Last night I had the dream that my father had had nearly twenty years ago now. But it couldn’t have been the same dream because it wasn’t me on the railroad tracks. It was my daughter.

In this dream I was following her from behind. Far behind. I wanted to hurry. Or at least call out to her. But for some reason I couldn’t.

She was on the track that ran over the river into the woods. The west bank. When she was little I used to bring her out here. We’d take pebbles and rocks home. Pretty ones to decorate the house with. Or she’d pick some leaves and make crayon rubbings of them. My father used to bring me here as a kid often. The last time we were here my daughter was at summer camp and the sky looked like it wanted to rain and he asked me about her college plans. 

She stopped coming with me when she was about fourteen but I still keep those rubbings with me.

In my dream I could see the riverbank through the spaces between the tracks. Pretty spot. Must’ve been my second year of college when we came down here one August. Me and this guy. He took me one night to see the fireflies and while we were sitting on the rusted track he caught one for me so I could hold it before it flew away. Just sat there on my fingertips blinking on and off. They were everywhere that night. Fallen stars among leaf litter. Yellow eyes blinking. I shivered and he put his arm around me and said Cold? and even though I shook my head he pulled me closer and squeezed. So I rested my head on his shoulder and looked up at the outline of his jaw against the sky. He looked down at me and our faces were so close that I could smell the fruity aftertaste of vape and then the taste of peaches was in my mouth hot and damp and then we were on the tracks and then all I knew was soft peach flesh and yellow blinking eyes all around us.

When my father asked how it happened I said nothing. Must’ve thought he could get more out of me than my mother could. But no one got anything out of me. No one ever gets anything out of me if I don’t want them to. All the goddamn time  he was pestering me what are you gonna do what are you gonna do what are you gonna do but I was barely listening because by then I was shut up for good.

In my dream I followed the tracks out over the water. The smell of brine and shit and suntan lotion wafted up. Water brown and stinky as ever. Sailboats dotted it like flecks of white paint on brown canvas. That’s how I knew that guy actually. I used to go sailing all the time before I dropped out. Out with friends in the sun. Tanned arms short white skirts fishing rods. I never told my parents about the drinking. Always drinking back then. Bottles littered the deck and we’d throw them overboard. We threw a lot of things overboard. One time when he was on the boat I drank too much and vomited. Didn’t get to the railing in time and it got all over his feet and my feet but he still held my hair back for me. I can see it in this dream: ribbons of orange trailing after one of the sailboats. Probably his boat. Maybe he’s holding back another woman’s hair now.

In the dream my daughter was already in the forest but I was still over the east bank. Litter flashing in the sand: beer bottles soda cans cigarette packs. High school. Sneaking out at lunch to drink smoke do whatever. The intimacy of a leather steering wheel spinning through my hands at midday. The first burn of Bud Lite on my throat. One time on the sand where the grass springs up nice and tall a classmate put his hand up my skirt and I let him. I never told my father about that. This was around the time he had the dream of me crossing the railroad tracks and him following behind and in the morning he said something like Hey you doing okay? But there’s no way he knew about any of that. I knew when my daughter started smoking but I never said anything. She doesn’t know I know. But I know.

In my dream I spotted my initials on a wood railroad tie where the tracks met the east bank. I’d carved them when I was thirteen or fourteen. The letters used to be a fresh sandy color. In my dream they were as dull and faded as the river. Hungry flowers crawled over the rusted steel. Pickerelweed milkweed marigold. They smelled like my mother’s laundry detergent. As a toddler I would bury myself in the laundry and listen to my mother call my name Where are you where are you answer me and when she was near crying I would pop out and run to hug her. When my daughter was born I always folded the laundry immediately so she couldn’t do the same.

In my dream I was in the woods now. My daughter far ahead. Wait. I wanted to call to her. Wait for me. The fireflies were starting to come out and for some reason I could sense that something terribly wrong was going to happen. Dread grinding against my stomach. Wait for me.

I watched her crouch on the tracks. I wanted to move forward but all I could do was watch from behind which meant I couldn’t see what she was crouching over.

What are you doing?

Wait for me.

Come back!

She stood and straightened. Then: I’m fine Mom. But don’t look. It’s a secret.

Rina Olsen, a rising high school senior from Guam, is the author of Third Moon Passing (Atmosphere Press, June 2023) and The Water Stricken (Atmosphere Press, October 2024). An alumna of the 2024 YoungArts program, Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, and Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, her work has been recognized by the John Locke Institute, Sejong Cultural Society, Carl Sandburg Home, and Guam History Day. Her fiction pieces “Bataya Slums, 1971” in Milk Candy Review and “Skeletons in the Closet” in Okay Donkey were long listed for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 Very Short Fictions in 2024. When she isn’t writing, Rina can be found playing the piano, looking up obscure history, or with her nose in a good book. Find out more at her website: https://rinaolsen.com.