Only in a Dream Ch. 04

After all of the emotional strife he had been through in his early life, all of the physical pain he had gone through, and still did, from his accident. His biggest fear was, that his wife would cheat on him. He trusted her, but as pretty as she was, and all of the guys hitting on her all of the time, he didn't trust them.

Brad thought about that old Dr. Hook song,

"When you're in love with a beautiful woman. . . You watch her eyes. . . When you're in love with a beautiful woman. . . You look for lies. . . Everybody tempts her. . . Everybody tells her. . . She's the most beautiful woman they know. . ."

Then he heard the back door open.

"Brad, supper's ready, come in and eat."

********

Please read chapters 1 to 3 to get an idea of what brings Brad to this point.

Three quick years had flown by since that day on the deck after Brad had heard about his nephew's girl problems. Brad had pushed all of those thoughts he had that day back into the recesses of his mind and hoped to leave them there.

On a Friday afternoon, as he readies himself to take a Saturday fishing trip with his grandson, he stumbles across an old journal of Kathy's. As he thumbs through the pages, he spots a name he hasn't heard or thought about for quite some time. Now all of the fears and suspicions are back.

He secretly takes the book with him to read, while his grandson fishes. As he begins to read, old songs on the radio bring back vivid memories of some troubling times and some firsts in his life.

July 2013.

Three years had passed since the day that Kathy had told Brad about Sharon and Danny. It turns out that the baby was actually Danny's and they were still together, but their relationship was strained. Especially after Danny spent some time in jail for putting Sharon's ex in the hospital. Brad didn't blame him, but Danny was drunk and he did it right in front of the man's daughters. Brad didn't think that the children needed to see that.

Brad was sitting, relaxing in the recliner and reminiscing once again. The plant had been closed for almost four years now, time seemed to be moving really fast now for Brad. Most of his grandchildren were now teenagers and his youngest son's wife was pregnant again. He thought about how his son (named after Brad's father) would soon be the same age as his father had been when he died.

"Such a short time to live," he thought.

The last twenty nine years had flown by almost overnight, it seemed.

"Weren't my own children teenagers just last week."

Where had all the years gone. He had been out of the workforce for almost four years now, people called him crazy, but he missed working terribly. Brad had kept himself busy with his model railroad, it was coming along nicely. He found when you don't have a lot of money to spend and you have to improvise, it was amazing how easy it was to scratch build different buildings, bridges and such. The cardboard from cereal boxes was used to make houses and industries, then painted with the acrylic paints that Kathy had used for her different crafts over the years. Brad had majored in Architectural Drafting in high school, so drawing buildings and bridge plans to scale came easy for him.

When Brad's stepfather died, he left the abundance of tools he had collected to Brad. One of the things Brad now had, was a miniature Dremel table saw that he used to cut his own tiny wood strips. He built a huge mountain with a curved trestle running along the outside edge. The trestle was made from popsicle sticks cut into strips. Brad now had time to really detail things the way he'd always wanted to, so there was no need to get in any big hurry.

Two of Brad's grandsons played football at school, another one at the YMCA and then one was in the band. He was constantly running them back and forth to practices or to games. It was the off season for football, but they still had to attend weight training to prepare for the next season. Which started in late August. If it wasn't that, one of his other kids would call needing something. He almost felt like he had more time for himself when he was still working. Of course, Brad didn't move real fast either, so that accounted for some of the time that seemed to slip away.

Brad had promised Dustin to take him up to Goose lake earlier in the summer, but it seemed like he was always driving someone somewhere, or there was something going on that they never had time to go. Plus, he just physically didn't feel up to it. The boat hadn't left the drive in three years, he hadn't even bothered to register it.

School would be starting up again soon, so Brad thought he should make time for their trip. He thought about his fishing trips with his own grandpa, how he wished that grandpa would've lived long enough to meet his (Brad's) children and grandchildren. Brad pushed those thoughts away, they always made him sad.

