LOST---Dreams

     As usual, in the old house. My mother was concerned, she told me. She didn't know where Dorothy was,  hadn't seen her in a while. Dorothy was not a child by then, but young, still living at home. We searched all over for her, outside, on the familiar streets of our neighborhood, to no avail. I finally discovered her in the upstairs spare bedroom, lying on the bed there, fully dressed. She was still sleepy, but I told her Ma had been looking for her. Our mother was relieved to hear she'd  been located.

    The scene shifted, within the dream. Dave and I had been on a trip, maybe to NYC or possibly a journey to some other city. We were headed home and in order to reach the train, we had to walk through a very long tunnel-like structure. There were a lot of people taking the  same route so we had to proceed single-file almost. I was ahead of Dave and lost track of him but proceeded along the tunnel of would-be passengers to the very end. He was not behind me. I looked for him in the large terminal or waiting room but did not see him amid the throng  of strangers. I waited for a while and then decided to go back to where we had entered. In order to do that, to return to where we had started out, I had to exit at the far end and walk along the outside of the entry tunnel. That return trip seemed really long, much longer than I'd  remembered and it had a lot of obstacles which interfered with my route to get back where we'd started. I finally reached the entry point again when...

  Suddenly I had a real-life memory, which seemed to coincide with the dream, hadn't not quite woke up yet:

    Dave and I and the three kids had gone to New York.  I don't remember the reason for this particular trip, but remember Danny was about 3 years old, so the others 6 or 8 years older. The five of us were walking back to the train station, me holding Danny's hand and keeping an eye on the other two. We were walking more or less in a group, and though the street was very crowded in the end of work day hours, it was true then that there were very few children in that part of the city, and almost all were men clad in trench coats, tan or gray or black, so it was easy to keep track of the kids. 

   In order to reach the train station, we had to make two crossings, first straight across the street we were on, and then cross the street again to the left. The kids and I made the first crossing, and waited for Dave, who'd been right alongside,  to join us. He wasn't there. We thought maybe he had made the other crossing first. He wasn't at that corner either. So we waited, the four of us on the corner, a colorful sight to behold in the stream of men in drab coats. No Dave. We waited until it was almost time for our train to leave on its evening departure from NYC.  Figuring that Dave might have gone on to the train station, and because it was nearing our departure time, we finally decided to go to the station. I remember we went to the correct track, into Rensselaer, but M. wanted to be sure and went up to the booth and asked the announcer. She needed reassurance. So we waited there. It must have been about 30 or 40 minutes since we'd lost sight of him.  Dave had all our tickets so we couldn't have proceeded without him. In my mind, I thought he might have suddenly fallen or been kidnapped or arrested, but I kept these thoughts to myself. It was a time before instant phone communication, so I was at a loss as to what to do. We just waited as time ran out. At least some of us were slumped on the floor  outside our designated track, just a minute or so before boarding time, when Dave showed up, of course in possession of our return tickets. We had to rush to board our train. The only explanation Dave ever gave, then or when I'd ask him later, was that he'd lost sight of us and waited on the corner. Some mysteries will never be solved.