Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman

so young that all they cared about was the future. They couldn’t get to it fast enough, the sweet, unexplored empire of their dreams. And why shouldn’t they look forward? The present hadn’t seemed particularly interesting. Charlotte was working in her family’s bakery after her parents had passed on, just about the last thing she’d ever planned to do, and Jorie was teaching second grade at the Ella Monroe Elementary School. At that point, they were both convinced that love was a figment of other people’s imaginations, an illusion fashioned out of smoke and air that didn’t really exist, at least not in Monroe, Massachusetts, where they were acquainted with every available man and more than well aware of every flaw and every strike against him since kindergarten.
    That night at the Safehouse, their meeting had truly seemed like fate, the way Ethan looked at Jorie, the way he asked if he could buy her something to drink, then had guessed what she wanted was white wine, as if he already knew her preferences. Jorie wasn’t the sort of girl who was inclined to take a man home on their first date, not even if she’d known him her whole life long, but she brought Ethan up to her apartment. and she’s never once regretted a decision that some might call impulsive and others might cite as the best irrational act of her life. Here she is, thirteen years later, asleep on the couch when Charlotte brings in the tray of tea and toast. Jorie is Ethan’s wife, no matter what lies anyone might tell. She has pledged herself to him, now and forever, and on this moonlit night, she is dreaming of those lilies the flower shop on Front Street sets out on the sidewalk at Easter, flowers that look far too delicate to last, but if planted carefully in the garden will come back, season after season. Some things return, no matter what, like the constellations in the summer sky or the mourning doves that alight in bushes and trees in the gardens every year at this time, so that the last days of June are always accompanied by cooing and whispering: What can happen, what will happen, what ís meant to be.

Knight of Swords
    IN THE MORNING, MEN IN JAIL WILL try to sleep their time away, dreaming of home and happiness, staving off waking for as long as possible. What they wish for is a spool of invisible thread with which to sew up their eyes; what they want more than anything are soft pillows, upon which they can rest undisturbed as time falls past them in endless waves. There is just cause for this desire for sleep: the dream is often more real than what a man might find when he opens his eyes. The dream is everything he once had, and foolishly threw away. Dinner set out on the table, the scent of summer, the woman who loves him waiting at the screen door. Awaken, and green light streams in, like fish skin, and the air is foul, overlaid by industrial-strength air-freshener that, no matter how strong, cannot erase the scent of fear. Fear, like heat, rises: it drifts up to the ceiling and when it falls down it pours out in a hot and horrible rain. A man has to train himself to sleep through such circumstances: otherwise every drop is a drop of fire from the first level of hell, wet cinders in his eyes, his heart, his lungs.
    Ethan Ford is especially ill-suited to this environment. He’s a man who likes his own bed, and his life set in order. Locked up he’s unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, and he’s therefore deprived of his dreams. He can feel the enormity of what has happened inside his chest, feverish bands that encircle his ribs. His mouth is always dry. and the dryness cannot be relieved, not by water, not by ice. not by dreams of the blue ponds of his youth, spring fed and deliciously cold, so clear you could kneel down and drink right from the shore. Since the moment when he opened the front door to see Dave Meyers and the other men from the sheriff’s office