew I was only dreaming… but it always seemed so real. It was like, if I could just get up out of bed fast enough, I could catch him on the stairs on his way to his first cup of coffee and the breakfast he would make for all of us. If I could only…

But of course, I couldn’t. It got to the point where, on the way up and down the stairs, I would skip that fifth step from the top, just to avoid being reminded of that memory. The house did that to me. And then there was their bedroom itself. The day I got home from the hospital, the day they had both died, I could only peek into that room. The bed was made. Everything was neat. My mother’s slippers were under a chair by the bed. My father refused to wear any, no matter how cold the house was. They both had bathrobes, hung on the bedposts. I looked in, for just a moment, and then closed the door. And never looked in again. I couldn’t. I knew if I continued to look in, one night I would see them there, sleeping in each other’s arms. And I wouldn’t be able to bear it. So I just kept the door closed and pretended the room wasn’t there.

As if I could…

I tried not to focus on all of that, although I could barely avoid it. I reminded myself, instead, that I had written a novel and I needed to do something with it. I decided to email the book to my college friend, Andrew, whose father, Philip Ross, worked for a publisher in New York. I wanted Andrew’s opinion of it. He was really smart and would know good from not-so-good. I hoped he would be honest with me. But I wasn’t sure he would be. We were so close… such good friends. How could he tell me that what I’d written was terrible, if he thought it was?

But after reading it, without asking me or giving me any feedback, Andrew emailed the book to his father in his New York publishing office with a plea to give it some consideration.

I dismissed Andrew’s non-response as the result of being in law school, where the demands on his time had to be relentless. In the vacuum of hearing nothing, I buried myself in my work on the next book.

I was halfway through writing the sequel, when I had signed a contract with the publisher that Andrew’s father represented and my book was out in the world, being read. It was a great relief to read good reviews of my work. I was firmly stuck in between being barely able to believe it and being convinced that my success had been inevitable. But either way, I was a published author, with a future, of sorts, and not even the slightest interest in getting my head out of my writing. Not for anything.

As I wrote, I paid almost no attention to what was going on in the world around me. I rarely went out. I never turned on the TV. I let my hair keep growing just to avoid the barber-shop. I felt like if I just wrote fast enough, I might not notice that my family was gone, that I was desperately alone, and not really coping well at all. I gave up on the counseling I had started after the accident. I got my doctor to prescribe me pills for my sleepless nights and my situational depression. I’m fine, I told myself… and anyone who asked. But privately, I began to think about how I might finally surrender… something I thought I might have to do when I inevitably ran out of words to write.

Every once in a while, when I was feeling my lowest and really needed to get out of the house, I would drive down to the ocean. I had my spots… places that were not the beaches that most people would visit. Rocky places where the land met the sea. I would sit by the ocean for hours, at times, just watching the waves, or the birds, or the boats out on the water. And I would think. I could cry when I was there and actually be all right with it. I could mourn my losses, without feeling particularly suicidal. There was something about being there that was calming. I somehow felt protected in the presence of the ocean, as if it was a surrogate parent. Like I was home, but not like I felt in that house that was becoming less of a sanctuary and more of a prison.

The ocean had become my sanctuary, a place where I could think clearly. It was a place where I could think about what I was writing, about the characters in my book and what they might think and do. Sometimes I would walk the shoreline. Sometimes I would throw rocks into the water like I had when I was a kid, trying to make them skip. Sometimes I would just sit. My time there was important to me and was quickly becoming all I had, besides my writing.

More time passed. The phone stopped ringing so much. The neighbors stopped checking in and bringing food. Everyone believed I was okay. I had absorbed the blow. The passing of time had fixed things, more or less. I was coping, they thought. I’d made the adjustment. I knew that they worried about what I was doing with all my time and why I didn’t have a job, because no one knew about my writing except for Andrew and Artie. Otherwise, people thought I was doing quite well, all things considered. Or at least that’s what it must have seemed like to everyone. It even seemed that way to me… sometimes. But in my heart, I knew that none of that was true. It was all just an illusion. And I was closer to the edge of ending it all than a person should be.

By the time my second book was nearly finished, I decided that the house I was living in was a huge problem that I couldn’t possibly write my way out of or around. Even with the passing of time, I still kept hearing my mother’s voice now and then. I kept seeing my father coming through the doorway and into the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I’d catch them sitting together on the sofa, watching the TV that I would almost never turn on. My mother’s favorite apron, my dad’s old Red Sox hat, a worn pair of boots, a favorite bottle opener… their stuff was everywhere and it clung to me and wouldn’t let go. I had thought that, in time, I would become numb to these things or that they would finally let me go.

