Becoming the Storm
63 Nightmares
THE THING I HATED about being in the telecommunications program was that all my classes were in the media center. That was really too far from Dunn’s Woods to take a break there or to stop and visit my favorite statue. I mean, the Arboretum just outside the media lab was nice, but I liked the feeling of the woods and I liked that statue.
Nonetheless, Monday the tenth, I sat down in my first class at three-fifteen: Telecommunications Management. This was as close to a business course as I’d get until I started the MBA portion of my curriculum. It included ‘theories of personnel and systems management applied to the technology-based consumer media of broadcasting, cable, and voice,’ according to the syllabus. More interesting to me, was that it included ‘broad issues of programming, infrastructure, finance, competition, corporate and industry structure, budget, and regulations.’ I lied about that last part. This might be the last class I take at IU.
It was a blessing that Hannah brought me a fresh cup of coffee and a sandwich when she joined me at 5:45 for Managing the Creative Process. It was still a business management class, but the emphasis was on ‘the role of the producer and/or production manager, including production team organization.’ Of course, we were going to get fed a lot of the same information about schedules, budgets, contracts, markets, and intellectual property. I was pretty sure Hannah could teach that course, but I was glad she was in it with me. I would stand a chance of passing that one.
We came to the campus together after our morning shooting. She went to the studio to set up the 3:00 broadcast of our morning show and then joined Lonnie to assist in one of his classes.
On Wednesday, I was on my own, so there was not a chance that I was going to get coffee between Economics of Media Industries and Legal Environment of Telecommunications. I needed to remedy that. The economics class wouldn’t be too bad as long as I could get someone to explain the basic economic principles. I had a feeling that instead of Brenda, I was going to spend time this semester studying with Louise. I really didn’t think that would be as much fun.
The legal class promised to be interesting, even if a lot of it was over my head. This was a review of the laws of the telecommunications industry. I wondered if under the First Amendment discussion we’d talk about Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television.
I got home Wednesday night, knowing I had to get up Thursday morning and cook for somebody from the Humane Society. I was seriously wondering if the Wood sisters really did have a recipe for stir fried cat. That would close down my ratings. I was actually laughing about it when I got home Wednesday night and had to explain what was so funny. I was met with abhorring stares from all my cónyuge.
“Don’t you listen to him, Xan,” Dani said, settling into my lap so she could lift our baby away from me. “My sisters and I never cooked a cat. That was Whitney’s idea. We specialize in roadkill. And don’t you worry. I’ll teach you exactly how to serve it to your papa.”
Sam and Liz came to bed with us that night, though both said they wanted to sleep on the baby side of the bed and not on my side. Geez! What do they not get about ‘joke!’ Well, Liz ended up cuddled against me anyway and I was happy to have her there. I kissed my lovers and went to sleep.
I knew I was dreaming and it was going to be bad so I woke myself up. Liz lay partially atop my left side. Dani was under my right arm. Sam held my right hand in hers. I took a deep breath. The smooth even breathing of my three lovers told me they were all asleep and undisturbed. I’d done it. I’d fought off the nightmare. I hadn’t screamed. I hadn’t lashed out at anyone. I’d simply woken up and let it pass. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to sleep.
And it returned.
It wasn’t the university campus, though the woods we drove through reminded me of the park there. We’d been camping—Dani, Xan, and me. We’d had a good time and were going home. There was a tree limb in the road. I could see where it had broken from the tree a few feet away. Maybe wind had broken it loose. Maybe it had just become tired of hanging on and fell. It wasn’t too big, but I didn’t want to try driving over it, so I stopped the car and got out.
The limb was heavier than I thought it was and I struggled to move it. Some guy stepped out of the woods and observed what I was doing.
“Limbs have been falling everywhere,” he sighed. “Let me give you a hand with that.” He bent beside me and helped me pull the limb out of the road. It was much easier with the two of us working together. I glanced up and saw Dani in the car, entertaining Xan.
“Thanks for the help,” I said. The guy walked back to the car with me.