The coming weekend, was Dustin's parent's anniversary. His older brother was being paid by mom and dad to stay home with the younger children, while they went to Louisville for a Billy Idol concert, dinner and then to a hotel. They would be gone two nights. Saturday, Kathy and her mother were going shopping at the mall in a neighboring city, out of state and an hour to the south.

Brad thought it was about time for the fishing trip, so he told Dustin to get all of his fishing gear organized the way he wanted it, because they were making their fishing trip on Saturday.

On Friday afternoon Kathy was away at her mother's, looking at sale papers and planning their trip to the mall. Dustin's dad was still at work, his mother had dropped him off at Brad and Kathy's house and was at the store gathering up a few things for her and her husband's anniversary trip. They were leaving as soon as her husband came home from work. Dustin was out in the garage getting his fishing gear ready, while Brad was on the internet trying to find a fishing report for Goose Lake. Brad had just found the link for the fishing report when, the little widow for the internet on the task bar popped up: Not connected.

"Well shit!!!" said Brad, as he pushed the chair away from the desk.

The computer was sitting on an old sewing desk, the type that the sewing machine would fold down into and could be hidden. The computer tower was located on one of the shelves on the left side, down at the bottom. Brad was positive he knew what the problem was, so he got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the desk to find that the cable had lost it's connection from the back of the computer.

"That's what I figured!" said Brad.

He reached up and wiggled the plug, pushing it back in, just as his knees began to give out. He quickly straightened out his legs and lay down on his stomach, then rolled over so that it would be easier to slide out from under the desk. After rolling over onto his back, he just laid there and relaxed for a moment, until his knees quit hurting. While lying there, Brad's eyes focused on a gap in the desk where the hidden compartment for the sewing machine had been. He noticed a flowered print spiral notebook, that looked to be a journal or diary of some sort inside.

He slid out from under the desk and rose to his feet, then moving the monitor and keyboard over to the side, he opened the hatch to retrieve the book. The book was one of the many journals that Kathy always kept. It was an extra large book, about an inch and a half thick, a lot bigger than her other books. Her mom or one of her siblings must have given this book to her, they knew that she was always writing things down. Brad didn't think she would buy one this big herself.

They were usually kept out in the open on a shelf in the bedroom and they were usually of the smaller variety. Brad had looked at them numerous times when she was upset or in a bad mood, to see if he could figure out why. They had been very useful in the past.

Why was this one hidden? In order to get the book in there, it had to be held in place from the bottom as the hatch was closed or it would fall out. So it was put there purposely, it didn't just fall in by mistake.

Brad put the monitor and keyboard back in place and then opened the book, the first entry was made in 1988.

"That's odd, why would she keep a diary twenty five years old hidden?" he thought.

He skimmed through the book real quick, towards the back, noticed some later dates, through the 90's and the latest date was just a couple of days ago. He found these dates odd, she would usually keep the timelines in each book in order, this was spread out over the last twenty five years. Like it was for only certain events or special occasions. And it was hidden!!

Brad went back to the beginning and started to read. It was only the same, normal outlines of her days as in her other diaries. He stopped and reminisced about some of those days. It seemed like it was yesterday, he could see Kathy and his young children in the kitchen just like he was back, standing right there in that old house again.

It looked to be the same thing as all of her other journals, just normal, everyday routines, he wondered what the deal was.

He almost wished that he had kept a diary or journal of his own, so that he could have a record of those times when his children were young and he could remember better. It would have been nice to read about the progress of his model RR and the cars that he had worked on. . . And the dreams he'd had as he went along remodeling the old house. He remembered daydreaming how he wanted the house to turn out.

He had read twenty four pages of memories, when he turned a page and he heard Kathy coming in the front door. He thumbed through the pages quickly and saw a name that just about made his heart jump out of his chest. . .

"Matt!!"

As he quickly thumbed through the rest of the pages, Brad noticed Matt's name several times. Heart racing, and barely able to breath, he quickly slipped the book under his pillow on the bed. Kathy came up the steps and into the room, looked at him and noticed something was amiss.