But neither happened. No matter how much I wrote.

Almost two years passed that way. By the time my second book was published, I knew I had to do something different. I was spending too much time in that house, too much time alone. I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t see that this would not work out well for me. Not in the long run. I knew I had to make a change… but to what?

Book One Chapter 2 Danny April 2012

My friend from college, Artie, asked me to join him for lunch at Mama Mia’s on the waterfront in Plymouth, with the excuse of celebrating the completion of my second novel. Only three people knew that I had written and published two novels under a pen name. They were Artie, Andrew, and Andrew’s father, Philip, my publishing agent. To the rest of the world, the author of my work was John Storm, a faceless, ageless, up and coming writer of fiction. I’d picked the name John because it was my father’s name and Storm because, well… that’s what my life had become. A relentless, unending storm that wouldn’t let me sleep well, wouldn’t let me find peace… a storm that I had done my best to out run. That was all I could think to do, at the time.

I felt comfortable with Andrew and Artie knowing that John Storm was actually me, Danny Dalton, although I had told them that I picked the name, Storm, because we were the Nor’easters of UNE. I knew they liked the idea behind that. It was as if that somehow made them, and our common experiences, a part of my writing. I made them swear that they would tell no one. I couldn’t have it any other way. When they asked me to explain my insistence on a pen name, all I could tell them was that I simply didn’t want the attention. I just wanted to enjoy the writing and keep to myself. I knew they understood.

After college, Artie had joined his father in their real estate business and, apparently, things were going quite well. At lunch he told me about a small apartment building they had just purchased in Plymouth and how he had been put in charge of successfully transitioning it into their substantial holdings.

The previous owner, Artie told me at lunch, lived in the place. It’s got two floors. There’s a pair of single-bedroom apartments and a pair of two-bedroom apartments on each floor. The owner used to live in the additional two-bedroom apartment in the basement across from the laundry room and adjacent to the storage area. He was also the apartment ‘super,’ taking care of whatever the place needed. But now he’s sold it to us and he’s gone off to Florida to retire. The apartment complex is a small, but decent place, in pretty good shape. There are a couple of empty units that need some work before I can rent them, though. But the tough part will be for me to find a new super and I have to find someone as soon as possible. Someone who’ll take good care of the place and keep the tenants happy. Someone I can trust. It won’t be easy…

I thought about what he’d said for a moment and then the idea came to me. What about me? I asked him.

What about you?

Me! I could be your super!

You’re kidding, right?

No, actually I’m not. You know I’m handy. I take after my father that way. He taught me a lot. So, I can probably deal with almost anything that comes up there. And I’m looking to get out of my house. I just can’t live there anymore, Artie. Not after all that’s happened. I thought I could… but I can’t. Too many memories. So, if you’d be willing to give me a shot, I think I could do it. I’m sure I’ll be able to take care of everything and still have time to write.

You’re serious, aren’t you? he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

I nodded at him. Yeah, I am.

Aren’t you even going to ask me what the job pays? You know it’s not much.

Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. It’s rent-free, right?

"Of course. But it is the basement apartment. There’s nothing really good about it, except that it’s got two bedrooms and it’s rent-free."

Doesn’t matter. It’ll be fine. I’ll turn one of the bedrooms into a work-space, where I can write. When can I move in?

As soon as you’re ready. Don’t you have to sell your house first?

No. When it sells, it sells. I just need to pack up everything and then move my stuff into that basement apartment and the rest into the storage area, if you think there’s room there.

There’s room, he said, looking at me carefully. "This is a little crazy, you know? I mean, you’re a college grad and a published author and you’re taking a job as a super."

Maybe… but I can feel that it’s right. Don’t worry. If for some reason it doesn’t work out, I’ll give you lots of notice. That’s a promise.

"I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about you. Are you sure you’re okay?"

Good as I can be… all things considered.

Have you met anybody lately? he asked me, changing the subject. Some beautiful, interesting, young woman maybe?

I’ll tell if you’ll tell, I said, with a little smile.

Seriously? he asked, arching his eyebrows. Artie had never had any trouble finding women who wanted to share his company.

Yup. You go first.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if the answer to my question was up there somewhere.

I had a relationship going. I thought it was a good one… but it didn’t work out. It’s over now, he said with a final nod, as if he was certain it was a bad thing, but that nothing could be done.

