You come to know it in more detail with repetition.

So what do you think it means?

I dont know what it means. I’ve always thought that one of the women was my mother.

But you yourself are no part of it.

No.

What else?

Unless of course I’m inside my mother. Hadnt thought of that. What else? I dont know. I’ve never told the dream to anyone before.

Do you think it’s related to something you’ve read?

When was the last time you dreamt about something you’d read?

You dont think that happens.

No. Do you?

I dont know. I’d have to think about it. Do you remember the first time that they took you to the doctor’s?

For being crazy?

Okay.

Yes. They took me to Knoxville. I was four.

Crazy at four.

An aggravated case. They took me to the eye doctor. I had strabismus.

They didnt take you to the eye doctor for being crazy.

No. It was the eye doctor who told them that I was. They thought I was weird but it had never occurred to them to take me to a doctor about it. Maybe they were afraid they wouldnt get me back. Or that they would. Anyway, that was the beginning of my life among the shrinks.

What do you remember about that day?

Such as what?

Just in general.

Just in general.

Yes.

All right. I got up around seven and went downstairs and my grandmother was in the kitchen and she gave me a glass of orange juice and then she told me to go up and wake my mother.

How did you know that it was seven oclock?

I looked at the kitchen clock.

You could tell time.

Yes.

At four.

Yes.

Go on.

I was in my pajamas with the dogs on them and I went up and woke my mother and she asked me what time it was and I told her and then I went back down to the kitchen and Granellen put me in my chair.

Your grandmother.

Yes. She was fixing breakfast and the radio was on and I could see out the window. I could see Granellen’s car parked in the driveway. The car was blue and she’d just gotten it. I think it was only the second car she ever had. It was wintertime and there was a fire in the stove and the trees outside were bare and the cows had come up to the fence at the bottom of the drive and the trees along the creek were gray and dead-looking. I had a bowl of cornflakes and my mother came down and had some coffee and then she took me upstairs and got me dressed. I wore my green corduroy skirt with the shoulderstraps and a green sweater and my Poll Parrot shoes with the straps that snapped. We left for Knoxville a little before eight oclock.

Okay. I think I get it. Why dont you just tell me what the doctor said.