Synopsis:
After hearing a noise, a young woman goes to check on her sleeping daughter. While doing so, she drifts back over her life and the divine intervention that made her current life possible.

Sweet Dreams

by Maggie O'Malley

Story:
The young woman raised her head off the chest of her husband. The young man, half asleep, but awake enough to feel his wife slip from his embrace, tried to pull her back into his arms. The wife caught her husband's hand in hers and intertwined her fingers with his lovingly. With her free hand she pushed her long auburn tresses away from her face. Her sparkling green eyes focused their attention toward the bedroom door.

"Honey did you hear something? It sounded like something fell?"

The beautiful young woman's face, an artistic masterpiece with high cheekbones, full lips and a peaches and cream complexion, was etched with concern.

Her husband smiled seductively at her. "Amanda, the only thing I've heard tonight is your sweet voice whispering words of passion in my ear, and if anything fell, it was me falling for you but that was a long time ago."

Amanda flashed the same seductive smile back at her husband. "Aren't you the charmer tonight?"

The young man tried once again to pull his wife into his embrace, and this time enjoyed better success as she eased down toward his chest and wrapped her arms around him.

She drank in his musk as she squeezed her body against his. She was very tempted to just remain there and drift off to sleep, and even more tempted to shift her body on top of his and rekindle the passion her husband had just spoke about. That last thought made her entire body tingle, and her heart pounded in anticipation, yet that sound she heard still plagued her.

Her husband shared her thirst for passion, and had began running his hand over her shapely thighs until Amanda's sweet voice stole both the passion and the moment. "Honey...I'm SURE I heard something."

The young man heaved a heavy sigh. It was obvious nothing was going to get started until this matter was finished.

"Babe, do you want me to get up and take a look around? It's probably just the cat, but if it will make you feel better I'll check it out." The impassioned young man paused a moment and then continued the thought. "Then... we can get back to the business of making each other feel better."

Amanda blushed. They had been married for nearly two years and he could still make her blush. He was the first man in her life, the only man. She could never get enough of him, and right now she was definitely wanting more.

"No love, don't get up. It was probably just my imagination anyway."

She shifted her body and rolled on top of him. Her nakedness straddled his and her breasts swayed before him, fueling his hunger. Her green eyes were ablaze with passion as she could feel her husband stirring between her legs.

Amanda leaned forward and instinctively he raised his head to meet her lips in a kiss. As their lips met, and their bodies ached to explore one another, Amanda's eyes opened wide and she drew back from her husbands embrace.

"Do you really think it was just the cat?"

The frustrated young man dropped his head back on the pillow and let out a heavy sigh. "Okay Mandy, you win. Let me up and I'll go check it out."

Amanda smiled and leaned forward to give her husband a loving peck on the lips.

"No baby, I'll get up. You're probably right. It's probably just Whiskers, but I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about it until I see for myself."

Her husband smiled back at her. "Well then, by all means go, cause for what I have in mind I want your undivided attention."

Amanda laughed and shook her head. He loved to hear her laugh. To him, Amanda was like no woman he had ever met before. Everything about her was unique and unparalleled. She was simply the most beautiful and loving woman he had ever known. She seemed to put love into everything she did, even that infectious laugh of hers. He could refuse her nothing.

Amanda slipped off the king-sized bed, and stood naked before her husband. She was a vision and every bit as lovely as their wedding night, the first night they had ever given their love to each other in a physical sense.

Amanda walked to the door, and then grabbed her silk robe from the hook, slipping it on and tying it about her waist. She looked back to drink in a last look at the man she loved and was anxious to love a little more tonight. The sheet thrown over his lower body concealed him from the waist down, but one part was still making its presence known.

Amanda let out a small giggle, a hint of the childlike quality that still remained within her even after marriage and motherhood. Her eyes directed their attention to the cover and the bulge beneath it.

"You hold that thought, but not too tightly. I'll be right back. I just want to check on Maggie."

Before her husband could get the last word in, she slipped out the door and made her way down the hallway to her daughter's bedroom. Peering in from the doorway she surveyed the contents of the dimly lit room. Aside from a few toys that had not found their way back to the toy box, the room appeared to be neat and in order.

Amanda took a few steps in and gazed at her three-year-old slumbering peacefully in the pink and white canopy bed. Maggie, also known lovingly as "Kitten" because of her playful nature, was truly her gift from God. Granted Amanda didn’t receive her bundle of joy special “direct delivery” like most young mothers, but then again Amanda was a little different from most young mothers.

