Dreams

Dreams

Maggie May Miller

Austin Macauley Publishers

Dreams

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgements

Epilogue

About the Author

Maggie May Miller, born in 1963, has lived in America and Germany. She’s married and has two grown daughters. Maggie has studied Psychology and Pedagogics, with main emphasis on the development and education of children and is working as a freelance teacher for more than 30 years. Maggie is also an addicted bookworm and a music freak, her favourite song being ‘Dreams’, by Fleetwood Mac.

Dedication

I’ve always wanted to write this book. Having had a profound dream in early childhood, this book has ‘grown’ with me. I want to dedicate my first book to my darling husband, who made my dream come true and my two daughters, Chrissie and Julie, the loves of my life. Also, this first book is for my daddy, my mentor and spiritual inspiration on this path called life!

Copyright Information ©

Maggie May Miller 2022

The right of Maggie May Miller to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398436909 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398436916 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgements

This book wouldn’t have been written without the Coronavirus pandemic hitting the world in a really hard way. My dream was always to write a book, but working with vigor all my life just never gave me the time and muse to sit downand put into words what ‘My Dream’ is…and then came Corona and I was out of work for 10 weeks! My daughters were my initial drive to do something productive in those long weeks without work and my nephew, Winni, with his wife Laura, set me up with the greatest notebook ever… The book just wrote itself!!! Last but not least I have to give a big thank you and an even bigger hug to my wonderful student, MAYA, who believed in me from the beginning and inspired me to believe in myself!

They had been friends as early as elementary school.

She was living with her father, her mother having left them for a Frenchman when she was only five years old. Her father—never an outward person—recoiled even more and was emotionally distant to her.

He—the soft one—had lost his mother too. She had died when he was 6, after enduring a very brutal marriage to his father, a distant but most of all dominant and brutal man.

Their 3rd friend—the tough one—was lucky. He had a very loving mother, but like in all worlds, his life wasn’t easy either. He didn’t get to know his father, an Irish American Marine, who left as soon as he heard his mother was pregnant. His mom, an immigrant Mexican woman, had to take up more than one job to get both of them through their hard life, to put her kid through a decent school in the city of the angels: Los Angeles, California. The school she picked out was a privileged one, which cost more money than the public one but she just knew it was vital for her son—then already big and strong-headed—to be around privileged students with manners, not around kids who were mostly not lucky enough to be brought up properly.

It was in this school that she met her future employers—two fathers who needed help in raising their children. Luckily, she got the chance to work for these 2 rich men who lived around LA. Her son Jake had befriended Jane and Jude, the 2 motherless children, and she slipped into the role of babysitter, cook and substitute mother.

It was here that a friendship started between the three of them, a friendship that got much deeper than most family ties, a friendship built up on sadness, the feeling of betrayal in multiple ways, a friendship built up on clinging to each other in school for being outcast in such a perfect world where the sun always shines and there seem to be no problems at all.

Every day after school, Jake’s mom would pick them up and take them to her modest apartment, which smelt of good food and was warm and cosy. Jane and Jude both lived in huge villas in the Beverly Hills but their houses were cold and usually isolated except for the maids and gardeners or the pool boy. Both fathers were workaholics and very happy to have little to do with either of their children. They paid a very good salary to Rose so she could keep them until they got picked up and went straight to bed in their own home. Rose was very happy with the situation—she took Jane and Jude under her protective wing and with the money, she was able to get Jake into the privileged high school as well.

The 3 friends stuck together through elementary school, high school and even into college. They stayed the strange group wherever they were not because they were strange but because they didn’t need anybody else, they didn’t want anybody in their little circle. Jane loved her 2 boys deeply—Jude, the soft one, always listening to her dreams and giving his input and telling her his secrets. Jake, the tough one, was her protector and she always ran to him when she was scared or felt pressured or even attacked. She always felt protected when she was around him, even though he never said much. She knew he listened but words just didn’t come easily to him.

