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By eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, a time when I'm often
in the healing stages of repentance, I'm staring down at the world
from wispy white clouds. The airplane is beginning its descent
and will soon bring me to a city that may unlock answers to the
cedar-drenched forest of my dreams. I treasure this quiet
moment of clarity.
I would have no interest in coming here if it weren't for
Monica, nightmares or not. I think I would have continued
trying to deal with them on my own indefinitely. And who knows
where that would have led? Maybe I'd kill myself in my sleep.
Maybe the nightmares would go away on their own. But Monica is
waiting for me below, and I'm so anxious to be with her that it
feels like days have passed since I last saw her face, not hours.
She gave me a wake-up call a few hours ago that I didn't
need. I haven't slept since staring into the tiny mirror in
the hospital bathroom. For several minutes, I was unable to
move. I just watched my reflection as realization settled into
my eyes. When I was able to react, there were no tears.
I had my doctor paged and requested an x-ray. There was simply
no reason for an MRI; the shadows present on the gray film showed me
all I needed to know.
I didn't tell Monica about it, only that I'm feeling
better, which is true. I do feel better than I did last night.
I don't know how to tell her about the mass that's taken root in the
very spot it inhabited several years ago. I don't want her to
worry about the weakened state of my body, how a month of sleepless
nights has made it vulnerable to disease. I didn't tell Monica
any of this, and neither have I told my mother. I need to deal
with things on my own, process my thoughts and feelings and know
that when the time comes I’m strong enough to tell them what's
going on without becoming overly emotional about it.
There is something else that I haven't told Monica,
something that worries me almost as much as the cancer. I
haven't told her about the heightened sense of awareness that's been
growing for several days, the fleeting but vivid hallucinations
which are escalating in frequency, the line between sleep and waking
that's becoming blurred. I have no doubt that my sanity is
questionable right now. It's been a month since the dreams
first interrupted my life, and during this time, I've lost some of
my ability to reason. It seems that I no longer act on my own
free will; I just react. I know where this is leading - I'll
be just as affected as Mulder before long. If I manage to
outlive the cancer, I'll scurry underground like he did and give in
to paranoia. And when this happens, William will have lost not
only his father, but his mother as well.
The son of two insane parents, the nephew of two murdered
aunts, the grandson of three people who died suddenly - by
assassination, suicide and heart attack - William's greatest
challenge in this world will be to stay safe. The burden on my
mother is going to be tremendous. I don't want her to raise
him alone, but I don't see any way around it. If I live
through slitting my wrists and arms and legs like the rest of these
women did, I still have hallucinations and paranoid tendencies to
deal with. If I keep my sanity, I still have cancer to battle.
The plane circles over Spokane and I steel myself for
Monica's scrutiny. I won't tell her just yet that anything's
wrong. I want at least a day to appreciate our friendship
without the fear of death interfering. I know any chance I may
have had at taking our relationship to a different level was
abruptly destroyed when I found the tumor. I know. But
I've thought about cancer and death and insanity enough for today,
and I want to think only of her. Just for today, I want to
acknowledge my desire for her, the fantasy of where she and I could
have gone; I want to face my feelings for her and bask in the dream
of what could have been.
Just for today, I want to be a woman in love.
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