She tried to catch his eyes, but they had shifted to the opposite side of the room. “Doesn’t really sound like sleepwalking, Mike.”

“Of course it does,” he said a little too quickly. “You see it in the news all the time—people being found innocent of all kinds of charges because they were sleepwalking when the crime was committed. At least you didn’t kill someone. Did you?” He punched her playfully on the shoulder.

“But look at my room, Mike. Look at your face. How could I have done all this?” Her voice broke. “Why would I do this?”

He enveloped her in a bear hug. “Hey, Smurf, they’re just dreams. Twisted, destructive dreams,” he joked, “but dreams any way you look at it. And dreams can’t hurt you—just me.”

He hadn’t called her Smurf since she was six. He had to be more scared than she thought.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” she murmured.

“Crazier than usual?” he teased. “I already had a straitjacket hanging in the closet, waiting for this very moment. Guess I’ll have to break out the meds too.”

“You really might,” she whispered.

His embrace tightened. “You’re fine, little girl. It’s just stress. A lot of stress. But nothing that a hot, greasy pizza and one of your stupid chick flicks won’t solve.” With a light tickle under her arms, he headed into the hallway to call in pepperoni reinforcements.

Ricki took stock of her bedroom. Every bookshelf had been knocked over. The contents of her purse were scattered under the bed, and a glance into the bathroom revealed a mess of spilled makeup and lotion bottles. Even the collection of porcelain ballerinas that once enjoyed permanent residence over her bed were now piles of chalky fragments on the floor.

She knelt down to finger their remains. The figurines had been a present from her father after taking her and Yolanda to see The Nutcracker. It was an evening that had defined her seven-year-old destiny to become the world’s greatest prima ballerina. That destiny had lasted a good two weeks—the amount of time it took for her to take three ballet lessons, sprain her ankle, and retire her ruffled pink tutu to the nether regions of her closet where it now shared a corner with her discarded bathing suit and a pair of dusty tap shoes. But even though the dream of becoming a world-renowned ballerina had died at the tender age of seven, her love of the shiny, little dancers immortalized in clay and glaze never did.

She would never be so reckless with them, even in her sleep. Would she?

“Pizza’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” Mike announced from the doorway.

She jumped. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“You talkin’ to me?” he asked. “You go psycho sleep commando on me, nearly take out a couple of my good teeth before I’m even half awake, and then say I scared you? You’re lucky I don’t throw on a hockey mask and chase you around with Dad’s power drill. Then you can talk about being scared.”

She snorted, allowing herself to relax. “You would’ve had me if you’d threatened to use his electric toothbrush. What’s a power drill going to do to me that two weeks’ worth of Daddy’s plaque buildup can’t?”

He stretched, scratching his belly. “Nah, didn’t want to pull out the big guns too soon. I’ll save the toothbrush for the next time you drink up my Powerade. Now, go pull out one of your girly ‘why-doesn’t-he-love-me-the-way-I-programmed-him-to?’ movies so we can finish up the night in style.”

“Mike, you can go back to sleep. I’ll be okay.”

“No, you won’t,” he said. “You’ll sit up all night, spooked by your own shadow, snuffling your way through a box of tissues. So I’m going to sit up with you and help you see that sometimes a dream is just a dream. And if that means I have to stuff myself with pepperoni pizza, a side of cheese sticks, and some chicken wings in order to make it happen, so be it.” Nudging several books aside, he settled onto the floor in front of the television. “’Cause that’s what a good brother I am.”