In the kitchen there was a woman in a flowery house dress with grey hair in a loose bun, pulling green beans one by one from a pile in front of her, snapping the stems off the ends and placing them on a wood cutting board. She hummed along to the music coming from a portable antique radio. It sounded like a church song. I didn't recognize her. The humming stopped abruptly and she turned around.

Her tanned, lined face fell in shock. "Heavens!" she exclaimed, throwing her hand to her chest and slapping a handful of peas on the counter. The shock quickly turned to concern as she took in the sight of me standing there in my bathing suit. "Do you need help, dear?"

My mouth dropped open, but I was too stunned to ask her who she was and what she was doing in my house. Then her expression darkened as she looked past me and gripped the edge of the countertop.

"What are you doing here?! Get out, boy!" she commanded, pointing toward the door.

Pete was standing behind me, not looking the least bit surprised. He raised his hands in surrender.

"Yes, ma'am." Then he said to me, "It was nice to meet you...and your grandma."

"She's not my-"

I heard a metallic slicing sound. She was holding a knife in one hand and a sharpening steel in the other, watching Pete with narrowed eyes. He quickly shuffled toward the door without turning his back on the knife-wielding, church song humming woman occupying my house. I followed him.

"That's not my grandma!" I gasped when we reached the car. "I have no idea who that intense old lady is. That's my house, though." I looked up to my bedroom window and shivered. "But it didn't seem like my house."

"Are you flat out nuts? Do you live there or not?"

Hearing the panic rise in his voice set mine off.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. What is going on?" I muttered to myself as I searched for a sign of normalcy. I noticed the shutters on my house were painted dark green when they should have been black. Across the field, the neighbor's entire house was painted a different color and their backyard swing set was gone, along with all the other crap that was usually scattered across the lawn: a trampoline, battery operated kid-sized SUVs, sports equipment. All the trees were the wrong size. Everything was a little bit off, in the way a dream alerts you to the fact that you're dreaming. I decided that had to be the explanation after all and a wave of relief swept over me. It was only a very vivid dream.

"Get back in," Pete said, "let's get outta here."

"Where to now?" I asked casually as I pulled the towel over my lap and he turned back onto the road.

"You tell me," he grumbled.

"Let's go to Paris."  If I was dreaming, I figured we might as well get out of town.

"That sounds nice," he said in a patronizing tone. "Let's find your house first so you can pack some clothes."

"I'll buy some when we get there."

He laughed. "With what money? You don't have a dime on you."

"I don't need money," I exclaimed, "I'm dreaming!"

"Okay," he exhaled a rush of air, "maybe you need to see a doctor."

"Why? I'm fine!" I exclaimed, maybe a little too enthusiastically, holding my arms up to demonstrate how fine I was feeling.

He shot me a seriously doubtful look.

"You could take me to my mom's house," I suggested.

"So, your mom and dad are..." Pete hesitated.

"Um, my mom's an engineer. My dad's a truck driver."

"But they don't live together, so they're..."

"Divorced? Yeah."

"I'm sorry," he said gravely.

I shrugged. "It's okay. They're divorced, not dead."

His lips pressed into a thin line as he stared ahead. I rested my head against the window and watched the tiger lillies lining the ditches speed by in a spotty orange blur.

"Am I dead?" I wondered aloud.

A few seconds passed, then Pete reached out to roll my forearm so my palm faced up. He walked two fingers to the pulse in my wrist. I hoped he couldn't detect my heart rate rapidly accelerating.

"Nope, " he responded with a grin.

When he released me, I slowly exhaled and wondered how fast and hard a pulse could race before it became a medical emergency.

"Good, because if I'm dead and heaven is just a bizzaro version of Palmer, this is a major disappointment."

"What's so bad about Palmer?"

I laughed. "Where do I start? There's nothing to do here. It's an economically depressed, middle-of-nowhere retirement community. With some toxic air pollution drifting over from Chemical Valley that's poisoning us all."

He gave me a long look with his eyebrow raised. "You're worried about the oil refinery?"

"And every other chemical plant that's over there!"

Chemical Valley was the nickname for a huge complex of oil refineries and chemical companies across the river and to the north of Palmer.  Smokestacks entangled in metal piping lined the waterfront and beyond, orange flames occasionally erupting from their peaks.

"You're not worried when the air smells like rotten eggs or chemical fertilizer? And the whole thing is right next to a First Nations community where they have twice as many girl babies as boy babies. It's not right."

"Why's that?"

"Air pollution. Environmental racism. Girl embryos are stronger than boy embryos. All of the above."

He scoffed, then said encouragingly, "Well, I'm sure you'll grow to like it here."

"Grow to like it? No, I'm getting out of here as soon as I can."

"Where are you gonna go?"

"I don't know yet. But I have to figure that out soon."

My mom lived south of town on a strip of land between the river and a branching canal. We turned off of the main road onto my street and crossed the small bridge over one of the canals.

"Okay, okay, slow down."

Pete hit the brakes too hard and as my body lurched forward, my stomach flipped. The driveway was missing, along with my house. In its place was a tiny brown cottage on a grassy lot dotted with purple, yellow and white wildflowers.

"Pull over here," I instructed.

He stopped on the side of the road and I grabbed the door handle and pulled, but again nothing happened. Pete reached across me to open the car door and gave it a push. As I stumbled out, I looked up and down the street to make sure we were in the right place. Some of the houses looked the same and some didn't. I walked numbly into the grass, knelt down near a patch of white daisies and sat back on my heels.

I felt drained and all I wanted was to be home. I reached out and touched the stem of a daisy. It felt fuzzy, as it should. I reminded myself that I couldn't feel things in dreams. When I tried to pick the flower, nothing happened. A frustrated growl rose in my throat. I tried to snap the stem of another one and then swept my arm across them all. They stood still, taunting me, and hot tears began to run down my cheeks.

I was crying in front of a total stranger, who by then had to be seriously regretting offering me a ride. I buried my head in my lap and hoped he would go away. Then I would wake up in my bed, which should have been a few feet from where I was sitting.

Something tickled my neck and I swatted at it, still forgetting that it wouldn't do any good, that somehow I had become incapable of doing anything at all. The tickle slowly travelled down my forearm, which I tucked under my chest. When it touched my ear, I jerked my head up, forgetting about my tear streaked face. Pete was crouched beside me, holding a daisy out with an apologetic smile.

He took my hand, gently turned it palm up and after placing the flower in it, closed my fingers around it one by one. "There." There was some relief in knowing I could hold onto something. It made me feel more grounded and I relaxed a little.

In what seemed like slow motion, I shook my head and said, "It's not here." Then my head dropped, my body slumped onto the grass and I saw black.