As Amanda watched her sleeping little angel, she drifted back over her life scarcely being able to believe how far she’d come and how blessed she now was. As unbelievable as it seemed, just ten years ago, this beautiful wife and loving mother was a girl trapped in a boy’s body, failing horribly at living a boy’s life and on the verge of ending her life.

Growing up she knew what the mirror said, but it lied, somehow, someway she was really a girl inside that horrible shell. She had tried to tell her parents, and even a few friends but nobody believed her. All they saw and heard was a confused boy probably with mental problems and possibly on dope.

When she finally got to the point where she couldn’t bear to be an invisible girl any longer, she stole her mother’s sleeping pills and went off to end her pain.

It was warm weather and she found a secluded spot by the lake. She remembered watching the stars come out and wondering if she would be among them when she woke up. Finally, she wiped the tears from her eyes and then poured the pills into her hand. She popped them into her mouth without hesitation. They went down easily with a few drinks of her soda and now she had nothing left to do until sleep and then eventually the angels came to claim her.

She had just begun to feel drowsy when she heard an angel’s voice. It had to be an angel’s voice because nothing on earth could sound that sweet. She couldn’t believe how fast her travel guide to the stars had gotten there but sure enough when she turned around a beautiful lady stood smiling at her.

She didn’t have the traditional wings and halo, but her long blonde hair and deep blue eyes had almost a heavenly glow about them. She came down and sat beside the sad boy and said her name was Maggie. Because she was an angel or because she could see the tracks of tears still wet on the boy’s face, she must have known he was troubled.

When she asked the boy why he was so sad, a young lifetime of pain poured from him and soon Maggie’s tears mixed with his own. The angel held the boy till both their tears subsided and then said to him what no one else ever had. She believed he really was a girl and she’d come to help her.

She was so happy that someone finally believed her and wanted to help her, even if that help was just a ride to heaven. She was so sleepy now, and so glad the pain was fading away along with her life. Her vision was getting blurry as she saw the angel scoop up the empty pill bottle before gently doing the same to her. The last thing she remembered as the angel held her in her arms was that beautiful smiling face looking down at her and saying, “Sweet dreams”.

When she awoke she expected to find heaven, but somehow she’d gotten sent to hell because she was strapped to a bed, tubes were sticking in her and she’d never been so sick in her life. She remembered looking around for Maggie her angel, calling for her but she never came. She cried because the only person who ever believed her was gone and had left her in hell.

She heard a soft voice then, it was familiar but not Maggie’s. When the voice came into view it was her mother’s and she was crying too. When she looked to the other side she saw her father and he smiled at her for the first time she could remember. She didn’t know if this was heaven or hell and then the doctor walked in and settled the debate by saying, “he was a very lucky boy. Had he not made it to the doors of the emergency room holding that empty pill bottle when he did, he surely would have died.”

Her head was spinning. She couldn’t believe she was still alive. The last thing she remembered was being at the lake, falling asleep in Maggie’s arms. She couldn’t have walked five feet, let alone over two miles to the hospital but here she was. Obviously Maggie must have brought her in and saved her life. She cried out for her angel again, her beautiful angel who believed in her and promised to help her. Suddenly, she was very angry with Maggie for her divine intervention. This was her idea of helping her, bringing her back to the land of the living to be the invisible girl again?

She began sobbing, crying out loudly that if she couldn’t wake up a girl she didn’t want to wake up at all. Then something incredible happened, her mother took her hand and said she believed in the girl, and she was so sorry that she hadn’t listened and believed before. All she ever wanted was for her baby to be alive and happy, and if she needed to be her daughter to do that, then it was okay, because above all else she was her child and she loved her.

The expression on her father’s face said he shared his wife’s sentiments. Her tears of anguish turned to tears of joy and she said, “I love you mom, I love you dad.”

She was so happy now and so grateful to Maggie the angel for helping her. Again she asked for Maggie. She told her parents the whole story of how Maggie had came to the lake and saved her life, obviously by somehow bringing her to the hospital. Her parents smiled and told her she could worry about finding her angel later as she needed her rest now.

Three days of rest later she was released from the hospital. She asked everyone she could on the night staff if they’d seen Maggie bring in her in, but no one had. Her parents told her that her “angel” must have driven there and left her at the emergency room doors, or Maggie was just a hallucination brought on by the sleeping pills and somehow she’d walked to the hospital on her own. She was almost about to buy into one of those two explanations when she asked one of the security guards if they had camera surveillance on the emergency room doors. When he said yes, she talked the kindly old man into showing her the tape from the time she had been admitted.