He, on the other hand, loved them both dearly too, but he clearly knew he was totally infatuated with Jane. Right from the beginning, the first time he saw her with her curly blonde pigtails and her dark blue eyes, which always turned green when she cried. He loved Jude too, in a big brother way. Jude was extremely intelligent and had an outlook on life and his future that really impressed Jake to the core. He had no such outlook, he just wanted to make it through school and if Jude hadn’t helped and tutored him all through high school, he probably would have never made it to his graduation.

Jude didn’t really know what he felt for both of them. He had always been confused with how he felt for people. He had loved his mother dearly but was still mad at her that she let his father beat her up; eventually, she just disappeared and left him alone when she died of cancer—alone with this brutal guy. Jude was so scared of him, and the older he got, the more scared he got. Not because of the beatings, he could bear that. It was because he was scared that he had this aggressiveness in himself. He just didn’t want to grow up and be a man. He loved Jane’s softness, her skin and her hair—yes, he really loved her but not in a way he knew boys should love girls.

He wanted to BE like her. On the other side, he really loved Jake, his protector. He loved Jake’s stillness even though he knew Jake listened to everything they told him, he just didn’t put his thoughts into words, but Jude could hear them nevertheless. It was a real strange feeling he had for Jake—some kind of pull towards him he couldn’t explain. He had this same sensation when he studied the nature.

From very early on, he was fascinated by plants and herbs, growing them, cultivating them, multiplying them and crossing them into something new—the plants were always talking to him, and it felt the same with Jake—he had an inner dialogue with Jake. Well, somehow, he understood Jake better than he understood himself. Shouldn’t he be in love with Jane? He felt more in love with Jake…and that scared the shit out of him—was he gay?

If his father saw that in him, he would kill him for sure. That is why he had a rock-solid plan for the future. He wanted to go on to the University of Berkeley and study biology; after that, he would travel to South America and study the nature there (he had heard many stories about the special environment in South America), maybe he would look into ecology, cell development and maybe even genetics and as a side effect, he would perhaps find out who HE was in life.

Jane went on to study psychology. She had always been interested in the ways of the soul, having had a profound dream very early in life. In her dream, she had met her ‘soul’ partner just like all the girls see in fairy tales: he came on a white horse and swept her up to sit in front of him. He took her away from the dark, cold forest where there was no feeling of love and they lived happily ever after. This feeling of unconditional love and fulfilment was what she was seeking but to find it, she had to learn what it was, where she can find it, how she can keep it—was she even made for such a huge emotion?

After all, her mother had just left her, her father was totally distant—could she find that feeling inside her, could she learn to feel like that? So she decided to study it, preferably in California at Berkeley, if possible. And having ended college with the best regards, she enrolled there and found it was exactly what she was looking for.

Jake was lost…both his friends had solid plans for the future and were practically gone, more or less; he decided he needed structure and enlisted in the Army. That wasn’t the best idea and his mother was devastated. Was that why she had worked all those years—for her son to run off and get into the army? It was the beginning of the 21st century and naturally, he had to go to Iraq… He went a total of three times and after seeing too many crippled bodies, crippled souls, many more than he ever thought he could handle, he decided to get back to the easy life of California. He found work at a security agency and tried to shut out all the pictures he had collected in his mind. The California sun warmed his heart.

After 8 years of searching for their path in life, they were all back in California, settling down and trying to find their life of their dreams, harbouring a deep void in their souls from their childhood.

It was the tough one who first sought out the 2 others, looking for a basis, his mother long gone after a hardworking life as a Mexican immigrant looking for the American dream. His longing for love, unconditional love, drove him first to Jane. As the detective he was in the meantime and also the very sceptical character he had turned into, he first watched her from afar.

She had built up her dream life as it seemed… When they were young, she was always telling them about her dream house high up in the Big Sur area. She had visited the area as a child and fallen in love with the trees sparsely coating the stony hills and cliffs and above all, she loved the view!

Seeing the Pacific from above, all she wanted to do was sit upon a big rock and watch the waves crashing into the huge boulders sitting on the beach. In her fantasy world, the ocean symbolised her life. Sometimes it was calm and smooth but most of the time, it was wild and one big wave came rolling in and with full force crashing into one of the big boulders. All her life had been like that: the calm and the smooth were always sparse, the big wave and the crashing dominating her life.

