The silver Camry crept down the poorly lit street. Leah peered through the rain-spattered windshield at the line of houses, searching for the number that matched the digits she had scribbled on scrap paper. Staring intently at a white house with brown trim, she jumped when a dark shape appeared outside the passenger-side window.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Vincent said, ducking into the seat next to her. “I can’t see the street very well from my apartment, so I was waiting on the side porch.”
“No worries,” she replied automatically and then frowned. During the two weeks since the “sleep grooming” incident at her apartment, she had decided her relationship with Vincent Cruz needed an injection of professionalism.
She had promised to help him, and she would if she could, even though it would have been easier for everybody if treatment came from an unbiased third party—from someone who didn’t blur the lines between physician and friend.
Door-to-door service didn’t exactly come standard with the sleep study.
If the test doesn’t reveal something concrete, if his condition proves to be psychological and not physiological, I’ll have no choice but to refer him to a psychiatrist and wish him the best.
The part of her that had hoped Vincent would provide her with a mystery to explore—a phenomenon worthy of an award-winning essay— was quickly losing ground to the part that worried she might do more harm than good for the man sitting beside her.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty if I had picked up when Bella called his cell.
“Oh, your phone!” She blindly reaching into her purse. “Sorry I didn’t have a chance to drop it off earlier. The past couple of weeks have been crazy. We were lucky there was a cancellation tonight. Otherwise, it might have been months before I could get you in for a polysomnogram.
“You missed a couple of calls,” she added, handing the phone to Vincent.
“Thanks. It was probably just Bella,” he said. “My phone isn’t exactly ringing off the hook these days.”
Leah opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it.
If I want to know about Bella, then I’m just going to have to call her, not pump a patient for information. Not that I’d know what to say to her after fifteen years…and with her losing a child…
“So,” Vincent said, “how have you been sleeping?”
She chuckled in spite of herself. “I was about to ask you the same thing. I’ve been more diligent with my restraints, so I haven’t been a threat to myself and others. How about you?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I had The Dream again, but just once. I’m beginning to think you’re right about…about how all of this might be because of Clementine.”
“Oh?” She glanced over at him, but he was looking out the side window.
“In the dream, Destiny, the elf lady, told me that she’s taking me…taking Valenthor to see his daughter.”
“I thought Valenthor’s daughter had passed away.”
“So did I, but maybe it’s like you said. Maybe my subconscious or whatever is trying to cope with Clementine’s death by constructing a fantasyland where she didn’t die.”
Leah wondered, again, if Valenthor’s reunion with Valentine would give Vincent the closure he needed to end The Dream once in for all.
Or will his mind latch onto the fantasy even more desperately?
The turn signal ticked away a handful of seconds before Vincent said, “I just hope I’m not wasting your time tonight, Leah.”
“Any answer is better than none, right?” she offered. “Either the PSG will show irregularities or it won’t. The data will determine what we do next.”
If it’s narcolepsy, I’ll recommend clomipramine for the cataplexy. The REM suppressors might even stop The Dream once and for all.
And God knows he should probably be on antidepressants anyway.
Vincent turned to her, and she glanced away from the road. Dream or no Dream, the man looked tired.
“I really appreciate everything you’re doing…fitting me in and finding a way to pay for this thing tonight,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” she said, thankful he didn’t press her for more details on that final point. A few blocks later, she added, “When you first came to clinic, you mentioned narcolepsy. Are there any narcoleptics in your family?”
“Huh? Oh, no. Not that I know of anyway. I never really knew my father, so I guess it’s possible. It’s just one of the sleep problems you hear about a lot…unlike what you have.”
“Cataplexies, the sudden collapses you experience, occur when sleep paralysis is inappropriately activated,” she said. “In a way, it’s the exact opposite of RBD. When I’m asleep, that protective response doesn’t always get triggered, but for some reason it periodically kicks in for you when you’re awake.”
Leah let her thoughts drift with the swishing of the windshield wipers.
“If it’s not narcolepsy,” Vincent started hesitantly. “If it turns out I’m just psycho, I’m guessing it’s hereditary.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because my mom is crazy.”
Leah kept her eyes on the road, her expression neutral.
“She has crazy dreams too,” he continued. “Except she doesn’t think they’re dreams. For instance, she believes an angel came to her in a dream to command her to keep my brother on life support.”
Leah sighed inwardly.
I guess there’s more than one way to get a patient’s family history…
“I never knew you had a brother,” she said. “Did he go to Shorewood High?”
“Half-brother actually. And, yes, he went to Shorewood…when he felt like it. He’s in a coma now, and if my mother has anything to say about it, he’s going to stay hooked up to machines until the Second Coming.