Your choice, her choice, or mutual agreement?

Hers, he said with a sigh.

That sucks, Artie.

"I really thought she was the one. But I just need to get over it and move on now… how about you?"

Me? I haven’t left the house except to spend some time at the ocean or to get groceries. Where I go to the beach, nobody else goes and that’s part of what I like about those spots. And I haven’t run into anybody particularly appealing at Stop and Shop… unless you count the woman at the deli. She seems to have taken an interest in me… although she’s old enough to be my mother. She keeps giving me more cold cuts than I ask for because she says I’m too skinny.

She’s right, Artie said, shaking his head. "Are you listening to the things you’re telling me, Danny? Am I really not supposed to be worried about you?"

Maybe… but all is not lost. I apparently can write books some people want to read. And for now, that’s enough, I said shrugging my shoulders. It has to be.

* * *

Artie was nice enough to help me out on moving day. With his size and strength, it was like having two guys helping me. I had rented a dumpster ahead of time and pretty much everything in the house got packed into my father’s truck, onto the trailer behind it, or went into that dumpster. I had already dropped off my parents clothes, the day before, at The Salvation Army. Almost all of my father’s tools that he had used for his business as a handyman got put in the truck. The side of the truck still had his name on it, John Dalton, along with his phone number and the words Household Repairs. Part of me thought I should get rid of the truck, but somehow I couldn’t. It was old and not worth much… to anybody but me. Maybe later, I told myself.

By the end of the day, I was all moved in, more or less, and Artie and I were sharing a pizza and a six-pack of beer in my new basement-apartment in the building he and his father owned. The answering machine there was blinking insistently, but Artie was trying to convince me to put off checking the messages.

It’s the super’s phone. Tenants must have left messages needing help with stuff. There’s been a gap… a time when there was no one to take care of whatever might have come up. You might be a little busy to start off with, to say the least. It’s up to you, but you might want to give them an email address to contact you instead of the phone. It might be quieter for you and I think a lot of the tenants will like that. But I’d set up a new account. Don’t use your personal email, of course.

I think I’m going to push the button, I said, after my second beer, just to see how many messages there are.

I wouldn’t if I were you, Artie said, wincing a little. I’d leave it for the morning.

I looked at him, considering his advice and then pressed the button. The answering machine’s synthetic, female voice said, You have 27 new messages. Would you like to hear them now?

I tried to warn you, Artie said, shaking his head.

But there are only eight apartments! How can there be 27 messages?

Artie shrugged. Deal with it in the morning. They dialed the super, not 911. Have another beer, instead.

The next morning, after breakfast, I listened to those messages. Most of them were about the laundry room. Of the three washers, only one was working, and one of the broken ones had spilled water all over the floor. There was a light bulb out in the hallway on the second floor. Someone complained that their neighbor’s door squeaked too much. Someone lost the key to their storage area and needed a new one to get into it. A lot of the calls were duplicates. People seemed angrier the second time they called about the same thing.

They must know the old super is gone, I thought. Who did they think was taking these messages, anyway?

I decided to make a list, to prioritize what needed to be done. If there’s water on the floor of the laundry room, I thought, that will be the first thing I look at. I went across the hall and was relieved to see no standing water. But there was a stain where the water has been. Someone had either cleaned it up, which seemed unlikely, or it had just evaporated on its own. I opened the middle washer and found water in it. I felt certain that the drain had to be plugged. The machine next to it had a hand written sign that said, Doesn’t Work! It’s time to grab some of my father’s tools and get fixing things, I thought.

Two hours later, I had the drain-line cleared, the floor washed, and the Doesn’t Work! machine working. Appliances usually work best when plugged in. This one wasn’t. Well, it was almost plugged in. The plug just needed to be pushed in all the way.

All repairs should be that easy, I said to myself. By lunch time, I had the hallway light bulb replaced and had found no one home in the apartment with the squeaky door, so that I was able to fix that without bothering anyone. Last of all, I had a spare key made from my copy to let the tenant into their storage, put it in an envelope with a note, and slipped it under their door.

I spent the rest of the day reviewing the maintenance records and checking out the rest of the machines in the laundry room, as well as the buildings heating/cooling systems. Everything seemed okay to me. It’s time to get to my real job, I thought. I needed to write. But just as I sat down in front of my computer, the phone rang. As soon as I picked it up, I knew I’d made a mistake. I should have let the machine answer it. I hadn’t even thought about how I should answer the super’s phone.

Hello? That was the best I could come up with at the time.

