Bliss.

Chris had always thought she would leave this town.  When she was 18 and thin it seemed  like there might be hope for her. But genetics and time had not been her friend.  And now this was where her kids went to school. Walked the same halls she had.  Took Chemistry from the same teacher.  While she struggled  to make ends meet with her job as a teller at the bank on Maine Street, and struggled to get ahead by taking classes online after the kids went to bed.

Her only relief was when she slept. Her amber hair fanned out behind her, streaks of gray reminding her that she is no longer young.  But when she dreamed it was of someone she had never met.  She met him when he seated her at a restaurant that had been created from a converted barn. She was sure she was in her home town but could not seem to place the barn in the geography of the town.  He was handsome but still approachable and she was sure that he was both above her and beneath her all at once.  She was eating alone and he had walked her back to a quiet table by a barn window.  She was wearing a skirt which was how she knew it was a dream...her waking self would never show her spider vein covered calfs.

In her dream through stolen glances and the touch of a hand she felt something stir deep in her gut.  A feeling so far removed from her normal life she thought it was indegestion at first.

When she woke the emptiness was greater. She could hear the kids making a mess of the kitchen and the dog scratching to go out.  Her only hope for the day was she  would see him again tonight when she slept.  That maybe on her drive to the bank this morning she might noticed a building she had never seen before.  That somewhere in this town was a man she could fall in love with.  Someone who could look past the extra 50 pounds and glasses. The stretch markets and GED.  That there was still hope for her.