Isha could not dream. Every night, she closed her eyes, and the world succumbed to a strange darkness that spun endlessly. She would wake up the next morning having remembered nothing but the darkness behind her own eyelids. No matter how she tried, the churning nothingness of her sleep never broke. Nothing could bring her peace.

She could remember a time when she was a child in which she had dreamed. Vividly. Isha would wake having felt as though she was entering her life with a reinvigorated sense of self. Waking up had been rebirth and dreaming had been the much-needed escape.

Today, of all days, Isha could have used a dream. She stared at the deed to her parents’ house as she tried to imagine where she would be if she could dream instead of sitting in the lawyer’s office that reeked of all-purpose cleaner.

It had been six months since her mother’s funeral and three months since her father’s. She lost them one after another—her mother to the unforgiving scourge of cancer, and her father to a broken heart shortly after. Isha had put off deciding what would happen to her childhood home for this long, but her parents’ attorney would not let her do so any longer. He sat across from her, hair and face gray. Isha stared harder at the deed to avoid having to answer whatever question hid behind his concerned expression.

The house had been paid off, but Isha could not imagine maintaining its upkeep. Her bakery in town could barely support her own rent. Perhaps if she could have imagined something this catastrophic happening, she might have planned accordingly. She could have joined her father’s law firm or at least gone to law school, but who could have seen this coming? Besides, her parents adored her bakery. They insisted on buying her goods to take to their friend’s homes, parties, and wherever else they were going. She would have happily given them anything for free, but they never let her.

Something jarring felt as though it was about to escape her throat. She swallowed the lump. Not in this law office she had only visited twice. Not in front of this silly graying lawyer that could not muster anything useful to say as she attempted to complete a task that she did not imagine she would have to do for another twenty years. She rubbed her forehead vigorously.

“Would you like to take the document with you and think it over?” The lawyer’s voice finally filled the silent room. Isha raised her head.

“I thought we were here because you didn’t want to wait any longer.”

“Well,” The lawyer scratched his chin. “Considering this meeting hasn’t helped, you will not make this decision any quicker if I keep you here. Perhaps you can inform me of your decision after having more time to review the document. Will a week be enough time?”

Isha nodded quickly, gathering the marked papers before the lawyer could change his mind, and strode quickly out of the office.

***

Whenever Isha could not gather her thoughts, she baked a cake. The skill proved helpful. When she had been opening the bakery, every question she had on paperwork, taxes, décor, and the thousands of things that came with running a business melted away. Not only did she create a phenomenal menu, but the whole world beyond her kitchen would also disappear.

This time, nothing was coming to her mind. She couldn’t even bring herself to pour flour into a bowl. Isha covered her face with her hands, hunching over the counter in the kitchen she grew up in. Memories of her parents filled every corner. She could see them standing at the stove, and she could imagine them in the other room. Isha felt as though her father would poke his head around the corner at any moment to ask her what she had been baking that day.

She hadn’t been baking. And he wasn’t going to ask.

Isha’s mind was a distracted hum, and in the jumble of thoughts that melted together incoherently in her brain somehow drew her back to wishing she could dream. What she would give to simply fall asleep and travel to a place she had never been before—to not be alone with her thoughts but simply alone. Oh, how sweet it would be to feel silence. She had spent all afternoon with the lawyer, and the dwindling sun now illuminated the kitchen in small, sunlit rays. It would be dark soon. Dream or not, Isha just wanted to go to sleep.

Isha would not remember getting ready for bed. Between her desire to fall asleep and the loud spinning of her brain, there was too much going on for her to remember what happened before curling up under the heavy comforter of her bed. By the time she had done so, darkness had fallen over the house. She had not bothered to preemptively turn any lights on, so there were no lights to turn off.

***

Isha was in her parents’ kitchen. Hadn’t she just been here? But it was different. The air of sorrow that had become so familiar to her was now missing. It was the middle of the day. The sunlight seemed as bright and golden as the sun that rose on this kitchen when Isha was a child.