Hello… Is this the new super?

Yup. You found me, I said.

You got a name?

Yeah. Sorry. I’m Danny. What can I do for you?

My toilet won’t stop running. I’m in 203.

I can help you with that, I said.

When?

I can be up there in five minutes.

Good, she said, and then I heard the line click dead.

I checked my list to see that the woman in the apartment was Daphne Williams. The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t place it. I grabbed my plumbing tool box and a sturdy, canvas bag filled with parts I might need. Five minutes later, I was knocking on the door of 203. She opened it and just looked at me for a moment.

Ms. Williams? I asked her. She looked to me to be about 40. She had a nice face, but there was an edge to her I could sense right away.

"You’re the new super?"

I nodded.

You’re kind of young to own an apartment building, aren’t you?

Oh, I don’t own it. I’m just the super.

Well, you’re a lot younger than the last one… and a lot more prompt, that’s for sure! Do you know what I had to go through to get the last guy up here?

No, actually I don’t. But I’m here… and if you’ll let me in, I could take a look at that toilet for you, I said, adjusting the weight of the tool box and the bag in my hands.

Sorry… come on in, she said, finally opening the door wide.

I walked in and looked around, searching for the bathroom door. As I headed toward it, she said, "That’s my bedroom. The bathroom is the door on your left."

Oh, sorry… I’m still kind of new here, I said, heading into the bathroom. I put my stuff down and got to work, but she was right behind me.

"No, actually, I’m sorry, she said. I’ve been a little short with you. It’s just that the last guy…"

I stopped working and looked up at her.

The last guy was kind of useless. I don’t think he cared anymore. But that’s not your fault. Sorry. Let’s start again. My name is Daphne, she said, extending her hand.

Danny, I said, wiping my hand on my pants leg and then taking her hand and shaking it. Then I looked back at what I was trying to fix. While I worked, she kept talking to me.

"It’s none of my business, but if I was you, I’d slip a little note into everyone’s mailbox to let them know who you are and that you’re here now. It’s been a while since there was anyone around to help a tenant if they needed help. It might be a relief to a lot of people to know you’re here. And if you had an email address, that would be great. A lot of people prefer email. But the last guy… he refused to use anything but the phone, which he never answered. And if he checked the messages, he took his blessed time getting back to you."

I glanced up at her and nodded.

Haven’t I seen you before? she asked me. I work at the bank in town. Plymouth Savings?

I stopped work and looked up at her for a minute. My mother had worked at that bank for years, before she died in the crash two years earlier.

"You look really familiar, she said. You aren’t related to Cecilia Dalton, are you? She had a picture of her kid at work. He looked a lot like you… but younger and with a lot shorter hair."

I’d just finished the repair. I thought about lying to her. I wanted to, in a way. If I was honest, I just wasn’t sure I could deal with the conversation that might follow, even after all the time that had passed. But then I realized I couldn’t lie. I stood up and wiped my hands on a rag.

She was my mother, I said.

Oh, my God, she said, putting her hand to her cheek. "I’m so sorry for your loss. She was a wonderful woman. She talked about you constantly. I thought she said you were pursuing a career as a writer."

Yeah, well, things change, you know? I’m doing this instead, now.

She just looked at me with a somber face and nodded slightly.

I think you’re all set now, I said. You’re toilet is fixed. Let me know if it gives you any more trouble.

I will and thanks for coming up so quickly. I appreciate it.

It was nothing. Just doing my job.

She just stared at me for a minute.

I’m going to go now, I said, trying to make her see that I couldn’t leave the bathroom unless she moved from the doorway.

Of course, she said, stepping aside. You didn’t get a chance to get into the laundry room, did you?

I did. Everything was working, last time I checked, I said, as I started to leave.

That’s great! Thanks again, she said with a big smile. Then her face went somber again and she said, And sorry for your loss.

Thank you, I said, as I walked out the door.

I heard the door close behind me. Then I noticed there was a kid in the hallway. She was a girl, probably in her early teens, I thought, just standing there, staring at me.

How’s it going? I asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she just left the hallway and went down the stairs. In time, I thought, I’ll figure out who everyone is.

I was just walking through my apartment door when the phone started ringing… again. I won’t answer it this time, I thought.

I have a book to write! I yelled at the phone, just as I was closing my door. I thought I heard someone just outside my door after it closed… but then I heard nothing.

It’s been a long day, I said, out loud to myself.

