3
The dream didn’t come every night. Not anymore. It had for years. Every night like clockwork Justin Westwood awakened with a scream, trembling, drenched in sweat, the sheets wet and sticky. Now it just came sometimes. There were nights he wanted it to come because he didn’t ever want to forget. Other times he prayed for it to stay away because the pain of remembering had long ago become unbearable.
It came that night.
It began as it always did, in a time when he was happy. When he and Alicia were in love, even before Lili was born. In his dream he felt Alicia caressing him, felt her naked body melt into his as it always did in bed. Then there was Lili. The perfect child. Sweet right from the start. He could hear her cooing and gurgling as a baby. And he saw her take her first step. Heard her speak. Somehow the dream always let him see her in school, in first grade, maybe because he always thought of her as so smart. She should have been beautiful, Lili, like her mother, but she wasn’t. She had Alicia’s body, thin and athletic with long, coltish legs that, right from the beginning, seemed to go on forever. But she got his face, poor kid, so she was slightly goofy looking, at least that was what she felt. He would always tell her how beautiful she was, how perfect, how smart, and in the dream he’d hear what she always used to say: “Daaaaddddy, it’s no good if you think I’m beautiful. It’s the other ones who have to think I’m beautiful.”
The dream changed from time to time. Jumped around. Tonight it jumped to when Lili was eight years old and things had started to go bad. His father usually came into the dream now, his face, big and close, stern and frightening. His father never spoke in the dreams, just looked at him, that look, so bitter and angry and disappointed. Then there was a jumble of images. Everything rushed in at him, like a train whooshing through a tunnel: Alicia harping at him, saying What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this? and then the arrest and everyone patting him on the back, telling him he’d done a great thing, and in the dream his chest puffed out, he was so full of pride. He could see Lili looking at him like he was the most important man in the world. He handed her his medal, his shiny gold medal that glistened like a precious jewel. And then …
And then in his dream he heard a noise. In real life there had been none. Other than normal noise. Alicia at her desk, riffling through papers and paying bills. Lili padding around the living room. The TV. Everything was normal. But in the dream he heard something. A warning. And then suddenly they were there. Inside his home. And there were shots. Screams. He was on the floor. They thought he was dead. He heard laughter and felt someone touch him and then there was another noise, an explosion of heat and fire, and there was blood everywhere. Thick and red. Dripping. Flooding. Red, everywhere …
Justin Westwood woke from his dream, breathing hard. He grabbed for his chest, feeling the physical pain as if it had all just happened. His hands quickly probed his stomach, then his neck and his thighs. There were no fresh wounds, only raised scars, reminders of the raw, scorched flesh that had once been there. His breathing eased a bit and he resisted looking at the empty half of the bed across from him. Justin reached for the glass of water he’d put on the nightstand. He gulped it down, was still thirsty, didn’t want to move, though, to get more. Didn’t want to disturb the images of Alicia and Lili that were still with him, still so real.
He looked at his watch. Four a.m. In another hour it would start getting light. He didn’t bother closing his eyes; he wouldn’t be going back to sleep. He never did after the dream. He’d stay up and wait for dawn. Then he’d wait until he could see Jimmy and the girl, the yoga teacher. Then he’d see what they were going to do. They’d hear her story, ask questions, see what was real, what was fake.
In his own life, Justin knew what was real and what wasn’t.
His wife and daughter were dead and it was his fault.
He was alive. And wishing he wasn’t.
That’s what was real.
Everything else was fake.