Before the sleep

Chapter four

Daddy

I know I'm dreaming but I can't get myself to wake up; not when dreamland is the only place I can see my beautiful angel healthy and moving freely.

I see her in her wedding gown across a crystal blue river, embedded in a field of lilies. She throws the white veil in the back of her head, revealing smiling red lips and rosy cheeks. Her green eyes sparkle under the sun. She twirls around, arms in the air, invading my ears with her sweet melodic voice. I run to her, dying to hold her slender frame in my hands, to feel the heat come off her body. I want to kiss her, hold her, and make sure she can never leave me.

Then someone has the nerves to wake me up. I jump up, my eyes instantly seeking Irene. My body settles when I see her lying there with her chest rising and falling.

"Hey, you were about to fall off the chair," my brother grins. He stays behind the couch, leaning on the wall.

I rub my tired eyes while failing to stifle a yawn, "Thanks."

"When was the last time you've had a good night's sleep?" He watches me intensely just like mom does sometimes.

"I don't know. I can't remember." I sit back down, taking Irene's cold hands back on mine – where they belong.

"You need to sleep, man. Nobody's going to blame you for leaving for a few hours. You've been here for weeks now. Where do you shower?"

"They have a shower room in this hospital. Mom brings me new clothes every few days," I point at the little bag on the other side of the room.

"And your boss is okay with that?"

"I've taken some times off. It's no big deal."

"It's an extremely big deal. Do you think Irene would want you like this? You need to take care of yourself for her and your son."

"Yeah, you're right," I lay a butterfly kisses on each of her knuckles before laying my head on her swelled belly. "I'll do it tomorrow."

"You said that last week," he reminds me. "You need to look less ugly for when she wakes up."

I groan softly, pressing my ears deeper to catch my son's heartbeat. Even when there's a machine replicating the sound to me every hour of every day, I want to hear it from the source. I know it's impossible but at least I can feel his little movements.

Henry is still trying to talk to me into leaving but I'm no longer listening. I'm having a private moment with my son. I wish he was here with Irene and me already.

She's going to wake up soon, I think as I slowly draw pattern on her skin.

I'm in denial; I know but I can't change it. It's my automatic response every time I'm venturing in a scary adventure. I spend the entire time telling myself it's not real until it's over or it gets over my head so I have to wake up to deal with it. Right now, my dream is coming to its end and reality is catching up.

The same thing happened when I wanted to ask Irene out the first time. Every day I laid on my bed trying to summon enough courage to call and ask her. Every day it will end with me throwing the phone away before I finished dialing her number. In class, I would start asking then I'd cop out and ask for something totally different like the notes I already have or a pencil that's already in my hand. They all ended with me boiling in embarrassment and cowardice.

It took another boy innocently asking for a pencil for me to be ripped away from the denial I was bathing in. It at least put me halfway out of my denial.

"Do you want to go out with me?" I blurred out while her head was still in her backpack, searching for the pencil.

Both she and the boy rocking an orange Mohawk looked up at me in confusion.