The Door in the Wall
By Patricia Crisafulli
She had the dream again. This time, the house was very much like her grandmother’s—old kitchen with its scratched Formica-topped table, dining room ringed with straight-back chairs, the parlor with its sagging sofa. All familiarity ended when her dream-self climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor, where instead of a warren of small bedrooms there was only open space.
A door appeared on the far wall—not much bigger than a hatch. Approaching slowly, she grasped the knob. And woke up.
Aurelia focused her eyes on the cottony, predawn light filling the bedroom. Her mind buzzed with the dream, which she’d had off and on since college. The houses were sometimes familiar, sometimes strange; sometimes vacant and sometimes looking as if the occupants had just stepped out. Always something beckoned her to climb the stairs where the space opened into endless rooms or vast emptiness with no walls.
She knew the meaning—had looked up dream interpretation in books, on Google, and with ChatGPT. All the answers pointed to untapped potential, unfulfilled desires, unknown possibilities. It felt like her unconscious admonishing her; that a twenty-four-year marriage, two kids now in college, and a career weren’t enough. Some alternate life awaited her, and she had yet to show up.
Aurelia rolled over. Just a stupid dream, she told herself.
Aurelia set two mugs on the counter while Joel poured beans into the grinder for their morning coffee. It was their routine before he headed to his home office and a day of consulting, and she went online with her career-coaching and job outplacement clients.
“I had the dream again,” she said. “You know, the one with the house.”
“You haven’t had it in a while.” Joel pressed a button, and a gleaming stainless machine dispensed two perfect espresso shots.
“Comes and goes—it’s been a few months, maybe a little longer.” Aurelia plated a muffin and slid it toward Joel. “Banana nut,” she said.
“Maybe later.” Joel kissed her lightly and pointed to the digital clock on the stove. “Gotta a meeting in ten minutes.”
The desk chair creaked as Aurelia leaned back, while her client on screen took a brief online assessment—ten questions meant to spark fresh ideas about where and how to explore job opportunities. Her client was twenty-seven, in the workforce for five years, and just laid off from her second job. The young woman had cried during their first session, unable to grasp what she had done wrong, even though the entire team had been eliminated as redundant after their employer had been bought by a larger firm.
Today, during their third session, the client seemed stoic as they went through the assessment: strong in communication, a little weak in technology, supportive team player. An interesting anomaly was an above-average score in entrepreneurial behaviors. “What does this say to you?” Aurelia asked.
The woman shrugged. “Not sure. I was always good at coming up with ideas for marketing campaigns.”
Aurelia nodded—their time was nearly up. “What if it’s more than that? What if you have a hidden talent in this area?”
The young woman shook her head. “I just want to find a job. I’ve got rent, student loans, my boyfriend is freaked out because we were supposed to do this big trip, and now I can’t afford my half of it.”
A clock face appeared on the screen, ticking down the last thirty seconds of their session.
“Think about it,” Aurelia said. “Maybe something in a job posting will resonate with what you just discovered.” She waved just before the screen went blank.
Some days she hated her job, when it felt like little more than busy work for people who’d been laid off and the appearance of caring for the employers who’d terminated them. But the money was good, and tuition for two in college wasn’t cheap. She tried to make each session meaningful—offering hope, encouraging her clients to keep trying. Giving up wasn’t an option.
Two nights later, Aurelia had the dream again. Awakening, she couldn’t recall the details of the house, other than how standing in that open, second-story space evoked a sense of panic—like standing too close to a ledge. Maybe she was intuiting the anxiety of her clients for whom being laid off felt like a freefall into uncertainty.
That triggered a realization that her house dreams were more frequent when she was undergoing some sort of transition: in college and away from home for the first time; in her thirties and her children were small; in her forties when she got a job in corporate HR; and now, in her fifties and one year into her latest job as a career coach with an outplacement firm.
Then the alarm beeped; it was time to start the day.
The next night, Aurelia woke up with a start. Not exactly a panic, but a feeling of having been jolted by a shout or maybe a thunderclap. As her heart calmed and her mind cleared, she processed the fragments of the dream: a house with furnished rooms downstairs, the straight staircase leading to the second floor, then the expansive space. There was the door in the wall again. But in front of it, for the first time, sat her father who had died fifteen years ago.
He’d smiled, his eyes crinkling a little, but his face smooth and untroubled. “Relia,” he’d called her—and the echo of that long-ago childhood nickname brought a slight ache to her chest. “Time to find the door.”
A half-hour later, as they made their coffee together, Aurelia described the dream in detail to Joel. To her surprise, her husband pulled out one of the high stools at the counter and sat down. “I think we should start looking for it.”
“Really?” Aurelia grasped her mug, fingers warmed by the porcelain sides. She never thought he took her dreams seriously.
“Sure. Maybe if you see something, it will trigger an idea.”
In three strides, Aurelia crossed the kitchen floor to reach Joel. Cupping his face in her hands, she felt the faint stubble of whiskers along his jaw; saw the creases mapping his forehead and fanning out from the corners of his eyes. Another glance revealed the shadow of the 21-year-old he’d been when they met at college—a junior to her senior.
“You don’t think this is crazy?” Aurelia said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Why would I? You’ve been having this dream in one form or the other for twenty years—”
“Longer—more than thirty,” she corrected.