"What's wrong?" she asked, "You look like you saw a ghost or something."

"Something like that," Brad said, as he quickly walked past her and went down into the living room.

Kathy sat her purse down and followed him down the steps.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Kathy implored, with concern in her voice.

Brad almost went back upstairs and grabbed the diary so he could confront her with it, because he had a feeling that what was in that book wasn't good. But, he wanted to read it first tho, he had to know what she'd written about Matt. . . Quite a bit it appeared.

"Nothings wrong, I just fell asleep and was dreaming about work again," Brad explained.

Kathy walked over and put her arms around him for a moment.

"Oh, alright, you had me worried for a minute," she said.

A short while later, while Kathy was in the bathroom, Brad sneaked the book out to the garage.

"I'll take it with me tomorrow and look at it while Dustin is fishing," Brad murmured to himself, as he walked outside.

A little while later, Brad told Kathy that he was going to take Dustin and run down to the store to get some supplies to make a lunch to take along on their fishing trip the next day. He and Dustin drove down to Save A Lot and purchased some lunch meat, potato chips, a six pack of Diet Dr. Pepper for Brad and a six pack of Pepsi for Dustin. That should be enough, if there was anything else they wanted, there were a couple of Gas Station/Mini Marts within a few miles of he fishing area. He would get the ice for the cooler in the morning before they left.

That evening, Dustin's parents stopped by before they left for their anniversary trip to Louisville, he was still getting kitchen table instead of the garage. His dad came in to look over Dustin's fishing gear, wish him good luck and to be very careful.

"I know you can swim, but don't do anything silly and keep an eye on your grandpa, in case he needs help." his dad told him.

"OK, I will, bye dad. . . I love you." said Dustin.

His mom came in and hugged him and told him she loved him too. Then they left. Brad then came into the kitchen to look over Dustin's gear.

"Grandpa, what lure would be the best to use tomorrow?"

Brad wasn't really in the right frame of mind for the question, he was almost a million miles away.

"Huh?. . . Oh. . . I'm not not sure, we'll have to wait and see what it looks like when we get up there," he said quietly.

What lure to use was the farthest thing from his mind, the only he could think about was that book. Kathy knew that something was bothering Brad, he just wasn't acting like himself. Brad moped around for the rest of the evening, while Kathy was reading another one of her romance novels on her laptop.

She was starting to worry about him tho. When they went to bed, Brad never said a word, or even tried to snuggle with her, that was unusual.

"Are you sure there's nothing wrong?"

"I'm sure."

Kathy thought for a little while about what it could possibly be.

"Are you worried about me and mom going to the mall tomorrow, is that it?" Kathy asked.

"I told you nothings wrong, I've just got a little bit of a headache," Brad told her.

After that, Kathy didn't say anymore, she kissed Brad goodnight and rolled over to go to sleep.

Brad didn't sleep very much that night, he tossed and turned and in what seemed like no time, the morning sunlight was coming through the bedroom window. He crawled out of bed, dressed and headed for the kitchen to find something to eat. He really didn't feel like eating, but he now took five different pills, of which, four had to be taken with food. He took an arthritis pill, a mild pain pill, a pill to control his joint disease and he had recently been prescribed two pills to lower his blood sugar.

After Brad had eaten and taken his pills, he went to wake Dustin up to get ready to go. Kathy was up and in the kitchen when he returned from waking Dustin.

"How's your head this morning, your not coming down with something are you?" she asked.

Brad looked like hell, he had barely slept, his eyes were bloodshot and his shoulders were drooping.

"I feel alright, I guess," he mumbled.

"Are you and Dustin still going up there fishing?"

Brad looked over at her, thoughts about what might be in that book ran through his mind again, he had to know what was in it. Even if he had to drive thirty miles away to read it.

"Yeah, I promised him almost two months ago," Brad said, as he turned to go outside.

"I'm gonna go load the car up, tell Dustin that I'll be back in, in a minute."

