Free Liability by C.A Rose

they could cause bad dreams.”
    “It felt so real.” I shake my head, trying to erase the memory of it.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, gathering me against him, and I nod against his chest.
    “I was sitting outside on the grass in a big backyard with flowers all around me. It was the middle of the day, and I was little. I could barely walk, but I stood up and wobbled to a dirt pile in the yard. I started to cry when I saw the dirt was covering my mom. When she wouldn’t move, I reached down into the grave and took her necklace....then I woke up,” I say, feeling sick.
    “I think stress and the questions about your mom have your imagination running wild,” he says, gently kissing my forehead.
    “What if it was real though?” I ask in a whisper, lifting the necklace up and running my fingers over it. “My granddad had to know I took this from his drawer. He had to know, and he didn’t ever question me about it. And he never asked anyone else either.”
    “He knew it was something that was meant to be yours.”
    “I don’t know,” I mutter. I can’t get rid of the feeling it wasn’t a dream but a memory. I close my eyes. 
    “You don’t believe it was a dream.”
    “I don’t,” I say, opening my eyes back up to meet his.
    “Where could this have happened if it wasn’t a dream?” he asks, studying me while his hand runs gently over my stomach.
    “I don’t know. We didn’t have a yard in the city, and I don’t remember having one when I was younger, or going anywhere that was like the place in my dream,” I tell him, wishing I knew if it was real or not.
    “Come with me,” he says, getting out of bed and handing me his shirt to put back on as he puts on a pair of sweats. He takes my hand and leads me out of the room and down the hall to his office. Sitting in the chair I was in last night, he pulls me down onto his lap then clicks away on the screen. Not knowing what he’s doing, I wait for him to tell me what he’s looking for.
    Soon, my grandfather’s information is there, detailing every account and piece of property he owned before his death. Moving through the list, he stops on a house that my grandparents owned in Connecticut around the time of my birth before selling a few years later. Pulling the address from the list, he pastes it into the internet search bar and the house pops up on a website. Clicking on the link, pictures of the home come into view, and my breath leaves me in a whoosh when I see the backyard that was in my dream.
    “That’s the yard,” I tell him, running my finger over the image of the flower-covered backyard.
    “I’m gonna make a couple of phone calls. Why don’t you go get something to eat?”
    “I can’t eat right now.” I frown, wondering if he’s crazy.
    “Fuck, when did you start talking back?” he asks.
    “Here,” I say, picking up the phone and handing it to him. Then I turn on his lap, resting both my legs over his, and lay my head on his chest, not wanting to push his buttons too much by laughing at him.
    “Fuck,” he growls, wrapping one arm tightly around me then the phone starts to beep, and a few seconds later, he’s talking to his dad. After that, he calls the police in Connecticut where the house is located, and then he calls a judge in the same area. I don’t know how many people he talks to, but I watch the time tick away on the clock for two hours before he puts the phone down and folds his arms around me. “Now, we wait.”
    “What’s going to happen?”
    “They’re going to send a forensics team to the house to scan the backyard. If anything comes back abnormal, they’ll dig and call us if they find out anything.
    Nodding against his chest, I close my eyes and pray.
    Sitting at the kitchen counter on one of the barstools, where Carter planted me, telling me I needed to eat, I look at him when his phone begins to ring. Wrapping his arms around the back of my neck, he searches my face—for what, I don’t