"Was it a dream?" wondered Gaby looking at herself in front of the mirror.
She immediately ran to the phone, dialed a number and waited until she got the answer.
"Carmen? It happened again, I think I'm going crazy."
"Relax Gaby, I'm sure it was just a dream, some of them are very real."
"I swear it was too real...I'm not well."
"Gaby, I'm working now, why don't you try to calm down. I think that new coffee you're drinking has upset your nerves."
"The coffee? I've been buying coffee from Mr. Manuel for many years, it has never generated anything for me."
"You know he's been experimenting with the genetics of his plants to get a new bean, so it wouldn't be surprising. I'll leave work early today and come to see you, but please calm down."
They said goodbye and Gaby tried to be calm, as Carmen suggested. After all she was her older sister and had taken good care of her since they were children and their mother had died. Indeed before 12 pm Carmen arrived, they sat together on the sofa, Carmen took Gaby's hand affectionately.
"Tell me Gaby what happened this time?"
"You see, last night I lay in my bed and fell asleep, but a metallic noise woke me up. When I opened my eyes it was daylight, I was surprised that the night was over so quickly, but I immediately realized that I wasn't in my bed do you know where I was? On the couch mom had in the living room when you and I were little girls."
"The one that was brown?" asked Carmen.
"Yes, exactly that one. I sat up quickly and sure enough it was in the house we grew up in. It was that time in the morning when the sun was coming through one of the windows and everything looked amazingly yellow. I saw in the windows the carrot curtains that mom adored and I was so moved that tears welled up in my eyes, but when I wanted to wipe them I felt the smallness of my hands, I looked at them and they were my hands as a child."
"Gaby, I think that new coffee is not doing you any good and that horrible habit of drinking it so late."
"Wait Carmen, you must listen to me until the end. I heard again the metallic noise that woke me up and I immediately identified that it was the pots in the kitchen, you know how scandalous mom was. I stood up doubting my steps, walked to the kitchen and there I found mom. At first I saw only her back, I felt my legs buckle, but when I heard her voice my heart almost jumped out of my chest. Without having to turn around she asked: "Is my beautiful girl awake yet? I ran desperately and hugged her from behind, I was crying and she was worried, she asked me what was wrong and I had to tell her that I had dreamt that she was dead."
At that moment Gaby burst into tears, it hurt Carmen deeply to see her sister like that, she knew that Gaby had not gotten over her mother's death, that's why she had had such a hard life: psychologist, therapy, pills. And now she had her there, crying disconsolately over a dream, trying to talk between sobs.
"I swear it wasn't a dream Carmen, it was mom, her smell, her voice, her laugh, her brown hair, her eyes full of hope."
"But if it wasn't a dream, then what was it Gaby, what do you suggest?"
"I don't know, maybe it was time travel."
"Are you listening to yourself sister? I don't want to have to worry about this, stop drinking that coffee, if this continues I will call your doctor."
"You're not even going to listen to what mom told me?"
"What did mom tell you?"
"The same thing you did, that it had just been a dream, that she was never going to die because she had to take care of us can you believe it? She always told us that, but she died. She poured two cups of coffee and we sat down to drink it together, but when I took the last sip a strange force ripped me out of that moment and I woke up in my bed bathed in sweat and tears."
Carmen stared at Gaby with the worried eyes of a sister who had been taking the place of a mother for years.
"Gaby, I want you to do two things for me, throw that coffee away and please consider that what you experienced was just a dream, mom died even if it hurts to accept it, there is no magic coffee bean that will make you go back in time to see her, life is not that easy."
Gaby saw in Carmen's face that expression of pity. She stood up and headed for the kitchen, Carmen walked behind her. Gaby took the coffee bag and threw it in the trash.
"You don't have to worry anymore sister, no doubt it's this new bean that is disturbing my sleep, I won't drink it anymore and I will be calm, I promise."
Carmen tried to feel calmer, before leaving they hugged as if it was the last time. When Carmen left, Gaby went to the kitchen and took the coffee out of the trash, and set about straining the whole bag. She was sure she hadn't dreamed it, that she had actually crossed the barriers of time and met her mother, she was sure and willing to do it again. She would drink as much coffee as it took to bring back the happy days when her mother was alive, she didn't care if she didn't come back to the present, the life she wanted was the one she had left behind.
