Chapter 19: Once Upon a Dream

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“Is she asleep?”

Adele looked up at her nanny and back down at the woman lying in the bed. She looked asleep. Her eyes were closed. Adele wanted to touch her, but something about the way the woman was sleeping made her feel scared.

“I think she must be in some kind of coma,” Nanny Jane replied.

“What’s a coma?”

Jane had that look on her face like she was trying to think of the best way to explain something. “It’s when you go to sleep and don’t wake up again for a long time.”

“Oh,” Adele said. “I know all about that.”

“You do?”

“Like in Sleeping Beauty,” Adele replied with a shrug. Sleeping Beauty was her favorite Disney movie ever. She must have watched it a thousand times. She liked the part at the beginning in the forest when the princess danced around with all the animals, and then the prince came and fell in love with her, and they all sang together.

 

I know you, I danced with you once upon a dream.

I know you, that gleam in your eye is so familiar a gleam.

Yet I know it's true that visions are seldom what they seem.

I know you. I know what you'll do.

You’ll love me at once the way you did once

Upon a dream.

 

It was funny because Adele dreamed about her mommy a lot. She knew what she looked like because Daddy had shown her a picture once, and her mommy looked like a beautiful princess in a long white dress. The woman in the bed looked a little bit like the woman in the picture, but different too. Maybe because she wasn’t smiling, and she had a tube running into her nose. But the hair was the same. She had long brown hair that reminded Adele of her own hair. That’s how Adele knew her nanny was telling the truth when she said this was her mommy – because little girls have hair like their mommies and daddies.

Adele wanted her to wake up and smile and look pretty again like she did in the picture. A new thought suddenly occurred to her. “We have to tell Daddy she’s here!” she said, turning to her nanny with wide eyes.

“He knows, sweetie.”

“No he doesn’t,” Adele protested, suddenly feeling like she wanted to cry. “He doesn’t know. He would have told me.”

Jane didn’t answer, but she came over and bent down, folding Adele in her arms. “How come he didn’t tell me?” Adele asked in a quavering voice.

“That’s a very good question,” Jane replied softly. Adele hated when grownups said that. If it was such a good question, how come they wouldn’t tell her the answer? She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She was so confused right now. She had been getting ready for bed earlier when Nanny Jane had come into her room to get her. She’d looked funny – her face was all red and she was out of breath.

“Come on,” Jane had said in a rush, taking her by the hand and leading her out of the room. “We’re going for a ride in the truck.”

“But I’m in my nightgown!” Adele had protested. “I don’t have my shoes!”

“You don’t need them,” Jane had assured her, picking her up carrying her quickly down the stairs and out the front door. She had buckled Adele into the passenger seat and then went around and climbed up behind the steering wheel.

The Liar's Wife (Adam Levine Dark Romance)Where stories live. Discover now