Book One Chapter 3 Danny

The next morning, I found myself slipping small pieces of paper into everyone’s mailboxes, briefly announcing my arrival and my willingness to help the residents with anything they needed. It included an email address for an account I had set up just for that purpose. I added a handwritten note on Daphne Williams’ copy, thanking her for the idea. Then I braced myself for the deluge.

But by the end of the day, I saw that most of what I had stuffed in people’s mailboxes was ignored and the responses I got were almost all just emails welcoming me. Some actually expressed relief that the former super was gone, including an email from 201, the apartment with the squeaky door I had just fixed, which simply said, Ding dong the witch is dead!

It was April and part of me regretted that a landscaping company was still in charge of the upkeep of the small area around the building that was shrubs, flowers, and mulch. I had an urge to get my hands dirty. But then, I reminded myself that I had a book to write. Being stuck in a basement apartment doing that wasn’t very appealing though. It wasn’t like being in my old house with its big windows and lots of light and air… although, I didn’t miss the ghosts of my mother and father. But I did miss my laptop, which had died shortly after I’d got back from college. I need a new laptop, I thought, so that I can write places besides in the basement. Maybe even at the seashore. There seemed to be no reason not to get one that day.

By the middle of that afternoon, I was sitting on the bench by the walkway that led to the front door of the apartment house, working on my third book on my new laptop. It was a story about a young teacher and some of the things she went through, personally and professionally. I reminded myself that there were a couple of empty apartments I needed to get into, to make sure they got the attention they needed before Artie had them rented. But I decided they could wait. The day was too nice and I had things that I needed to write.

As I was writing, I noticed two girls walking toward the apartment. The youngest, who was pretty and athletic looking, walked right past me without even glancing at me. But the second girl stopped on the walkway and looked right at me. She was thin, a little awkward looking, and pale. Her red hair was short, but thick and wavy. Her eyes were ice-blue.

You’re the new super, aren’t you? she said, in an almost accusatory tone.

Yup, that’s me. I’m Danny, I said.

She just stared at me for a moment.

I saw you inside the other day, didn’t I? I asked her.

She continued to look me, with a penetrating stare, but didn’t answer.

Are you going to tell me who you are, or are you just going to stare at me? I finally asked her.

I’m Ciara, she said. I hope you’re better than the last guy!

Are you coming? her sister yelled.

Shut up before I kill you! she yelled back at her.

And with that, she just walked away.

Nice talk, I said to her back, but she just kept walking.

* * *

She is so beautiful to me. She walks down the stairs toward me with a cat-like, fluid grace I think I’ve never seen before. I can’t look away, even though I have no idea who she is. Her hair is long and dark brown. She has freckles on her face. But her eyes… her eyes are so big and such a beautiful, deep blue. I am instantly lost in them.

I hear a voice, but I don’t know whose it is and it sounds far away. Kate, this is the building super, Danny Dalton, the woman’s voice says.

Nice to meet you, Kate says with a smile. And that smile lights up everything around me.

Nice to meet you, Kate, I say, testing the name out, just to see how it feels to say it.

Do I know you? she asks me.

She starts to fade away, right in front of me. I realize, right away, that I don’t want her to leave.

Wait, I yell.

But she’s just fading… until she’s gone.

Wait, I yell again.

And then I wake up.

It was just a dream. I turned on a light and looked around my bedroom, somehow believing she might be there. But of course, she wasn’t.

Kate? I said, out loud. But there was no one there. What a crazy thing to actually say out loud, I thought to myself.

And at that moment, I knew she was the character in the book I had been writing. Or was she? Who was this woman, Kate, in my dream? She must have been someone I’d known in the past, someone from somewhere. How else could I dream of her? Maybe she’s someone from a movie I’ve seen, I thought.

But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t place her. I searched my memory, but it was no use. I couldn’t get her face out of my mind, but I still couldn’t think of who she was or where I’d seen her before. I knew nothing about her… except maybe what I‘d already written about her. But I felt compelled to know more.

Kate…

Book One Chapter 4 Danny May 2012

Maybe it’s writer’s block, I thought. I’d never hesitated before, wondering what to write. It had always just flowed out of me. But it was as if I was frozen in place, fixated on Kate, whoever the hell she was. Does she even exist anywhere but in my dreams, I wondered, or in the book I’m trying to write? I got up from the computer and decided to go work on the empty apartment up on the second floor. Apartment 204.

