They say dreams reflect the soul. I wish mine hadn’t turned my family into nightmares. [Part 1]

The house we lived in was so big. Big enough for about six people, and we only had three. It was our dream home, the walls were made of happiness, and the roof was built from the love I felt for both of my girls. Two stories tall with a pointedly crooked roof like the tip of a witch's hat.

Our baby would’ve loved it, does, love it. I think of her smile as she sits and watches the birds sit over her bedroom window.

My wife didn’t say a word when seeing it for the first time, only a tight hug in response. Her face dripped onto my shoulder as she teared up, I tried not to look but she could make crying the most beautiful thing in the world.

Being without them made the world so hard, meaningless. That was why I could stay home with them forever, in our home. To love the world meant I had to make them my world.

“Hey Billie, slow down in the house, will ya?” I could hear my wife call from the kitchen as footsteps rumbled throughout the upstairs. Coming up behind her, I hugged her around the waist, pulling her backside into me. She laughed, getting water down her leg.

From upstairs, the quick banging of running slowed and continued toward the stairs as our daughter came into view. She was wearing her school bag, ready for her day. I turned to look at her, a growing fire in my chest.

“Look at the little scholar, all ready for school?” Olivia said, a smile matching my own on her face.

I quickly ran over to her, picking her up as she giggled. “You gonna let me go with you?”

She shook her head.

“What? Why not? I'll make you look so cool!” I began to pick my nose. “I can sit next to you and everything!”

“No!” She laughed.

I put her down as my wife told her to get ready for lunch. School would not start for some time, but she decided to get used to her backpack like it was a new bike. I was not ready to see her go away, alone for the first time. Even when she ran off into the connecting room the thought of putting her down wasn’t a good one.

Olivia had put her hand on my shoulder, filling me with the missing contents of my stomach. I turned around, planting a kiss on her lips as her glasses fogged, blocking her eyes. When I pulled away, they appeared, filling my vision with bright blue. “She’s such a sweetie, isn’t she?” she said.

I stared at her, the words reminding me of so much.

Beep

“Oh, it's that damn noise again,” She said looking up at the ceiling, “Where’s it coming from?”

All I could do was shake my head.

“Hey, will you go make sure Billie is getting ready please?” She asked.

“Yeah, think I can convince her that her classmates’ll think my burps are cool?”

When I turned, I felt a slap on my butt as I left. Everything felt so perfect, the shadow looming over the house so deep within the clouds it was almost not there. This had been my place, our place. And I didn’t want it to end.

Billie’s room was so vibrant, filled with toys and her latest ninja turtle fixation surrounding my senses as I entered. You’d think she lived with her grandparents the way we spoiled her. Yet, if she didn’t get a new toy, she never threw a tantrum.

I was proud.

She was sitting in front of her coloring books, shading in Leonardo’s blue mask with a crayon. “Hey Billie, your mom’s gonna kill us if you don’t get ready soon.”

She didn’t look up, only continued coloring.

I called her name again, stretching it out long.

Billie finally turned to me, something catching my eye as I saw her face. “I'm coming, I'm coming.” Her voice squeaked out as if nothing was wrong.

I bent down to her, my eyes never left that thing growing out of her forehead. The skin around it looked undisturbed but for the single white flower blooming from somewhere within. “Hey Billie?”

“Mhm?”

“You feel that?”

“Feel what daddy?”

I had already reached out to it, gently pulling the six leafed star from her head. It came off, brittle where it connected to her. I inspected it closely, a single lily between my fingers.

“Daddy?” came the little voice, “My head hurts.”

This sent my attention back to my little girl, her sweet face undisturbed but for the emotion stricken across it. She looked so tired.

I closed my eyes, my head filling with concentration. “Come on, please, a little longer.” I said to myself. “Give me a little longer damnit.”

Her small body went limp on the other side of my eyelids. Her cry split my head and woke me up with something I could not control.

The ceiling was not the same anymore. Dark, moldy in my eyes. The smell of the room I slept in was putrid compared to that of my wife’s cooking. I'm not sure how long I stared at nothing, the blurriness not going away in weeks. Or however long it had been.

I wiped my stinging eyes with a heavy hand before turning over, seeing the sorry state of my apartment. A smiling face had greeted me, the sunny park its backdrop. I reached forward and placed the picture frame flat, out of view.

I exhaled the stale air out of my lungs and rolled onto my back. The quiet room I slept in was louder than the words that could break it.

My hand hovered over my stomach before I held it close, pushing the ache inside from all the missing food.

My dreams, they're getting stronger. Every touch, smell, the presence I could feel from being beside my family once again was overwhelming. It was just enough to not be enough when I was awake. And it made me crave more, to lose the person on this side of my life. To see my world again was just a short sleep away.

So, I closed my eyes once again. Repeating the words in my head as I drifted away. To create a world I never got a chance to have.