When they reviewed the tape they could hardly believe their eyes. At 11:42 p.m. the entrance was empty but thirty seconds later, her form appeared literally out of nowhere. At 11:43, orderlies arrived and lifted her into a wheel chair. They must have run that tape twenty times but never once did they see how she’d arrived at the door. The camera covered an area of over a hundred feet with the doors being dead center. It simply wasn’t possible for someone to get there with out being seen walking or driving up, yet somehow she’d done it.

As a last gasp effort they slowed the film down to frame by frame and although they never got an angel sighting, they did find that in the first clips she appeared, her whole body seemed to be encased in a golden glow. It only last a few frames and then was gone, but nonetheless it was clearly visible. The security guard desperately trying to maintain his own sanity said the glow was probably a reflection from the parking lot lamps and a glitch in the tape was the most logical explanation for how she seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

After that, she quit looking for Maggie as her life started getting very busy, but she never forgot her angel who kept good her promise of helping her that night. In fact, she did her best to remember her by making the most of the second chance she’d given her. Now, finally being accepted as a girl by her parent’s, Amanda went down a path starting with therapy that led to hormones that led to two years living as a girl before finally having the surgery to be physically and legally recognized as one.

Two years later Amanda walked down the aisle and proudly accepted her college diploma. Three years after that she was walking down another aisle only this time her father was escorting her to the altar where she was about to marry the most wonderful man in the world, and finally a year later the adoption papers were signed and Amanda was taking her new daughter home. There had been no hesitation when they chose her child’s name. She wanted to honor the special angel who’d made it possible for her to be holding her own little angel. Maggie had only been with them now for six months, but Amanda couldn’t imagine life without her.

A child’s sleeping sigh quickly brought Amanda back to the present and she moved next to Maggie's bed, smiling as she watched her daughter sleep. There was something just so incredibly wonderful in watching a child sleep, that she could have stayed there all night save for the unfinished business and unfinished husband that awaited her in the bedroom.

Dawdling to steal just a few more moments with her sleeping angel, she smiled proudly when she thought about the number of people who’d commented on how much Maggie looked just like her. Even those who knew she was adopted couldn’t get over the incredible resemblance. Maggie shared her mothers auburn hair, and even though they were closed now, she also shared her mothers sparkling green eyes. Of course, like all good mothers, her child’s outward appearance was of secondary importance. What truly mattered was that her child was happy and knew she was loved. As Amanda smiled at Maggie lovingly, wishing her "Little Hug Monster" could always be so small, she had no doubt Maggie was happy and no child was more loved.

Amanda chuckled lightly as she knelt down beside Maggie. Her little kitten must have been restless again, as she had worked herself to the very edge of the bed. Her left arm was draped over the side and her blanket was on the floor, piled beneath the reach of her open hand.

Amanda gathered up the blanket, but as she went to recover her sleeping child, a stuffed lion fell from the tangled material. Instinctively, Maggie's little hand opened and closed, vainly searching for her cherished sleeping companion. The stuffed lion at Amanda's feet solved the mystery of the strange noise that had troubled her. Obviously, she had heard “Lion” hit the carpet when the soft stuffed toy fell out of Maggie's bed. Amanda scooped up her little one and held her in her arms just as she did the first day she came into her life. Maggie, still asleep, could sense her mother's presence, and drew herself close to her.

The young mother rocked her daughter in her arms for a few moments, and then laid her back in the center of the bed. She slipped Lion into her arms and Maggie pulled him to her, smiling and cuddling. Amanda covered her with the blanket and knelt down to kiss her.

Kissing her gently on her forehead she whispered, "Sweet dreams little Kitten, sweet dreams."

Had husband and father happened to check on his missing wife, he would have been treated to a heart-warming and magical moment, as he not only would have seen his princess kissing their little princess, but he also would have witnessed a heavenly sight. There, encompassing the mother and child was a soft golden glow, very much the same as the one captured by the security camera at the hospital several years ago. There was no camera glitch or glare from street lamps to explain the glow this time. It was just an angel stopping by to check on a friend and the child who carried her name.

As Amanda rose and slowly backed away from her daughter's bed, the golden aura faded away. The young mother sighed, drinking in a last look before turning and heading back to her own bedroom.

She stopped outside the door, and thought to herself. "He's never going to believe I heard a stuffed animal fall two feet out of bed and hit a carpeted floor. He won't understand that when it comes to their babies, mommies hear, feel and know everything. They even know when a favorite toy falls out of bed, and outside the reach of their sleeping daughter.

She nodded, agreeing with her thoughts. "Nope, he'll never believe me."

A sly impish grin came across her face. "Guess I'll just have to take his mind off of that."

Amanda dropped her robe to the floor, revealing her beautiful nakedness and then stepped into the bedroom, intending to do just that.

Fin

 © 2005 by Maggie O'Malley.