“And your dad,” Joel added. “If he’s telling you it’s time—well, then …”
Aurelia kissed him, feeling his warm familiarity, then noticed the clock. “It’s showtime,” she said, and headed to her office and the first of nine Zoom sessions scheduled for the day.
Come Friday night, after a week of new clients onboarded for outplacement—some of them after working for their employer for more than 20 years—Aurelia felt physically and emotionally drained. Sitting at the kitchen island, she pushed away the cup of coffee she shouldn’t have this late in the day and put her head down on the cool surface.
Joel walked by, still talking to whoever was piped into his earbuds. Raising up on her folded arms, Aurelia watched him pace across the open floorplan of their house—kitchen to dining area to living room. She loved the spaciousness of the arrangement. It was a sharp contrast to the houses she dreamed about with walls and doorways that separated each room.
Then she got it. Her daily life was like those old houses: compartmentalized. The second floor, though, was always wide open. A staircase connected both spaces, allowing her to come and go between them. Suddenly she saw it literally: the neat and orderly daily life she created on one level, and an invitation—not an admonishment—to explore whatever existed within and beyond that upper level.
Aurelia straightened, the fatigue she’d been feeling suddenly gone with a burst of energy, like sunlight burning away fog. Her movement caught Joel’s attention. Their eyes connected; a smile exchanged. It was just like that very first time when they were college students, and they had known on some level that they would always be together.
The next morning, Aurelia slept later than usual and awoke to the smell of coffee. In the kitchen, Joel sat at the island, a mug on his left and a legal pad on his right. “Man with a plan,” she teased. “You working?”
“Uh-uh.” Joel scratched something on the pad, then held it up. Aurelia could see a numbered list in his block lettering. “We’re going door hunting.”
They left at nine, and all Joel would tell her was the first stop was nearly an hour away. Seeing the sign for a farmhouse on ten acres for sale, Aurelia swiveled in the passenger seat. “We’re not buying something like this.”
“Not a chance. But it looked like your dream—so I figured we’d do a walk through. Maybe something will strike you.” Joel pulled over and parked behind a car with the license plate House4U.
Aurelia pushed down the guilt over taking up the realtor’s time and, after their introductions, quickly explained that they were only looking.
“Look all you want. I’ve got four more appointments after you and an open house tomorrow,” the realtor said. “This property won’t stay on the market long.”
The farmhouse built in the early 20th century was interesting, and its layout somewhat resembled her dream. But that’s where the similarities ended. From there, they toured a Victorian—lovely bones, but in need of repair—and then a house built in the 1940s that had been renovated into blandness.
It was a fool’s errand, Aurelia knew, but Joel was intent on seeing every place on his list. Two estate sales later, he described the next three stops—two more houses for sale and the local historical society in a restored mansion, which was open only in the afternoons.
“How about just the historical society?” Aurelia said. “Then we walk around.”
Throughout the afternoon, Joel paused at every doorway and gate—arched, square, wooden, iron. Some had heavy hinges, others delicate fittings. As he pointed out each feature, Aurelia knew he was trying to trigger something for her, and several times she almost said, yes, that’s the one, just to make him happy.But she couldn’t.
At a park, a lovely, scrolled gate stood open to reveal a rose garden in full bloom. Aurelia led her husband inside. “It’s been a wonderful day.”
“But no door,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. This is better.” She squeezed his fingers, and he returned the pressure.
They held hands as they walked through the rear of the garden and onto a side street in the direction of the lot where they’d parked their car. Passing by a coffee shop, Aurelia suggested they stop to buy something so she could use the restroom.
The beamed ceiling, exposed brick walls, and high windows spoke of its former industrial life. The name of the place provided the explanation: The Old Feed Mill. While Joel went to the counter, Aurelia snaked down a narrow corridor, following the signs for the bathrooms.
The hallway angled 90 degrees, then widened into a communal space lined with the rear entrances to small shops and galleries that occupied this old building. In the far corner, metal hand plates gleamed on two restroom doors, but Aurelia didn’t make a move to push open the one for the women’s. On the wall in front of her stood a door, raised a good three or four feet off the ground as if a set of steps had once led to it.
Hands shaking, Aurelia texted Joel. Come to the restrooms.
Joel rounded the corner, his gaze on the bathrooms, a quizzical expression on his face. With her index finger, Aurelia pointed to the door in the wall. Her door.
The painted wood was rough and pitted by time, clearly original to the building. Now it had a new life as a signpost of sorts. Nailed to the front was a rectangular blackboard, no more than two feet long and a foot wide, announcing local events.
Aurelia and Joel stood side by side, reading the listings—an art show, a pottery class, a studio open house—each written in a different colored chalk.
When had she done any of these things? Aurelia asked herself but couldn’t come up with an answer except that it had been a very long time. Work and home life, as satisfying as they were, had precluded her from so many experiences. Suddenly she knew this listing of events reflected the unfulfilled potential, the unrealized dreams and opportunities that had haunted her.
Joel ran his hand along the doorframe. “I don’t think it opens.”
“Maybe not, but look at all it leads to.” So much enrichment awaited her, if she would simply stop and explore.
Aurelia pointed to the listing for the art show. “Let’s start there. It’s today and right down the hall.”