“Mom? Dad?” She instinctively called, but no answer. She had done that before, but this time, no dread set in heavy on her chest. They must be out, she thought to herself. Somehow, she believed this to be true.

The kitchen counters were the cleanest Isha had ever seen them, but the scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls was still in the air. She closed her eyes and breathed in, feeling as though she had not taken a deep breath in months. Instinctively, she turned around to open the kitchen window above the sink.

“If you love this kitchen so much, why sell it?”

The familiar voice made Isha jump. She spun back around, and her jaw dropped open, but no sound came out. Whatever stood in front of her was so bright she had to squint. Even through the glare, she could still see it. It was an enormous being, maybe seven feet tall, that looked somewhat human if it hadn’t been wrapped in white light that draped around its form like cloth. Something beat behind it. Were those wings? Isha squinted harder. Even in the small space of her parents’ house, she could tell that whatever was attached to the back of this being beat in an expanse bigger than Isha could even comprehend.

“Sorry,” the voice sounded again after an inappropriately long pause. “I should’ve thought about that.” The blinding light faded ever so slightly, and Isha’s eyelids finally worked enough to blink. In place of whatever had been in the kitchen was a young woman that looked strikingly like Isha herself.

“Isha.”

The voice was higher, but still familiar. Isha leaned forward, careful not to get too close to whatever—whomever—stood in front of her. “Mom?” Even as she said it, she knew this was not, could not have been, her mother. Even so, the young woman in front of her had her same angular features and bright eyes Isha saw when she looked in the mirror. She had not seen such a young face anywhere except in her mother’s photo albums. And the voice—her mother’s voice had gained a gentler quality throughout her life, but this one was high and sharp, unmissable and not yet weathered by age.

“Not really,” The being which now looked like Isha’s late mother, shrugged. “I just forgot that my appearance tends to shock people.”

“Obviously,” Isha mocked the being’s nonchalance incredulously. “As one does.”

“I didn’t mean to trespass,” Isha’s mother leaned on the counter. “I just was beginning to get a little confused.”

“I am very confused.”

“About you selling your parents’ house.”

“Um—”

Isha’s mother’s passive expression contorted slightly. It almost looked impatient. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

“Right, you’ll have to forgive me, I’m just a bit thrown off.” Isha crossed her arms. “What do I call you?”

“Whatever you want.” Isha’s mother waved her arm dismissively. “We don’t have much time to do this.”

“Mom?”

“Fine.”

“Okay,” Isha took another deep breath.

“If you love this house so much…” Isha’s mother began again. “Why do you want to sell it?”

“I don’t—” Isha took her thumbs to just above her eyebrows, rubbing her forehead in careful circles even though she did not have a headache. “I can’t pay for two homes. I can barely pay my rent.”

“Who said you had to pay for two homes? Isha’s mother tilted her head.

“I would if I had to keep up this house.” Isha gestured around. Even as she did it, she could see an apparition of a black-haired toddler jolting around the wooden floors screaming gleefully. Isha’s mother—the real one—followed closely behind. Isha blinked and the image was gone, but she could have sworn it was real. She had seen it as though she was a ghost watching herself grow up in what was now a hallowed home. But did it have to be?

Isha shook her head. Her parents built this house and now they were gone. They would never breathe life into the walls they had planned themselves, but someone else could.

“You couldn’t make this place your own?” As though reading her mind, Isha’s mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Isn’t it already yours?”

Isha shook her head. “I moved out ages ago.” But even as she said that she thought about the pictures in her parents’ photo album of the first time they stepped into the house after living in tiny apartments she had heard about, but never seen. Under those, there was a row of photos from the day Isha was born. Her mother carried her across the threshold of the house, and even though the photo was only of Isha’s blank baby face staring into her mother’s rosy, wide smile, she somehow knew her father’s infectious grin was behind the camera.

Isha’s parents’ favorite photo album was of their first snow in that house. She had insisted on wearing a pink snowsuit that puffed her silly toddler silhouette out to twice its size. Her mother stood behind her, holding both of her mittened hands as she waddled into five inches of white, powdery snow. Once again, Isha’s father had been behind the camera, but she knew the exact grin that would have graced his face. Those photos were placed above Isha’s high school graduation portraits. She had always thought it strange to place her baby pictures so close to her graduation portraits.

