Chapter One
"Rachel, it's time to get up," Emily said trying to rouse her six-year-old daughter.
"Ugh!" Rachel groaned as she squirmed around in bed, burrowing deeper under the covers.
"C'mon, you gotta get ready for school."
"Oh-kay," Rachel grumbled.
As the sun beat in the window on this late-September morning in a suburb of Nashville, Rachel forced herself to wake up. She ran her hand through her sandy blond hair and rubbed her blue eyes. A few minutes later, she came padding into the kitchen with her three-year-old half-brother, Michael, and two-year-old half-sister, Leslie, not far behind still in their nightclothes. Emily smiled as she set the three cereal bowls on the child-sized picnic table, which served as their kitchen table. It fit the kids just fine, but Emily usually ate standing by the counter or sitting by herself in the living room. There just wasn't much money after the divorce. The child support payments had stopped coming in some time ago. Henry, her ex-husband, had been released from jail five days earlier. He had been locked up for three months for failure to pay his child support. Hopefully, he learned his lesson and some money would start rolling in again.
Emily ruffled Michael's dark brown, slightly wavy hair as she kissed Leslie's soft, black, curly hair. "Good morning."
"Good morning, Mommy," they said in unison.
After breakfast, Rachel dressed herself, brushed her teeth and hair and got her backpack on. Rachel would walk next door to the neighbor's house. Robert would drive his two children and Rachel to school in the morning and then Emily would pick them all up in the afternoon. It worked out quite well because Emily didn't have to rush in the morning and she could drop Robert's kids off on the way to take her kids to her mother's before going to her second shift job.
Emily sent Rachel out the door with a hug. She looked up and saw Robert waiting by the car. "Good morning, Robert!" Emily hollered as she waved.
After Rachel left, Emily pushed the door shut behind her and went back into the kitchen to wrap up breakfast. The living room and kitchen sat back to back along the inside wall of the duplex. The bedrooms sat back to back along the outside wall. The small bathroom was between the master bedroom and the kitchen along the backside of the building. A small hallway connected all of the rooms. It wasn't much, but it was home all the same.
She took Michael and Leslie into their room. "Here, Michael, put this on." Michael took the jeans and t-shirt from his mother and moved over to the bed.
"Here you go, Les." Leslie took the clothes her mother offered and stomped her way to her bed. Everything was a big deal, a big show for Leslie. She gave drama queen a whole new definition!
As Emily left the room, she looked back to see the kids removing their pajamas exposing their light brown skin. She headed back into her room to clothe her five foot, eight inch, medium build body. She had green eyes and light brown, long, straight hair. People often told her how pretty she was, but she just didn't see it. To her, she was just average all the way around. After picking out her clothes for the day, Emily sat on the edge of her bed.
All of a sudden, smoke filled the small two-bedroom duplex. As she looked out her bedroom door, Emily saw dark orange flames in the living room. When she stood up, her head was in the smoke. There was a very definite line of smoke around chest level. She tried to remain calm as she hurried into the hallway headed for the kids' room. She bumped into something. She reached down and felt curly hair identifying the object as Leslie.
She ushered her back into her bedroom. She knelt down below the smoke, finding Michael sitting on his bed crying. Leslie was crying also. She took both children in her arms.
"It's okay," she said in as calm of a voice as she could muster. "You lie down on the floor and Mommy will be right back."
She took a deep breath and stood back up in the smoke feeling her way to the window. She had to keep her eyes closed because the smoke was stinging them. Of course, the smoke was so thick and so black she couldn't see even if she could have kept her eyes open. When she reached the dresser in front of the window, she climbed up on it and raised the window. She couldn't raise the screen, so she butted it with her shoulder hoping it would pop out. It was rock hard. What on earth?! she thought. She tried again. The screen wouldn't budge. Why is it so hard? I need air. One more try. She hit the screen again with her shoulder. Still nothing budged, still rock hard. I have to get air and then I will try again.
As she was climbing off the dresser she heard Robert outside calling her name. She yelled as loud as she could, "We're in the kids' room, Robert! We're in the kids' room!" She took a deep breath and the whole world went black.
(c) 2007 Tracey Perger/Exerpt from I Had Dreams
