Last night's dreams...

I hate having to put this stuff here, but if I don't, I'll forget or won't be able to get it out of my head. This is another bummer -- be warned.

A bit of history/context. Tomorrow is my niece's birthday -- she's the oldest daughter of my "bad" sister. (I have to think of another way to refer to her. I don't want to continue having negative feelings towards her. Any suggestions, you all?) My Mom and I were talking yesterday about her birthday, and I mentioned that I might call. Mom said that they (Mom, stepdad, sister and nephew) planned to visit other sister and her kids in the summer, and will have another party for niece so that my nephew can be there. She adores him, and he pretends to be very indifferent, but he's really not. Anywho, I told Mom that they were all welcome to do the visit here, and that I just couldn't go to sister's house. I know my other sister doesn't want to go there either, and neither do my parents. None of us have any interest in being around my ex-brother-in-law, with whom my sister still lives and has had 2 additional children by after their divorce. Now, onto the dream.

We (me, hubby, Mom, stepdad, sister, her hubby, nephew, and my brother) are visiting sister at her home, against our better judgement. Ex-b-i-l is out of town, supposedly, but we still feel uneasy. Naturally, he returns home, and the games begin. He gets angry, outside of our presence, about a little gift I'd given niece. (I have sent her a Butterfly growing kit for her birthday in real life -- hope she gets it in time!) It was a little replica of a Carolina Wren (no clue why I remembered that part). He was hollering at sister, saying something about it messing up his truck in some way, like interfering with the way it ran. This was impossible, and the men just kind of blew it off, saying how stupid he is, obviously not understanding anything about how vehicles operate (kind of true in real life). They suggest that we get out of the house for a while, take my niece for a walk or something. We do, and are browsing around a country kind of general store -- wooden floors I remember clearly. We realize it's time to return home, though no one wants to. When we get back, ex-b-i-l is gone, thankfully. We relax, and sister wanted to make something to eat. But when she checked, there was basically nothing in the house -- only cleaning supplies, and very little of those. (Ex-b-i-l has a habit of constantly using stuff like 409 every time any little thing gets dropped on the floor or sits on the countertops. With 2 toddlers under the age of 2, that happens ALOT. VERY weird.) Sister is embarrassed, as she normally is when we visit because of him. He returns home, and they have a conversation in another room so we can't hear, but of course we hear him because he's hollering at her, again. Sister comes in the room to try to make an excuse, and Mom asked why she stays with him, he treates her so badly that it makes NO SENSE for her to stay. Sister doesn't answer. We start talking about other things. Ex-b-i-l is doing something with his truck that he said the present I gave niece messed up, and gets it running, but uncontrollably, and it wrecks through the wall of the garage, and goes out into the street. We all see then that the truck is just bare bones, basically, and shouldn't be allowed to be used anyway. He gets angry that we see this and can see how stupid he is. He comes into the house, stomping around, hollering, etc., so the men get up and get ready to protect us. We girls go into the bathroom to hide, and even have to get into the bathtub to all fit. The bathtub had water in it. I sneak out somehow so I can see what's going on and see that my brother and stepdad have guns, so I naturally feel afraid of what's going to happen next. In my dream (and in real life) I know that only the most dire situation would make them bring or use guns, so it's clear to me that they're going to put an end to this (him) once and for all. But I'm very afraid because I know how cunning ex-b-i-l is and how crafty he can be.

My last memory is of being in the bathtub with water and being very afraid. I can see my 'good' sister's hands shaking with fear, and my niece's eyes so wide and terrified that it breaks my heart.

Then I woke up.