It was getting easier to fall asleep lately, easier to form my life in my dream. To bring them back made it harder to return to that place, that nightmare away from home. Before everything gets solid, I don’t remember much. Just the walls coming into view like I'm flying out of a thick cloud only to reveal my surroundings. And soon, I'm standing in our living room, Olivia’s back turned from mine as she places a grey pillow on the couch.

As I watch her lay her head on it, it strikes me how alive she feels. When I press my head against her breast, I can feel her heartbeat against my ear. When I talk to her, her responses drive my heart to do the same.

And when she sees Billie come into the room, her skin sprouting those white flowers across her skin… she screams just like she used to.

---

I've been spending a lot of time in my head lately, desperately trying to remedy the sickness plaguing Billie. Forcing my dream to change to no avail, she sits there as I pluck the flowers from her never-ending skin. Underneath the sprouts, her skin seems softer, shinier than usual. She doesn’t seem to mind losing them, even when she sits there, watching her show on the television.

Olivia is by my side, taking the flowers as I remove them and placing them in a large glass jar. When I sit up, I realize the jar is full, Billie looking as if I hadn’t spent the last hour taking them off.

When I look at my wife, I see that concerned look on her face. I had seen it before, just not in this house.

“What’s happening to her Asher?” Olivia asked.

I raised a flower at this, spinning the lily between my fingers. When I looked down, Billie was looking at me. I squeezed the stem on reaction. She wasn’t making any kind of face, only looking at me, a blank expression etched behind the pettals covering her skin.

She simply turned and continued watching her show.

I looked over at my wife who shook the jar in front of her face. It seemed like Billie had more of those things on her, even after plucking those off. Nothing I did was making any difference, again.

My palm felt tight suddenly. I had crushed the lily in my hand, the crumpled and torn remains hiding in my hand. That day was coming back again, the anger, so much of it filling me up like the jar in my wife’s hands. It made my teeth sore from the force I bit upon them.

It suddenly fell away at a single touch on my shoulder. Olivia’s hand warming my whole body as I stared into her sapphire blue eyes. It always astounded me how much a look from this gorgeous woman could fix seemingly anything. No matter the circumstance, it would convey exactly what I needed to see.

I put my hand on her’s, she smiled at me, and I could not help but give one back.

Olivia had placed the jar of white lilies atop the fireplace as if to present them proudly. She told Billie that only angels sprouted such beautiful flowers and that seemed to bring her out of whatever darkness she fell into. And soon, Billie was back to her normal self. Free of those things across her body and eager to play multiple games at once again.

I'm not sure where the flowers went, as I did not see them fall off. They only ceased to be. Yet, every now and then, I catch her watching me. As she did before, no anger or distain in her cute face. As if she were looking into a wall.

When I dream, we never leave that house. The outside does not exist when you don't need to go anywhere, when you're happy where you are, you stay where you are.

In our house, when you look outside you don’t see much. Just trees, and vast open land until it stops over the hills in the distance. I'm sure I could envision something there, like a nice park, but I doubt I could focus that hard. If I were to do that, usually something inside the house might change or distort. I can’t have that.

None of that extra stuff mattered compared to my family’s sleeping faces, Billie held tight in my wife’s protective arms as we lied in our bed. Billie had not grown anymore flowers that day. And the night we found ourselves in, felt like it would follow the same pattern when listening to her deep breathing.

In my dreams, I never could fall asleep. Only stare up at the ceiling with my thoughts until the time would come when I got to wake the girls. The moon would pass in the sky until it hung just outside my window, igniting the room in a pale white glow. I’m sure most wouldn’t want to experience this part, opting for a better moment of waking laughter and experiences. But to me, this part mattered just as much. The moments in between.

Beep

My eyes did not move from the spot in the roof as I heard the noise. Ignore it and it’ll go away, just like always, I told myself.

Beep

I closed my eyes, focusing on the silence that followed. The abrupt stillness of the night air created by the absence of gentle breathing to my right.

Billie had been watching me, her little eyes open to the sight of her worried father. I smiled at her, her cute little face smiling back at me. Curing me from the pain knocking at my memory. The bad times had no place here.

The smile fell then. Replaced by her round eyes, open as far as they could. Her little mouth had fallen from its smile and landed in a neutral position. Her green eyes, now pale like the moon hanging outside. Or as white as the flowers that grew from them.

My muscles tensed up, my face frozen. Olivia, by my side, did not stir a bit as our daughter watched me through those things in her eyes.

I closed my own, shutting away the scene in front of me. All there was to do was to make it go away, just try and make it go away.

In the darkness of my closed eyes, I heard a squeak in the bed, a shift of weight in the mattress, then hot air on my face. As much as I concentrated, it would not go away, silent breath, needing at my pores.

I was quickly nothing but a bag of heaving air, my dream, a close memory. Frantically, I looked about the room, eager not to find the little girl’s distorted face in it. It had been empty, but for the flower on my nightstand.