I must have slept because I woke with a start. Afraid. I might have made a strangled cry, but I wasn’t sure. It took a few seconds for me to realize I was safe. In bed. A man by my side. A man who loved me. And whom I loved back.
“Are you okay? Riley?” By then Garnett had reached for a lamp switch.
Light brought reassurance that the warmth I felt came from blankets, not blood.
My nightmare stemmed from a childhood memory I hadn’t thought about for decades: the day the chickens got butchered. We kids were supposed to take turns holding the comb of the bird’s head across a wooden stump while my mother held the feet. I remember the chicken’s eye blinking as its neck stretched uncomfortably. Then my father swung the ax.
I tried blocking out the red hue as I rushed to the bathroom to puke. Vomit vapor hit my arms, reminding me of the warm mist of chicken blood on my skin long ago. Then I threw up again.
“Can I get you anything?” Garnett handed me my bathrobe.
I shook my head, rinsed my mouth, and climbed back in bed. He held me close, urging me to go back to sleep. I cried as I told him about the dream. He called it my “Clarice moment.”
That made me smile. Instead of screaming lambs, I was tormented by the sound of a whack, followed by frantic, flapping wings.
“Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?” Garnett whispered in my ear as our heads lay on a pillow.
I recalled the mesmerizing final telephone scene he quoted. “Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs, 1991.”
The film opened just as the first Gulf War was getting under way. To take the eerie emotion out of my bedroom, Garnett and I started comparing Saddam Hussein to Hannibal Lecter. It wasn’t the most outlandish stretch. Two psychopaths wielding power. One factual, the other fictional. In each scenario, the government needed to do business with them. Talking politics made the dream seem distant.
But later, in the shower, I found myself envying Jodi Foster for a couple of reasons. Lambs evoke more sympathy than chickens. And Jodi’s terror was make-believe.