Tender Heart by Jade Brown
I trekked through insomnia before accepting my fate at, vestibular migraines – which later on transitioned back to insomnia. The non-esoteric side of me was convinced that meclizine was a sure winner, and sometimes melatonin when my bottle of liquid magnesium ran out. The nighttime always over-spooned and made my body sticky with stardust. My dreams were incongruous whenever that came around, and I still think they’re too innate to reimagine.
Karen was my best friend from first to fifth grade, and also showed me how rice tastes better when it bubbles inside of warm soup. She had short black bouncy hair that made a glee-filled triangle, and colorless skin that could easily peel off – which she often did. She called me Jadey cause my name any shorter would be Ja, and that’s not pretty or full of sentiment. Karen always told me how much she loved The Temptations, and we would watch reruns of their live performances in her one bedroom apartment that housed her, her parents, and her older sister. That apartment felt so big because of Karen, and I assumed it had to to fit her heart.
Karen’s heart was her biggest problem. Not because she gave it away to people like Daisy or Michelle, but because it would occasionally stop beating. From days to weeks, Karen would be out of school due to her being hospitalized for her heart. I got so used to calling the hospital and asking for her room number, I could never understand why my request at the front desk would be met with a chuckle and simper – and then I would hear her voice,
“Hi Jadey.”
Karen was in the hospital during the time I had the dream, but her voice was upbeat and gentle, so I knew she’d be home soon. In the dream I remember sitting inside of a small house at the end of a wooden ladder. The ladder was long, unstable, and led to an upstairs attic area cloaked by nighttime and orbs. Karen laid at the opposite end of the ladder with tears streaming down the rails, and I asked her-begged her to come down. I told her she didn’t belong there, and I pleaded to her with all the might my ten year old body could muster.
“Karen! Come down! Come down, please!” I shook the ladder, stretching my hand out towards her.
Karen’s hands planked to her side, and if I recall correctly, I couldn’t see her hands at all. “I can’t come down, Jadey.”
A few days later I received the call from one of our mutual friends. I was in the middle of playing dolls, Bratz specifically, and my mom had just gotten back from her breakfast run. Her torso was made up of glazed bowties, strawberry with sprinkles, and one Boston creme with a lukewarm coffee for herself. My older sister sat on her side of the room, sketching and joking around with my mom as I listened to the voice on the other end. Their conversation drew to a whisper right before I ended my phone call, and attempted to continue on with my doll adventure.
The dolls didn’t move. My mom stood stock-still in our bedroom doorway with puzzlement throughout her face. “Don’t tell me Karen died.”
I’ve had thousands of dreams since the one I had of Karen. I’ve even had dreams where I had to fight men made of rubber bands—but no matter how frequent or ridiculous those dreams are, I think our dreams are meant to tell us something. My dream of Karen didn’t just warn me of her death, or try to be the catalyst for me to denounce her hospital procedures. My dream told me that no matter how far she may feel, she’ll always be extraordinarily close to me—looking down from an attic covered in constellations.