"was it some strange fabrication of my mind?"

I woke up before my alarm this morning, my body fully awake despite coming out of a dream and in this dream I had been in the basement of the house I grew up in with its mauve carpeting and the mildew stained Ikea bookshelves. I had been searching for baby photo albums because I wanted to take them back to New York and show Ms. K. In an old cardboard box I found photos from the two years we spent living in Michigan, the state of my birth. I also found an album that I had never seen before, its white plastic cover dusty. Inside were a trove of secret images of my mother, artful black and white shots of her nude that dated back to the late 1970s. I slapped the album close with a shameful gasp. Then I woke up.

Even though it was a dream, I still felt strange to see my mother naked -- even if it was a subconscious creation that drew on images of her onetime Dorothy Hamill haircut and her body as it was before two children took their toll. Was it a memory or was it some strange fabrication of my mind?

My alarm went off and Ms. K was wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me closer. She kissed my back and I felt her warmth. The image of the dream started to fade as the room grew slowly lighter with the rising sun.