“Can’t drive through with a limb in the road,” he said. Then I saw another guy behind the car. He was rummaging around in the trunk. The trunk had all our camping gear in it. All our food. Our water. It had our clothes. I remember we’d put the TV in the trunk, too. And my big chair.
“Hey! What are you doing? Get away from my car!” I shouted as I ran to the back of the car.
“He’s just making sure it’s worth our while to take everything,” the guy who’d helped me said.
“What? You’re not taking anything!”
“You’ve got everything we want right here,” he said. “We’ll even have your wife and daughter. We don’t need you now.” I saw him reach in his jacket for a gun. I don’t know why I knew he was reaching for a gun, but I knew that’s what was there.
I killed him. I don’t know how. I just know that the next minute both men were lying on the ground and my hands were all bloody. I wiped my hands on their clothes, trying to find a place that wasn’t bloody so I could get them clean. I didn’t want Dani to see blood on me. I hadn’t even thought of what I was doing. I just killed them and left them in the dirt.
I closed the trunk of the car and got in the driver’s seat.
“There. That’s all taken care of,” I said. “Now we can get home.”
“It looked heavy. Did you hurt yourself?” Dani asked. She pointed at the blood on my hands.
“Just a splinter. Nothing to worry about. I’ll wash up as soon as we get home.”
“Okay. Xan was just babbling about bears in the woods.” Dani went on to give me a rundown of the conversation with our daughter. As I drove away, I saw the two bloody corpses in the rearview mirror. There was blood on my hands and I’d just lied to Dani. I pretended everything was all right. My daughter had a murderer for a father. A murderer and a liar. How could I ever be a father?
I woke up. I think. I was rigid. Liz was still asleep on my shoulder. I couldn’t imagine how that could be comfortable. Dani was softly petting my chest and I heard Sam moving to pick Xan up from the bassinet to bring her to us. Dani kissed my cheek as she petted me and whispered softly.
“It’s okay. It was just a dream. You are here with us, my love. Just a dream.”
Sam crawled into bed with Xan and in a couple seconds, the baby was latched onto Dani’s nipple. She cooed at the baby and Sam petted her.
“Samantha? Danielle? How do you do it?” I asked. “You faced him. You saw it all. You were shot. We’ve never talked about it. Don’t you have nightmares?” The three of us cuddled together while Dani fed our greedy little daughter. When I turned to hold them, Liz automatically spooned behind me, but didn’t wake.
“Every night,” Samantha whispered. “Every night.”
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“I cope. They’re less severe most of the time now. It just crops up at bizarre times. The dream I have might not have anything to do with that day and then all of a sudden something happens and it turns ugly,” Samantha said. “I hug Dani, or Hannah, or Jennifer, or Courtney, or Rose. Or you. They help it go away and I know I’m safe in their arms.”
“Dani?”
“I didn’t have time to see anything but him raising his gun toward you,” she said. “I didn’t see what happened with the first shots, or even see Samantha get hit. All I saw was that he was going to destroy the only reason I could think of to live. You’ve said it often enough. I didn’t think. I just attacked. One second later, I was unconscious.”
“My poor sweetheart. Does it haunt you, too?”
“Not so much. It did at first. I was pretty out of it for a few days with the pain and surgery. But it was the same as I imagine being in an auto accident would be. It comes as a surprise and then someone in a hospital is patching you up and you have to get better. Then I found out I was pregnant,” Dani said. “Look at her. We didn’t plan to have a baby. We didn’t know that was what we were doing at the time. But she was planted just at the moment when we would need her most. Look at her gripping your finger in her tight little fist. Sucking on my breast. Me! A mother. Put that in your kit, Brian. I did. Even back then. If I thought about the shooting, I replaced the thought with one of our daughter. We all love you, Brian. We trust you and depend on you. But you will never meet anyone in your life who has such complete blind faith in you—such total, unselfish, giving love—as this little girl. Put it in your kit. Think about it whenever the darkness falls on your heart. Put her love and trust in your kit.”
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