“I think she can’t just accept that he is already dead.” He took a deep breath. “At first, I thought she wouldn’t take him off life support because her church says it’s a sin or something. But then one day she finally told me the real reason she wouldn’t bury Daniel. An angel had specifically told her not to.”
Leah said nothing.
Am I going to hit every red light tonight?
Vincent chuckled. “You don’t have to be a shrink to see she’s delusional.”
“People must have said the same thing about the Virgin Mary,” Leah said before she could stop herself.
“Huh?”
So much for keeping the conversation professional.
“In both the Bible and the Qur’an, angels deliver messages while people are asleep. John the Apostle apparently dreamed the entire Book of Revelations,” she said.
“You believe in that stuff?” Vincent asked, his tone rich with skepticism.
Leah shrugged. “My mother is Muslim, and my father was raised Catholic. I’m not sure what I believe, so I keep an open mind.”
Now it was Vincent’s turn to shrug. “Well, my mom is not a prophet.”
The next few blocks passed in heavy silence, and when they pulled into the parking lot, Leah thought she had never been so relieved to get to work.
* * *
Inside the sleep clinic, alone with Leah in a small room with bare walls, a bed, and expensive-looking equipment, Vincent only half listened as Leah explained the procedure. Why bother trying to keep all of the acronyms straight when all he had to do was sleep?
Then again, with so many electrodes stuck to his face and body, he worried that falling asleep would prove challenging.
“I’ll be in the next room, monitoring your data and observing you through that,” Leah said, pointing to a video camera mounted in the corner of the room.
“How exciting for you.”
There was no mirth in her smile. “Good night, Vincent.”
“Thanks.”
She left, and the lights dimmed. He rolled onto his side. The electrode affixed to his temple itched fiercely, and a pancake might have provided more support than the sorry excuse for a pillow provided. He closed his eyes and concentrated on Bella and Clementine, even going so far as to imagine he was back in his old house on the day Clemmy died.
I haven’t had that nightmare since The Dream began. What’s the connection?
When sleep did not come, his thoughts drifted back to the conversation in Leah’s car. How could she seriously entertain the possibility that an angel contacted his mom? And to compare Evangeline to the Mother of Christ? There was nothing immaculate about either of Evangeline’s conceptions.
Just when Vincent had convinced himself he had never been more awake in his life, he opened his eyes to find himself in a room he hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years. He sat up quickly and slammed his head on the ceiling.
Cursing loudly, Vincent rolled onto his stomach and slid from the top bunk down to the floor, which was a lot closer than he remembered.
“You better hope Mom didn’t hear you say that word.”
Vincent rubbed the fast-forming bump on his forehead and locked stares with little Danny, who sat cross-legged on the bottom bunk, reading a comic book.
“What am I doing here?”
Daniel flashed a mischievous smile. He wore his favorite pajamas, which resembled long underwear covered with colorful dinosaurs. “Welcome home, Vince.”
“No one calls me Vince anymore,” Vincent muttered, but he was no longer looking at Daniel. The Larry Bird poster, the empty terrarium, the mountain of Matchbox cars in the corner—the bedroom was definitely his.
Theirs.
“You were expecting a forest, maybe?” Daniel asked.
Vincent regarded the red-haired eight-year-old suspiciously. “What did you say?”
Daniel stood, tossing Avengers #1 on his pillow. “I know that elf chick is a hottie and all, but I thought you’d be happier to see me. When was the last time we had a chance to talk?”
I have to get to Valenthor’s world so Leah’s sleep study isn’t for nothing. Maybe if I concentrate…
“I’ll refresh your memory,” Daniel said. “It was Mom’s birthday. You and Bella dropped off her gift, but when you saw I was there, you insisted you couldn’t stay for cake.”
“There was something we had to do that day,” Vincent said, though he couldn’t remember what excuse they had used at the time.
“Like what?” Daniel drawled. “You needed a better place to be miserable? Did all holidays become off limits after Clementine died?”
“Fuck you.”
The boy’s smile grew. “Shhhh! Mom’s gonna here you. The walls are very thin. That’s not something one forgets easily.”
Am I here because I was to Leah about Daniel earlier?
“Why do you want to kill me, Vince?”
Coming from the mouth of a child, the question was more than a little disturbing. “You’re already dead, Daniel. Mom just can’t deal with reality. She’s wracked by guilt because you screwed up your life.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed, and his devil-may-care grin disappeared. The new expression made him looked much older. “OK, so I screwed up my life. No arguments there. And, yeah, Mom made mistakes too, but at least she’s trying to make up for it. All she wants is to spend some time with you. Why do you keep pushing her away?”
“Because she’s too late!” Vincent spat.