After studying hard and working during that time as a waitress in bars at night, she had saved enough money and with her work at Berkeley; after ending her studies summa cum laude, she started a professorship in her favourite branch, child development, in developmental psychology at Berkley; she had no problem getting a loan. She found the perfect property and built her dream house, the one in her memory, her fantasy house when life was unbearable in her childhood… Also, she just loved her work.

Working at Berkeley gave her a feeling of coming home and having a family, at least a little. She was always telling herself, that that’s what it was…and she was happy, or? She had a great team of colleagues, they worked together on different longitudinal studies, her speciality was the development and education of children and each semester she offered the students different courses in child development. Often enough they went out for drinks…well, in the last half of a year she didn’t do that anymore…she was with a guy who was incredibly jealous and she could never estimate his reaction…

Yeah, the guys…somehow, she had the stupid trait to always pick the wrong guy—an emotionally distant lover who made her feel used. After dating a long string of mostly very sexy-looking, intelligent but totally unable to love kind of guys, she wasn’t looking anymore and started to enjoy life.

It was about this time that Jake came back to California and slid secretly into her life. He watched her from afar and slowly but surely started to know her routine and agenda. He didn’t dare contact her…for all his toughness and roughness, he was still the insecure little poor boy in love with this beautiful little rich girl. Even though he was building up his own business—his own security company with private detective connections was starting to bring in real money—he couldn’t muster up the nerve to contact her. In his weird mind, he didn’t really believe she could remember him.

She, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about him—the one guy in the world who had made her feel safe and loved. He was her friend in her childhood and all those adolescent years where she hungered for love from her father and felt hated and worthless by her mother. It was his mother who taught her everything a girl should know right up to how to kiss a boy. She had loved Jake’s mother deeply and felt a vicious pain in her heart thinking that she never could say goodbye to her, let alone go to the funeral.

That was a very bad time for her then in her life and she was self-consumed with her ambition at work, earning as much money as she could to be independent from her father, build her house and just try to leave her old life behind. Sometimes in the middle of the night, in her worst dreams, she punished herself with telling herself how worthless and superficial she was, not worth another person loving her. After those nights, she went out and looked for especially mean guys with whom she wanted dirty sex. She wanted to be used and hurt and punished. That is how she met Rick in a bar.

He was a very good-looking Italian type man with vicious eyes but nevertheless very flirty and sexy. With him, she had the best sex in her life—he liked it real rough and she too, most of the time. Eventually, she thought that this might be the love she was seeking, like in her ever recurring dream. She knew in her heart something was missing but she talked herself into believing that this must be it, after all, she was going to be 30 in a few years—surely she must find love? In the beginning—like all beginnings—they were happy together, enjoying the Californian sun and life. She had her work, he worked in San Francisco in a bank and they had their weekends at the beach and their love-making in her house, after which they sat on her terrace overlooking the beautiful Pacific and watching terrific sunsets with a glass of wine—it was exactly like in her dream!

Naturally, life isn’t that—a dream—and especially her life always seemed to get worse after a wonderful high… Slowly but surely, he changed, she could hear the difference in his voice, when she called to tell him she had to work later, she could see his annoyance when her independent life didn’t include him and it didn’t really take too long before he hit her for the first time, his rage exploding. The wave rolling in and crashing against the boulder. After this first time, it was like something opened Pandora’s box—jealousy was seeping out and she felt him trying to control her, watch her, and she couldn’t be free anymore.

She had started a special project at the time—her team and she as the main professor were putting together a study about children and their gender roles in transgender families. Her team was a young one with two psych students working on their bachelor’s in their early 20s from the east coast (Patricia and Steffi) and 2 psych students from Spain (Paolo and Luis) having their semester abroad. Also, there was another man with many degrees in psychology and now studying to be a psychiatric.

Originally from Sweden, Sven had been in California for a few years and was her age. They had been working on different projects together since then. He was an easy-going type, always a smile on his lips and loved to work just as much as she did. He was also the biggest flirt in the whole faculty, which naturally made him total off limits for her—or so she thought. She knew this type of guy from high school and never wanted to be together with such a prick.