On the way upstairs, I saw Kim for the first time. She was lugging her laundry downstairs to the laundry room, while I was lugging a couple of tool boxes up to the second floor. She was wearing baggy, pink sweats and sneakers. We barely squeezed by each other in the stairway. She was beautiful. She had blonde hair and, as she walked past me, I couldn’t help but notice how good she smelled and her big green eyes.

Hey, I said as we passed.

Hi, she said.

I’m Danny, the new super, I said to her back.

She stopped on the landing and turned back toward me.

I’m Kim, she said with a smile. I’m in 103. Nice to meet you, Danny, the new super.

You, too, I said. And then she headed off to the laundry room, leaving me standing on the stairway with the toolboxes weighing heavy in my hands. I plunked them down, one each on the steps above and below me.

How did my father do this all his life? I asked myself out loud, feeling the ache in my arms. Then I picked the tool boxes back up and headed back up the stairs, still thinking about Kim’s green eyes.

* * *

After another late night spent writing, the dream comes again. It’s the same as the first time, but she talks to me a little longer this time.

You kind of disappeared on me last time, I say to her.

I had to get to school, she says.

School? You’re a student?

No, she says with a little smile. I’m a teacher.

Of course you are, I think. I wrote that. What do you teach?

Middle School English.

Middle School? Sounds challenging!

"It isn’t so bad. Well, sometimes it is…"

And I listen to her talk about teaching. Her face, in the dream, is so expressive. I feel like I might know exactly what she’s feeling, just by watching her facial expressions, even if I couldn’t hear the words. Just the way she talks about school and her students, I can tell she loves it. It isn’t just a job. It’s a passion of hers. I decide I could listen to her talk forever. But then I hear the phone ringing in the distance… as if it’s far away. And then I realize it’s the super’s phone and I wake up.

It was 7:00 a.m. I thought about letting the answering machine pick it up, but then I thought that for someone to be calling me that early, it had to be some sort of emergency.

Hello? I answered, my voice thick with sleep.

Hello… Mr. Dalton? I heard an older woman’s voice say, with a hint of surprise.

Yeah, this is Danny.

Oh, I’m sorry! I woke you up, didn’t I?

I was already awake, I lied, thinking about how I wished I was still dreaming about Kate.

I didn’t think about the time… I should have, though. I don’t email, so I thought I’d just leave you a message on the machine. The last super never answered his phone and ignored most of the messages I left him.

I’m sorry, I said, but who is this?

Oh… it’s Betsy Stone in 104.

How can I help you Ms. Stone?

"That’s Mrs. and it’s my bathroom door. It won’t close anymore."

Okay. Sure. I can be there in a half hour.

Oh, that would be wonderful! I’ll have breakfast ready for you when you get here!

That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Stone.

Well, it’s the least I can do after waking you out of a sound sleep. And don’t tell me I didn’t. How do you like your eggs?

Scrambled is fine… but wait, you don’t have to do that.

Yes, I do. I’ll see you in a half hour, she said, and then she hung up.

Top of the morning to you, Danny-boy! I said to myself as I crawled out of bed.

A half-hour later, I was knocking on Betsy’s door. She opened it with a big smile, as if we’d known each other all our lives. She was an older woman, maybe in her late 70’s or maybe older. I found it hard to tell. It was obvious she took time to care for her appearance.

Come on in, Mr. Dalton. It’s so good of you to come… so quickly and on such short notice.

The apartment smelled of a delicious, homemade breakfast and my thoughts immediately went back to my home and my mother’s cooking.

Just put those heavy tool boxes down and come into the kitchen, she said. I’ve made us a nice breakfast. Hope you’re hungry.

It smells great, I said, putting my stuff down and following her inside.

Sit down right there, she said, pointing to one of the two chairs at the small kitchen table. That used to be my Henry’s seat, God rest his soul.

Henry?

My husband. He passed away almost a year ago.

I’m sorry for your loss, I said to her.

He was a good man. I miss him every day. But life goes on… or so they say. How do you like your coffee?

Black with two sugars would be great, I answered, as I sat down.

What a coincidence! she said, stopping on her way to the stove. That’s the way Henry liked it!

Already, I felt a little awkward.

That’s enough about my husband, though, she said, pouring the coffee. "Tell me about you."

Thank you, I said after she poured the coffee. But there’s not much to tell.

"Nonsense! There’s probably lots to tell. A nice looking boy like you… you must have a sweetheart."

Me? No… I said, shaking my head and thinking about Kate.

No? she said, as she served me a plate full of eggs. I’m surprised!

I just shrugged. "Guess I haven’t met the woman of my dreams…