So I shut my eyes again. I was thinking I would just dip in, serve myself a delightful feast with food and drink that doesn’t even exist on the regular plane of existence, and then wake myself up and join my family for some real and boring dinner. But time moves differently in the dreamworld and, in all my learning about how to perfectly execute the dreamdiving, I haven’t quite figured out the translation of Dream Time to Real Time and, well, one thing led to another in my dreamfeast and the silverware starting singing, like a scene from Beauty and the Beast and THEN my ten-year-old neighbor fell asleep and he’s got this absolutely wicked imagination where he dreams about these really fun and goofy quests in magical lands, so I got caught up in that for a bit and then Aaron was dreaming about computer code (the nerd) and I got to jump into a Matrix-style thriller and then I was feeling antsy and I flew for a while but then I realized that a few hours had probably passed and I woke myself up and it was twenty-six hours later.

I didn’t think anyone in my family would understand all of that though, so I kept it to myself, pretending like I’d just made a mistake. Slipped up. That seemed to appease them for the time being but …

Okay, so. That’s happened a few more times. Since Thanksgiving. And with my family’s seeming lack of concern about me sleeping two entire days away, I figured, what’s the harm? Well, this morning, I was ambushed by my dad in the kitchen.

“Look who’s joined the land of living,” he said. I looked over to the kitchen table, to see him staring at his cup of coffee, a newspaper open under his elbows sitting on the table. He was definitely speaking to me—Aaron and my mom were nowhere to be seen—but he wasn’t looking at me.

“It’s…” I looked toward the microwave clock. “Eight thirty. Aaron sleeps in later than that almost daily. I assume that’s where he is right now,” I added for good measure.

“Yes, but Aaron was actually awake for some of yesterday, which can’t be said for every member of this household.”

I recognized that tone of voice. There’s always so much talk about “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed” being mom-speak, but our mom just comes right out and tells us when she’s mad. It’s my dad who will sound disapproving and let down, in just the right way to make you feel like the worst person in the world.