12.

We never know when we are going to dream or what it is, we may get to dream about. It may be thought that we dream most every night though we cannot be quite so sure if that is true. Quite often the dreams we do have fade away as soon as we wake though on the night of October twenty first coming into the morning of October twenty second 1999 Jerry Grady had something, there was something he could not distinguish from being either dream or reality and for him this moment would always stay with him as it would also mark the beginning of what was to come and what would more or less dictate the rest of his life.

He came home quite late, late enough that the street he lived upon was as dark and as quiet as can be. The odd unilluminated streetlamp or two lent to an ominous atmosphere to the point that something bad could be expected to happen or might be anticipated. Jerry pulled up to his house feeling too tired to worry about whether or not his car was illuminated enough to deter robbery. If it so happens to be gone in the morning, then he'd just have to deal with it if that should happen.

Yeah, it was so late that his home too was in darkness. His wife Eve had not left the porch light on and this had him consider for a moment or two as to if she were mad at him over something or other he should fully be aware of or not, he has come home late once again and again he will deal with that potential problem if and when it should come at him.

He leaves all home lights off when he gets inside. Two and a half hours have passed since he had said via phone that he would be home within the hour so if Eve is mad at him and if she is going to give him an earful then he'd rather not have it happen now so he will not chance waking her by turning any lighting on if she so happens to be asleep upstairs in bed.

Jerry, once inside his home, allows a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness even though he is coming into the home darkness from the outside darkness. It is not long before he gets to the kitchen fridge having laid his keys down upon a worktop counter.

With an opened bottle of beer in his hand Jerry backs up against some presses and takes a couple of sips. Before his mind can drift off into thought he observes his keys as they begin to levitate up off the counter he had place them on.

It must be the darkness, that, and tiredness too. It can't be the beer; he only had those couple of sips. He can't be seeing right either, oh but he is. This is so odd, odder than anything he can remember. His keys are just hanging there in midair about six or seven inches up off the counter and a couple feet or so in front of him. Before he can properly question this, he wakes up in bed and wakes too to the sound of the en-suite toilet flushing.

It is morning time, what the hell happened? Was that a dream? Did he really witness his keys levitating? If it was just a dream, then how did he get home and to bed? No, there is more to this, and none of it he can explain. Eve comes out of the en-suite holding onto something. She looks Jerry in the eye and sits next to him.

'This looks serious' he says to her.

'Jerry ... Jer ...'

'Yes, my love.'

'I had been expecting you home earlier yesterday ...'

'I know and I'm sorry. Work was a bit rough and that drive home felt good, I just kept going ... sorta kept on going instead of me coming home when I said I would ...'

'That's alright; I suppose it gave me the time to be sure ...'

'Sure, of what?'

'We're pregnant' she says with a smile on her face, and Jerry had been expecting her to be in bad form.

This news however completely catches Jerry off guard. No fight, no anger, a smile and then the news. ... He should have noticed that what she has in her hand is a pregnancy test but that dream, if it was a dream then is this too a dream? No, he is certain it's real.

'Wow ...' he says with a smile of his own quickly developing and without delay he moves in to embrace his wife. 'Tell ya what' he says after a moment or two, 'how about you hang on here and I go get us some breakfast ...'

'Sounds good, I don't think either of us need to rush off anywhere soon, do we?'

'No, I can make arrangements, won't have to go anywhere for a few hours at least.'

'Great.'

Jerry indeed heads downstairs and is soon surprised to find nine empty beer bottles by the kitchen sink. Nine? He is sure he had no more than a couple of sips from one bottle but nine? Something certainly is not right. He heads to the front door and opens it. His car is nowhere to be seen.

'Hey honey ...' he calls upstairs, 'you don't happen to know where my car is, do you?'

He briefly considers his past but the past is the past and all that was with it is so long ago so he quickly dismisses any thought or ideas he could so easily have in the here and now. Life in that here and now will be changing soon.

Less than nineteen months later Jerry Grady is arrested for the brutal murder of his wife and the potential murder of his daughter Maxene ...