Amy sat on the edge of the bed and uncapped the bottle of painkillers. The pamphlet that the pharmacist had included with the painkillers said, “may cause drowsiness.” Amy knew what that meant: “Will cause drowsiness.”
That’s what she wanted. Though the pain in her gums had increased over the day—the glass had sliced through the tender flesh beneath her broken teeth—the throbbing was bearable. The events of the past two days were not.
Amy tipped the bottle and three pills dropped into her palm. Three will be about right, she thought. She scooped the pills into her mouth and washed them down with a long drink of water.
She lay back onto her pillow and pulled the covers over her exhausted body. The clock radio’s display was too bright. 9:45. Amy slide a hand along the side of the radio and felt a switch. She slid the switch and the the display dimmed to a less harsh level.
She slid her tongue over her lower teeth. The shapes were slightly wrong—the caps hadn’t matched exactly the shapes of her teeth. She could feel a slight ridge where the natural enamel at the bases of her teeth met the artificial material of the new caps.
Amy knew that her teeth would feel odd for a week or two or three, that she would run her tongue over her teeth dozens of times, hundreds of times, the sensitivity of her tongue amplifying the strangeness of this smallest of differences. And one day in the future she would notice that she had not noticed the strangeness for a while, that the newness of faded, that she had become used to this artificial construction in the most intimate of places.
We can adapt to anything, Amy thought, to the most alien things. We can learn to take almost anything for granted. Even pain. Even the precious life of a beautiful boy.
She hoped the pills would act quickly. She hoped that they would give her a dreamless sleep. She didn’t want another night like the last, dreaming that horrible scene at the pond over and over, feeling her helplessness over and over, seeing that horrible image of her baby’s casket over and over.
After four hours at the dentist, two of which she had spent waiting for the dentist to arrive, she had eaten dinner with Frank and the boys—takeout from a fast food place—in silence.
What could she say to Frank that would make a difference? What could he say to her? Silence had been best. Maybe tomorrow they would find the words that would point a way toward reconciliation, or at least a truce, but tonight silence had been best.
A drink would help right about now. But of course it wouldn’t. More likely it would drive the final nail into the coffin of her marriage.
Amy winced at the metaphor.
When would sleep come? Amy looked at the clock. 9:57. If anything, she felt more awake now than when she took the pills.
She pressed the dream button on the top of the radio and listened to the news. It was “silly season” non-news news. An astronaut on the space shuttle had completed some necessary repair after three space walks over the past two days. Something called the Large Halcyon Compiler had “gone live” after a gazillion dollar, decade-long construction project, and had found something called a Huggs Bozo on its third attempt. Apparently this Huggs Bozo was worth all that money and time, at least according to the reporter.
Halcyon, Amy thought. She could use a halcyon day or two. And right about now she would be satisfied with just one halcyon night.
10:07.
The pills didn’t seem to be having any effect.
Any remembered a trick she had invented a few years earlier by accident. She had heard of some scientist—Feinberg or something like that—who studied how he fell asleep. Every night as he was falling asleep he would try to keep noticing what was happening in his mind. After a while he noticed some internal patterns, so that he could tell whether or not he was close to falling asleep.
Amy had decided to try that, to study herself for a week or so. On the first night she noticed, just before she fell asleep, a kind of barely visible, slowly swirling image of concentric grey circles that filled her internal field of vision. And the image was moving toward her, washing over her. That was the last thing she remembered before falling asleep.
The next night she decided to create that swirling, washing image on purpose, to see what would happen. She conjured up the dim image and set it slowly rotating. After a few seconds she lost the image. She tried a few more times and lost the image each time. Each time, some thought would intrude into her mind and the image would fade.
Then after a few tries, she was able to keep the image swirling and washing toward her and over her. The feeling was warm and gentle and floaty and peaceful, and she drifted easily to sleep.
She had tried the trick a few more times over the years, and it had worked each time. But on her most troublesome sleepless nights—the nights when the trick would have been the most helpful—she forgot the trick.
Tonight she remembered.
10:21.
Amy willed the grey circles into her mind and gently urged them to swirl, like a pinwheel in the lightest breeze. She invited the swirling circles to wash over her, to flow gently over her, to envelop her.
Amy fell. She reached to break her fall, but she didn’t have time to break herself before she hit the ground. Her chest crushed something against her right wrist, something brittle that splintered, Something sharp sliced into her wrist and she jerked her arm out from under her body.
Green with maroon speckles.
Fuck, she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind. I’m dreaming again.
She ran her tongue over her lower teeth. The ridge was gone. Dreaming.
And she was aware that she was dreaming. Green with maroon speckles.
She lifted her head off the ground. The green was grass. The speckles were blood.
Blood trickled onto her hand from a gash on her wrist.
If I know I’m dreaming, maybe I can change the dream.
She willed her arm to heal. It did not heal.
Someone screamed, a long, panicky, wavering wail. Amy spun onto her side.
Jacob stood knee deep in the pond, looking toward Amy, his eyes wide and bulging, his mouth stretched, his lips pulled back over his teeth in terror.
This was not the face of a twelve year old boy, but the face of an infant experiencing some terrible fresh horror that he knows he cannot cope with, cannot even fathom.
NOT THIS DREAM!
Amy pushed herself to a sitting position. The strain ruptured something in her wrist, and the blood began to pulse out. She pressed her left thumb on her wrist above the gash and the pulsing stopped.
Jacob’s wailing paused. Amy looked up in time to see him turn to his right.
A flash of movement caught Amy’s eye, something in the water, splashing.
“Double,” Zack said from somewhere in the splashes. “The boat!”
Jacob began to scream afresh, even more pitifully now—a terrible, terrible sound.
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