I’ve been hacking a big swath through my book. Even the title changed from a lush Adrift on the Dark Sea of Memory to the economical but evocative Twilight. The number of ghosts is still hovering at three but their musings are much more focused. This is now firmly Cort’s story, not Gillian’s. I wonder what my characters think of all these changes. Well, I don’t have long to wait.

Last night in my dreams I found myself visiting my grandparents (Thelma and Bart Bishop, who in the book I’ve broadly fictionalized as Sylvia and Cort Dillard).

There was their little house on the corner of 12th and Wayland in Sioux Falls and me turning into the long gravel drive on a motorcycle(!), and both of them there, blessedly, as they haven’t been since I was eight.

They are older now than they ever became—at least in their 80s—and Grandma, who was always petite, fits into my anxious arms like my seven-year-old niece. I cradle her head against my chest and inhale the smell of her that has been gone from my life for nearly 30 years. She leads me through her tiny kitchen into the room that used to be the dining and living rooms combined. The table is gone and the furnishings are modern.

And there is Grandpa! No bald head or dimness in the eyes from the brain cancer (how strongly those changes in him impressed themselves on me, even though I was only eight when he died). He is a little wobbly on his feet, grasping a cane to rise and greet me. He is not as hale as Cort, but he loves me as much and his eyes are as blue and twinkle as lively.

I comment on how the room seems smaller, and Grandma shows me the porch they made from half of the living room. A part of my dreaming brain marvels that their life has gone on without me while another part wonders: Why didn’t they ask me to add a porch to their house?

I ask Grandpa about his garden, and he admits his kneeling days are over. They’ve just sold the strip on the other side of the driveway to a young man a few blocks away who wanted a flower garden. Grandpa is free to wander through the young man’s paradise but can leave the weeding to the stronger back. It’s a match made in heaven, he says, and I wonder: Why didn’t I buy the land or just give them some money? I leave the connection with them for a minute to berate myself for how long I’ve been gone from them and how poor of care I’ve taken of them.

Then Grandma’s hand comes over mine, as real and warm as the sun, and I remember this is a dream and to give myself a break. Grandma says, “We love what you’re writing.” And I wake up.

Today, I can hardly breathe I am so happy.

This post was originally written January 15, 2008 for the private blog of my writing group, Novel-ties.