i dreamed that my daughter went missing. i dreamed that i had dressed her up in a couple of layers of clothing, all green, and sent her out into the backyard to play with her brother for a few minutes while i finished up the dishes. it was really only a few minutes, something i've done before, because while the backyard area isn't completely fenced in, the kids do a good job out there of policing themselves for short periods, and i was going to join them right after i put the last of the dishes in the cupboards. also, leon was home and was supposed to be keeping an eye on them from the deck, where he was sweeping up the leaves that our dogwood tree rains down upon it every autumn.

only when i finished putting the dishes away, i slipped into my shoes and walked into the backyard to only find liam playing by himself under some cedar trees. "where's laurel?" i asked, casually, thinking she must have slipped into a friends' house. he shrugged. "i dunno," he said. i looked over at her friends place and saw that they were not home, their curtains were closed and it was dark looking inside. i started calling her name, louder and louder, as i walked in concentric circles around the yard. no reply. leon's ears were perked and he soon joined me. we kept liam nearby as we widened our search to the rest of the complex, out beyond the pool (which i very heisitantly looked into to be sure she hadn't somehow scaled the fence and fallen in), and into the parking lots. there was no sign of her. i began yelling in earnest and could feel the blood pounding in my ears. leon and i decided to split up and cover the areas of the complex that were out of earshot of our unit. i walked up through the corridors between townhouses towards the playground on one side, he walked up the other. the whole time i was thinking we'd find her at the playground, that she'd gotten it into her head to go up there alone. but she wasn't there. leon and liam and i met at the slide, and though i wanted to cry, i tried to keep it together. we decided to walk back slightly different ways, calling her name ever louder, until we got home. and if there was still no sign of her, we'd call the police.

which we did. leon then went out to knock on the neighbours' doors to ask if anyone had seen her. i stayed at home with liam, who went downstairs to watch t.v. while we waited for the police to show up. i was panicking deep inside but trying to remain calm on the surface for liam's benefit, who still seemed unworried and even slightly oblivious. she could have walked into anyone's unit, told them that we said it was alright. leon was going to find her just a couple of doors down. he had to.

but that didn't happen. instead as i was standing out on the front stoop, watching leon go from door-to-door, i saw the police cruiser pull into our parking lot. leon stopped his canvassing and walked over to talk to the cops. they said something urgent to him and he looked up at me and said, "they've found her, i'm going with them, i'll call you!" and before i could demand more information he jumped in the car and they sped off. i walked back in the house, choking back tears. if they'd found her, why hadn't they brought her home? something had to be terribly wrong. i tried to busy myself in the kitchen, mindlessly wiping the counters, boiling the kettle for coffee i wouldn't drink, reorganizing the bottles of soaps and detergents near the faucet. liam came upstairs and asked if they'd found laurel and i said yes and that she would be home in a little while, daddy was just going to pick her up.

the phone rang a short time later and it was leon. "she's here, at the hospital," he said, but his voice was funny, like he had something stuffed into his throat. "is she okay? is she okay?" i asked, frantic. "she's here. they found her, lynn. she wandered off into the street and she was hit by a car. she's here and they found her." "but is she okay?!" i screamed into the phone. liam perked his ears up from his seat at the dining room table where i'd fixed him a small sandwich. he walked over and put his hands on my hip. i started crying when leon didn't answer right away because i knew. i knew before he even said the words. "she's not. she's not okay, lynn. she was hit by a car going 60k and she died on the way to the hospital. she's here and i'm going to see her in just a few minutes. they want to clean her up a little before i see her to identify her. but she's here, at least we know she's here." and he dissolved into tears on the phone, and i fell down on my knees in the kitchen and began to wail, the phone clattering across the floor, liam falling down with me, putting his hands on my face and trying to look me in the eyes. i lay there screaming and sobbing for a long time. liam started to cry too, though i still hadn't said the words to him, he knew what my reaction meant, and we laid on the tile together, crying and crying forever.

"maybe it wasn't her," i said, "maybe it wasn't her and it was someone else's baby and when leon sees that he'll call again, liam. he'll call again and say, they were wrong, it's not laurel, go outside, keep looking, call her name some more. and we'll find her. we'll find her again. she can't be gone. she can't be." and liam was nodding and smoothing his palms against my cheeks hoping to stem the flow of tears that were so upsetting for him to see pour out of my eyes. but when the phone rang again, leon didn't say that. he said it was her, that he'd seen her in her little green outfit. and he was sobbing, too. and then i threw up.

the dream then shifted to a day or two later. and my mother was in the house with me, trying to help me get up out of bed, get dressed. she'd arranged a funeral, a real catholic funeral, a mass for our daughter. she wanted me to get dressed to go and i was stubbornly not co-operating, still trying to cling to the idea that it was not my daughter who had died, as if refusing to go to her funeral would make her come to life again. but my mother insisted and pulled a black dress over my head. i yelled at her for setting up a catholic mass, none of us were catholics anymore, none of us, we hadn't been in a church since the last family wedding where no one took communion because it had been decades since anyone in the family had confessed or attended service, my daughter wasn't even christened. and she forced my feet into shoes and said that laurel could be admitted into the church and accepted into heaven if we all went to this mass and said prayers and sang hymns and i wanted that for her, at least, didn't i? and when i screamed at her no! it was all bullshit! she slapped me across the face and and screamed back, "you are coming! she is your daughter! you will do right by her!"

and then the dream jumped again and we were shuffling into the church and i was literally choking on my sobs, my legs and knees and feet completely numb and unyielding to my brain's insistance that we enter. and i could see my daughter's casket, open, at the front of the church, and so many people there were lined up to see her, to gawk at her, and i began shaking and had to press the back of my wrist to my mouth to keep the vomit from coming out. leon was next to me, had his hand on my elbow, guiding me, though to look at his face i knew he was as lost as i was. liam was on my other side, clinging loosely to my dress, looking bewildered. i did not want to look at her in the casket. i did not want to be a spectacle for all the church-goers. but i was slowly guided up to the front, where the people all turned to look at us, and parted like waves, and leon and liam and i walked and walked long up the aisle as they let us pass, and then i was looking down at her small, white face in a small, white, satin-lined coffin, in a small, white, lacey dress. and i bit the inside of my lips so hard i drew blood and wanted to throw myself over her small body. and i didn't even make a move to do it but leon sensed the urge in me and quickly turned me away from her, to force me into a pew at the front, to sit me down. and i let myself be guided because the rushing of blood in my ears and the welling of hot tears in my eyes bewildered me and made everything in the church go swimmy and raw and hot and confusing. and as my bottom hit the hard wood of the pew, suddenly a chorus of singing rose up into the air and i looked up into the balconey that hung over the pulpit, and saw hundreds upon hundreds of small laurels in the same tiny white dress she was wearing in the casket, singing, singing, singing their hearts out, all latin words i could not understand, and they all had tiny, delicate silvery angel wings pinned to the backs of their dresses and my mother was next to me, sobbing, and leon was putting his arm around my shoulders, and squeezing me, squeezing me so hard i thought i would cry out from the pain but at the same time glad for it because it kept me in my body. it kept me from flying up out of my body into that balconey where all the laurel imposters were singing for her soul, and ripping them to pieces with my bare hands, sobbing as i did it, raining blood and a mother's rage and grief down onto the congregation.