If Isha glanced out the window, she could point out where those graduation portraits had been taken. It was under the willow tree in the front yard that Isha had constantly tried to climb as a child. She had insisted the branches could hold her weight as her mother stood worriedly under it, silently positioning herself under Isha with her arms at the ready.

She sighed. As she released the breath, her vision blurred, and tears threatened to spill over. Every time she looked at that tree, she would see her mother standing underneath. Every time the snow fell, she would hear her parents’ joyful laughs outside and remember that they were no longer going to cook in the kitchen or bring trinkets back every other weekend to place on already-full shelves. In each corner of the house, Isha could not help but see the empty spaces that were now left. “I just can’t keep this house.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to me one way or the other,” Isha’s mother, rather, the thing that looked like her now, sighed indifferently.

“Then why are you bothering me?

This made the strange being laugh. “Someone asked me to give you guidance.”

“Who?” Isha scratched her head. Who could possibly request a being like this to do anything? She didn’t even know where it came from.

“You didn’t think I just imagined what your mother may have looked like, right?” The being crossed its arms. “I have to know what someone looks like to take their form.”

“Are you a demon?” Isha’s heart sped up hearing that this being had spoken to her mother. How her mother would have met a demon did not cross Isha’s mind. For the first time since the start of the conversation, the being’s face fully contorted into something Isha could only describe as an offended glare.

“Are you joking?”

Something told Isha that she would be wise to not respond. “Why are you even here?” She was hoping that the question would distract the being from its incredulous reaction to her last question. It did not. After a moment, it seemed as though the being decided it had more important things to do than to put Isha in her place.

“I have one more thing to show you.”

***

One week later, Isha had donned trousers and a blazer to revisit the lawyer one last time. She smiled entering the office.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you do that since we started speaking.”

“Do what?”

“Smile.” The lawyer gestured to the seat in front of him. “I take it you have made a decision?”

She nodded.

Even in the lawyer’s office, she could not answer whether it was an angel or a demon she had seen in her parents’ house. She had been asleep. She remembered waking up the next morning clearly with nothing around her disturbed. So, it had been a dream? Then why could she vividly picture the being that had been in front of her that night? Her eyes had still stung from the tears that had threatened to reveal themselves.

Her favorite thing to do in that house, aside from baking, had been tea. She would be seated with her parents every day at four o’ clock in the afternoon with a pot of milk tea at the center of the table. They would engage in a lazy combination of whatever conversation occurred that day and staring out into the back yard. After an hour, both of Isha’s parents would step away from the table, going about whatever business had paused for teatime, but Isha was always sitting at the table alone for another hour.

“Why don’t you come home?” Isha’s mother had asked on a sunny afternoon. It was still warm outside, and the late summer sun streamed through the back window. “The bakery is so close by, and your apartment is in the same town. What is the point of being away from us?”

“I’m an adult, mom, I can’t live with you and dad.” Isha had said, swallowing the real reason. Her parents’ support for her bakery was irreplaceable. She could not let a single phrase ruin that. They took so much joy in her success. She could not look them in the eyes and explain how if she stayed with them for more than a week, her father’s questions about how she ran her business and her mother’s questions about how she planned to live the rest of her life by herself began to eat at her patience.

“Why not?”

Isha never knew how to respond to her mother’s prodding. Instead, she would sip her tea and change the subject. Even after her mother would leave the table with a loving smile, Isha would look out the window and sigh peacefully. She did not need to tell them. She was glad she didn’t. Those hours alone at the table became a sanctuary. Her parents’ absence then was not a void, but a sweet and natural end to time spent together.

“You have always been ready for this moment.” The being had stood beside Isha as she witnessed herself at her parents’ table, the tea in the pot slowly cooling. “As ready as one could be.”

When Isha awoke, she ate breakfast at the kitchen table for the first time since the funeral.