On the other hand, he was so nice though and that was not just a put on. At the end of the second semester that they had worked together, there was a party—there always was some party—and they went there together. He was putting on all his flirtatious moves and they were dancing in the sand on the beach when he kissed her—just like that. She was a little tipsy and just like that—she kissed him back. They started a fling and they spent every free minute together, enjoying their work and their mutual interests.

She really started to fall in love then—maybe—but she wasn’t ready for a relationship at the time and she didn’t want to start anything real with a colleague…and anyway, his flirtatious ways in their team weren’t to her liking either. She stopped it after three months and he was truly heartbroken—she hadn’t seen that coming! For some time, they stayed apart but then they just took up their friendship platonically. After all, they worked together mostly every day in a wonderful setting, doing research and loving their work. Eventually, Sven married a beautiful girl, all colleagues remarking that the bride looked like her little sister. She thought then that he was happy.

That was all then and now years later, she was stuck with this real bad boyfriend—how did she always get into such a mess—she should have stayed with Sven—they were friends, loved their work and free time, the sex was good too (not as good as with Rick though)—what was wrong with her? Slowly, her dream came floating into her brain and there it was again—her memory of her true love, unconditional love—sweeping her up and riding out of that dark forest, she feeling so safe and loved—all of a sudden she saw Jake’s loving face in front of her eyes…

Too bad her dream was a dream in a dream…she hadn’t heard from Jake since he left her to get into the Army and that was 8 years ago. He was probably happily married too.

She was together with Rick—and he was clinging to her and at the same time couldn’t control his rage, which was getting worse and worse. She, on the other hand, was looking for escapes, making up fantasy appointments and even thinking of telling Sven about Rick and searching for a way out.

It was a Friday night early in spring; she was working with her team on compiling a new scale for evaluating emotions in children when their door at the lab flung open and Rick came storming in. Sven and Paolo tried to stop him but he just charged passed them and hit her hard in the face. She flew over a table and crashed with her hip into the wall. She should have left him then but she didn’t know how and she was really scared by then. Also, she was totally embarrassed. After Rick left the room, she apologised profusely and tried to make up a plausible story that it was her fault.

Her team tried to console her and Patricia and Steffi helped her wash up in their bathroom. Nothing helped conceal her embarrassment. However, one good thing does come from a hard childhood—you never stay on the floor after a hard blow, you don’t give up trying to find a better place, you charge on, you are a fighter! On Monday, she went back to work like always and no one said a word about it. Rick didn’t call her until the week after the hitting and she really wanted to end the relationship now, just didn’t know how… That was when she did confide in Sven—who was cavalier true to his amiable character and offered to come to her house as a protector. She refused though, thinking she could get through this herself.

It is Friday night once again and she is waiting for Rick to show when Jake takes up his post behind the house where he can see the dining room and living room. Jake knew who this Rick was, not just because he has been watching Jane for a month now, he knew the type from all the stereotypes he has seen over the years. A vicious coward who could only live out his rage on a woman. He has waited the last two weeks for this guy to come over and he swore to himself as soon as he gets mean to Jane, Jake will take over.

When Rick comes into her house with flowers and a bottle of red wine and a shamed smile on his face, she almost decides not to quit the relationship. She pours the glasses of wine and they sit down in the living room. No, she thinks: be courageous and tell him it’s over! So she starts the conversation and she isn’t even at the point of taking a break when he senses what is coming and shoots out of his seat with a quickness she can’t even comprehend. He is pressing down on her throat, screaming he will kill her, totally out of control. And then her living room seems to collapse.

Jake has come in and gives him the real treatment—that is what he calls this beating up—after that, nobody will try and get back at you, they will always go running when they see you. Jane’s standing in the shadows in awe and thinking about the fairy tales she loved and her dream in particular…did Jake just sweep her up on his horse and ride out of the dark brutal forest?

After that, everything falls into place.

Where have you been? How did you get into my house?

It’s all right, he won’t be coming back…

I missed you!

I missed you too!

I missed you more!

