I want to know her name.

I woke up the other day with part of a story. Not the whole thing, because it wasn't a long enough dream and, as dreams tend to do, trailed off into something about me exploring a city park with giant trees and goldfish ponds. But for part of it, there was something vivid that I want to figure out.

There was a woman - a young woman, sitting at a table in a bar, a restaurant, a crowded loud indoor space, across from two men. Brothers. The three of them were clearly good friends. She said something about what was happening right now that they didn't like, and had to apologize: "Sorry. You know how I step into the future sometimes. But after the next shattering - you'll know it when it happens - come talk to me."

It was about 20 years later, a sunny day on a dusty road in a small town. One of the brothers parked the car and got out, looking around at the sky and trees. The woman walked out to see him and smiled, "Hi, Jimmy." Because she knew that's when he was coming and it wasn't at all a surprise.

It was the way that she was so comfortable with knowing he was arriving, and how she'd been able to make friends - they'd fallen out of touch and he hadn't called, but she knew, and he'd still gone to see her - that made me angry when I woke up because I wanted the rest of their story. She wasn't easy to be friends with, but she liked people. She'd tried to find ways to live and be happy with all that she had going on. He was a perfectly ordinary person who didn't step out of the present. She had a flock of chickens in her backyard and always knew where to find the eggs, and didn't always remember to let him finish his sentences. The other brother must have died sometime in those twenty years between the table and the road.

They'd all had to become friends in childhood, with the brothers knowing what she could do, most comfortable with it as children and struggling as adults with so much time apart. I don't know if they'd never talked in those years, or if it was just recently they'd stopped speaking to each other.

It was a day of deep, bright sunshine, on a dusty road out not quite at the edge of town, but near to its limit. Part of without being within. She had a hat on, and it didn't matter he hadn't called, for so many reasons. Because she'd known he'd be coming and she was happy to see her old friend.

I need the rest of their story. I need it so hard.