Last night, my dream started with me inside the grocery store. I was walking around pushing a cart, down every aisle I was finding my belongings. But they were all items I haven’t owned in years. The sparkly blue denim clogs I lived in when I was ten-years-old were on top of the bananas. Loud patterned sundresses, regrettably given away, were hanging from the salad bar. The painting of The Spooky Girl, less regrettably given away, was leaning against a pyramid made up of boxes of Cap’n Crunch.

Then I was downstairs in my house, my mother and grandmother were sitting on the livingroom couches wearing Santa hats. The room was wallpapered with plastic red and green garland. A white Christmas tree had been set up, barren of ornaments and twiggy, so pure white it was hard to look at. I asked them why there were Christmas decorations out when we were only three days into summer, my mother exclaimed, “The new puppy has to have Christmas!” She gestured for me to go upstairs, as I did she added, “We are also getting a roommate! His name is Ted. He’s diabetic, don’t give him any ribbon candy.”

Outside the front door, a helicopter had landed on our front lawn. A man in a suit was coming in and out of it. He was placing down sleeping puppies, packed together in a line across the grass. I watched from behind the screen door. He finished getting them out of the helicopter, and I went outside to see. They woke up as soon as I sat down on our front stoop, jumping into my lap, getting in my face to inspect me. My hand went below the crowd of puppies and picked up one that was still sleeping. The man looked at him and said “He’s the runt of the litter. A blue-grey chihuahua dog.” I held the puppy close to my chest as I went back inside the house. He looked up at me, I remember saying over and over, “Hello Little Silver.”

I sat on the lid of the toilet in the downstairs bathroom, brushing Little Silver’s long hair as he slept in my lap. A man came in smoking a cigarette. He was Ted, the new roommate. Ted lifted Little Silver out of my lap, holding him so I could wash his small head. With his other arm, he gently touched my side, and I looked at his face. His closed lips were wrapped around the cigarette, but I heard him saying, “I’m sorry, I know it’s not fair.”