And with one jump, she is back in his arms just like in high school and she starts to cry. Eight years of loneliness—she cries into his shoulder and he holds her all night long, thinking also of all those years of loneliness and pain and all his pictures he stowed away, dying soldiers in his arms, limbs, bodies, destruction, Mommas crying, babies crying…

When it dawns, he goes for a run and then he makes breakfast. He feels at home even though he doesn’t know how it will go on: will she accept him back in her life as a friend? Was their friendship only a dream he was nourishing? After all, she didn’t come to his mom’s funeral, neither did Jude. But then they had been separated for 6 years and Jude was in South America—he knew that. Everyone moves on, don’t they? Well, he actually didn’t, did he, not in his heart certainly. Too much thinking, Jake, get on with making breakfast.

In the meantime, Janey (that is how he always called her) is waking up after a wonderful dream of a flower field and a white horse in the warm sun. When she opens her eyes, she remembers and feels the space next to her…but she finds her bed empty. She just didn’t dream it, did she? Her bed is empty, her beautiful room overlooking the ocean is empty and she is lying here alone. That same feeling of emptiness slowly creeping into her body…

That is when she hears sounds from the kitchen. She gets up and goes quietly into the kitchen where she stands very still in the corner and watches him for some time, not knowing that he already knows that she is standing there. He has to compose himself before turning around, not knowing how to confront her, not knowing if everything he did last night (beating up this prick and just holding her) might be wrong after all—maybe she wants this sort of treatment, he has heard of women who like it, not that he has any experience with that sort of thing. The women he had been with were all just needy ways of relieving himself and themselves from stress.

He prolonged turning around so he could think what to say—as usual, he couldn’t find any words so at last he just turns around to her and looks into her beautiful dark eyes, which are full of wonder…and something he can’t detect at first…yes…but is it…LOVE? There is this little girl again with her blonde pigtails who always ran to him when the others were making fun of her… And that is when she does this again: she runs to him and just jumps right back into his arms.

I am so happy to see you again! Where have you been? How did you get into my house? How? When? Why? She is just babbling, clinging to him while he is nuzzling her in the fold of her neck, smelling her hair, smelling her and feeling so utterly at home…for the first time since 8 years.

They spend the whole morning talking, filling each other in on what had happened in the last eight years. This time, Jake talks and talks, he spares her the real bad pictures but it is a strange feeling for him, he just needs to get it all out, it feels like some sort of catharsis and she is the one person in the world who can understand him, understand his feelings. After all, she has known him since he was a boy.

On the other side, she just can’t fill him in on all what she had done in the last 8 years—just thinking of all those men makes her feel incredibly low and shame spreads through her body like hot lava. Instead, she tells him about her studies, her house, she even talks about her father and how he has changed in old age and his decision to move to Washington DC. Naturally, she hasn’t heard anything from her mother—for all she knows, her mother is dead…

Eventually, they get to talking about Jude and Jake fills her in what Jude had done all those years. He had really stuck to his plan and after studying biology, not in Berkeley but at Harvard University, and ending there with a similar summa cum laude as Janey, he went on to South America where he stayed 3 years studying all those plants, herbs and botanicals. He’s been back for some time now and it seems he’s also building up his own company of growing special healing plants—You know how he always loved his plants! Jake smiles at that memory.

They both wonder why he hasn’t tried to reach one of them but then again, they also hadn’t tried to reach him.

Sitting together in companiable silence on her beautiful terrace with the spectacular view, they are both deciding how to go on now…

Janey has some plans to meet with a friend for lunch, go shopping and the normal things she does on the weekend but all she wants to do is spend time with Jake. She is just contemplating how to tell him this when Jake confronts her: Soooo, Crazy Janey… That’s what he always called her playfully. What do you want to do today?

He too isn’t sure of how to go on but then decides that one has to do exactly that—GRIP THE MOMENT! He has waited too long for this moment to happen and—for him—it is very courageous and he just pops the question. For all he knows, it could go both ways: she could tell him he must leave and she’ll get back to doing her thing or… But she answers so fast, he is taken aback.

YES! I want to spend all day with you! I don’t care what we do! And she smiles her sweetest smile at him.

And with that, they start their relationship again. After spending the day at the beach and having a late lunch/early supper at their favourite diner up in Monterey, Jake drives Janey back down Pacific Coast Highway No 1 to her home. There is no need for her to ask him in, it all comes so naturally.