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Except for the flat-screen TV showing world news, the only lights in the family’s private jet are blue. They mark the galley, a few outlets, and the walkway along the cabin floor.
But I don’t need more light to know the sounds and sights of a nightmare.
Sandesh’s body twitches and jerks in the prone seat directly across from me. Should I wake him? I’d want to be woken. How many nights had I wished something would pull me out of that damn nightmare? Many. Knowing his history of service, I’m betting his nightmare is a rehash of past events, like mine so often are.
I shudder. To someone who has the same terrifying dream over and over again, the wordnightmaredoesn’t cover it. It’s torture. Personal and intimate torture.
That decides it.
I switch seats so I’m beside him and then, very gently, place my hand over the one fisting his blanket.
He sits up, jerks his arm away, gasping for breath, then switches on a reading light.
Three deep breaths pass between his full lips before he glances over at me. He smells of sweat and fear.
I lean forward, careful not to touch him now that he’s awake. That would be a violation. I know what it feels like to be that exposed, to have something that you don’t even like to admit to yourself, laid out for others to see. It’s part of how I healed as a child, talking about my shit, but it didn’t come easy. Or overnight. “Are you okay?”
Not answering, he rubs a hand across his face.
“Do you want to talk about it? The nightmare?”
He drops his hand, clears his throat. “No.”
That stern word erects a wall between us. A do-not-cross, guard-dog-on-duty, enter-at-your-own-risk wall. I get it. I don’t need him to tell me, but I do want to connect with him. I’ve fucked everything up between us. First, by casually challenging his business, second, by allowing Momma to use his business, and, third, by propositioning him in the elevator. It was a desperate attempt to make my own sadness over my siblings disappear. It was also a jerk move.
Now, there’s a cold distance between us. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why it matters to me, but it does.
He pushes aside the blanket on his lap and I’m sure he’s going to get up, but he only adjusts the vent so cool air flows out.
Okay. I’m doing this.
Working a kink from my neck, I speak without looking in his direction. “I have this bad dream all the time.”
He lets out an annoyed breath, as if he can’t deal with me trying to compare my bad dream with his nightmare.
It pisses me off. I’m sure he sees me as the media does, a rich Parish Princess—trotting all over the globe and taking more credit than I should for doing what’s right. I should let him keep thinking that. It’ll make what’s going to happen in Jordan easier, but I can’t ignore his pain.
His trembling and, as much as he’s trying to rein it in, it shows his distress. This is a good man. A man who started a charity to help people and vets all over the world. A man who is suffering.
“In my nightmare, I’m a child. A man is holding me down.” I swallow through the ball of fear rising in my throat. “He’s so heavy, it hurts. He has his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming. I’m so little that he’s cut off my nose as well as my mouth. It’s a dream, but I can’t breathe, and I can’t wake up.”
The explosive power of my words suddenly feels grotesque, rash, and stupid, like a punch to my gut. I slide my hand over my stomach to press down my revulsion.
Beside me, Sandesh goes still. Deadly still. “Justice, did someone hurt you? Did something like that happen to you?”
“No.” God, no. Not me. I don’t want him to think that. “It was Hope. My biological sister. She died saving me from that. Our demented maternal grandmother let some very sick men make kiddie porn in her basement. My father gave us to her for drug money.
“Thanks to the actions, or I guessinactions, of my addict father, Hope died. I saw it happen.” I twist my hands in my lap, guilt rising, even though I know and believe it wasn’t my fault. “I couldn’t stop it.”
He looks away.
I watch the tick in his jaw, as if he’s fighting for control. Fuck. What was I thinking? I’d just tossed my pain out there like a live grenade and it’d exploded, tearing through the peaceful sound of the jet slicing through the sky and the air brushing the plane’s hull. I should’ve let things be.
Sometimes, I forget how other people live, grew up. No one in my familydoesn’thave an awful childhood story. We call it our origin story, like superheroes, because we all know that we are the lucky ones. We are the rescued. The empowered.
“How do you wake from the nightmare?”
I’m surprised by the question. It goes right to the heart of the problem of that dream and doesn’t shy from it. I appreciate that kind of bold. It’s the kind of bold that’s also a kindness.