And out the door he went. After Brad got all of his and Dustin's fishing rods and tackle loaded into the Jeep, he went into the garage to get the cooler and retrieve the diary. After the cooler was in the back and the diary was hidden in the pouch on back of the driver's seat, he headed inside to get the digital camera, their food he'd bought the day before and to see if Dustin was ready to go. Brad walked into the kitchen, Kathy was washing the morning dishes.

"What time are you leaving to go shopping?" he asked.

She turned to look at Brad and smiled,

"We're leaving about eleven."

"Dustin, are you ready to go?" Brad hollered towards the bedroom.

Kathy could tell that there was still something wrong, it worried her and she didn't know what to do for him. Just then, Kathy walked over and put her arms around Brad and kissed him.

"I love you Bradley Wilbur," she said affectionately.

Brad pulled her in tightly and just held her for a few moments.

"And I love you Kathy Wilbur."

This made him feel better, but the thought of that book still had him feeling uneasy.

Brad and Dustin told Kathy goodbye, they would see her tonight, Brad told her to be careful on the trip to the mall with her mother. They climbed into the Jeep and headed out. Stopping at the local Shell mart, Brad bought ice and put it, along with the pop and sandwiches inside of the cooler. And they were off.

The sky looked like it could rain at any time as they drove the thirty miles to Goose Lake. Brad barely remembered the drive, he was completely preoccupied. Glad that it was a four lane hi way, all except the last few miles. When they arrived at the lake, Brad pulled in along the boat ramp and parked. He told Dustin that he wasn't feeling the best in the world, and to go ahead and fish while he sat in the Jeep and relaxed.

Dustin went around to the back of the Jeep, opened the hatch, retrieved his fishing gear, stopping by Brad's open window,

"What should I use first, grandpa?"

Brad glanced over at him, trying to snap out of his haze.

"Put a spinner bait on one rod and a floating minnow on the other, if you get a strike on the spinner bait and the fish misses it, cast the minnow right back out where the fish struck the spinner at, and I'll bet you catch that fish," he said.

"Alright, do you think that'll work?" Dustin said.

As he turned to head for the water, it started sprinkling rain,

"If it starts raining any harder, you come back here and get your jacket and hat. And if you see lightning or hear thunder, you get your butt back to this car, do you hear me! And yes, I think that will work," Brad said as Dustin walked away.

"OK," he replied.

Brad turned on the radio to the country station he normally listened to, all he heard was popping and hissing, it was mostly static since he was thirty miles north and it was raining. Brad started listening to country music a couple of years before, when a similar occurrence had happened. He had been out in the garage working on the model railroad and had the radio tuned to a classic rock station that was located in a nearby city. It was a rainy day similar to today and the radio was cutting in and out, so Brad changed the station. All he could find was one that played the new crap that he couldn't stand, so he settled on a country station. After he listened for a while, it reminded him of the early 70's rock, he was drawn in and started liking it. From then on, he'd been listening to country.

He pushed the scan button on the radio and the first thing he heard was,

"I'm gonna pop some tags. . . Only got twenty dollars in my pocket. . . I - I - I'm hunting, looking for a come-up. . . This is fucking awesome. . . Nah, walk up to the club like, What up? I got a big cock. . .! I'm so pumped about some shit from the thrift shop."

"OK, what in the fuck is that!!" Brad mumbled to himself before it scanned to the next station.

The next two stations weren't coming in real clear, then the next one had a good strong signal, it was classic rock. He pushed the scan button again to lock in the station.

"I haven't listened to this for a while," he said to himself.

Then he reached behind the seat for the diary, opening it at the beginning, he re-read what he had read the day before, reminiscing some more. Hard to believe that the teenage boy that was with him, that big boy, was his little girl's son.

"Grandpa!!"

Brad was kind of startled, looking up from what he was reading, Dustin was walking towards him with a bass that appeared to be about three pounds. Brad turned down the radio and reached for the camera.