“I think I get it.” His brother’s one-sided smile returning suddenly. “You want to kill me because it’ll kill Mom. You want to punish her because there’s no one else left. Clementine is gone. Bella left you—”
Vincent grabbed the boy by his collar, pulling him up to his tiptoes. “You son of a bitch!”
Big grin. “There you go insulting Mom again.”
Vincent let go of his little—too little—brother. Breathing hard, he said, “You’re not real. You’re a twisted hallucination my subconscious cooked up to torment me. I’m talking to myself.”
“Why do you really hate her?” Daniel asked.
Vincent crossed the room and reached for the bedroom door, but before he could touch the knob, the door opened. He froze.
She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her blond hair was spiked up in the middle, plastered down on the sides and shaved up the back. The holes in her acid-washed jeans provided an unobstructed view of her knees and more of her thighs than Vincent cared to see. A giant silver cross dangled ironically from one ear. Her blue-shadowed eyes looked alert, for once.
Judging by the zipped-up black leather jacket, Evie wasn’t staying sober for long.
“Time for bed, boys,” she announced.
“Where are you going?” Vincent asked.
“Out.”
Vincent rounded on Daniel. “This is why I hate her! Thanks to her, I never knew my father. This was my only role model! What chance did I have at being a good dad?”
He fixed his glare on his mother, who crossed her arms and mirrored his frown.
“It’s your fault my life is so screwed up! It’s your fault Clementine is dead!”
The door slammed on its own, and he was alone in the room with Daniel.
Adult Daniel.
“OK, so you’re pissed off, and Mom is an easy target.” Daniel stretched his arms out the length of the bunk and leaned back against the frame. “But we both know that even after you push everyone else away, you still have one person left to hate.”
“Just shut up, Daniel.”
“Truth is, horrible things happen every day. You made a mistake that morning, but it was an accident, Vince. You can keep on being unhappy, making one bad choice after another, or you can make the best of the time you have left.”
“Shut! Up!”
“Clementine died, not you.”
He took a swing at Daniel, but suddenly his brother was a boy once more. Young Danny easily ducked under the blow, and Vincent’s fist struck the metal bedframe instead.
“You’re a bastard,” Vincent growled.
Grin. “Takes one to know one.”
* * *
What is he doing?
Leah stared at the monitor, which showed Vincent sitting up and looking right at her, directly at the camera. And was he talking? When Vincent started waving, she cursed and switched on the lights in his room. A stern voice in the back of her mind told her to stick to the script, to be Dr. Chedid instead of old pal Leah, but even if part of her rankled at interrupting the polysomnography, another part of her was eager to hear what he had to say.
Did he have The Dream?
“What happened?” she asked, approaching the bed.
The artificial light lent Vincent’s tan skin a greenish tint. His brow glistened with sweat. “No, not this time.”
Leah let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I didn’t think so. You never reached REM, which surprised me. Most narcoleptics enter REM in about ten minutes, but you lingered in NREM for an abnormally long time before waking up.”
Vincent stared vacantly across the room. “I was with Danny.”
“Pardon?”
“I wasn’t Valenthor. I was me…with Daniel back at our old house.”
Leah felt her pulse quicken. “Are you saying you dreamed about your brother?”
Vincent nodded. “It wasn’t The Dream, but it felt as real as The Dream.”
“Was it a lucid dream?” she asked, sounding overeager even to herself. “Did you know you were in a dream?”
He turned to look at her, a puzzled look on his face. “Yeah…why do you look so surprised?”
“Almost all dreaming takes place during REM. Lucid dreaming only occurs during REM,” she explained.
“So?”
Leah rubbed the back of her neck, a nervous habit she had picked up since she had inadvertently chopped off most of her hair. “You didn’t experience REM sleep, Vincent. You lingered in N3, the third stage, for…well…I’ll have to double check the readings, but I should have been able to tell if you were having a dream like that. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
She forced herself to take a breath. “It’s too soon to jump to any conclusions. I’ll have to get a second opinion, and then there’s the chance of mechanical failure. In any case, we should repeat the study and—”
“Leah, just tell me what you’re thinking.”
“How long did you wait after the dream about Daniel before waving at the camera?” she asked.
“I didn’t wait. I just woke up a few seconds ago.”
She started to fuss with an electrode on his forehead. He took her hand in his, and their eyes met.
“Please…talk to me,” he said.
Old pal Leah it is then.
“If you managed to have a lucid dream in NREM sleep, the instruments didn’t detect it,” she said. “I was watching pretty closely. I didn’t see your eyelids moving at all.”
“I don’t—”
“If, as the data suggest, you didn’t have any dreams, then when you saw your brother, you must have been awake.”