Episode 8: The Forever Dream

The Forever Dream

by Joe Beck

My wife, Amy, called me on a quiet afternoon while I worked alone in my classroom.

“Stephen,” she said.

“Hey, what’s up?” I answered, distracted by the paper I was grading.

“Um, Isabella had her appointment today, for the headaches, remember?”

I didn’t remember but I said I did.

“We had the test at Dr. Patel’s office and he thinks we should go the hospital now.”

I stopped.

“Everything okay? Just some extra tests or what?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so, just some tests, probably nothing.”

“Okay, let me know what they say.” 

There was only silence.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Can you meet us there?” Amy asked. “Please?” Her voice cracked. 

###

We sat in the doctor’s office at the hospital and were told that our 9-year-old daughter’s brain would deteriorate until she died. All of her thoughts, her dreams, her emotions, along with all of the mechanisms that fostered those crucial pieces of her identity were going to crumble and fall apart.

Amy cried softly in a chair next to me. She opened and closed her hands repeatedly in her lap, trying to grab onto something that wasn’t there. 

I looked out the window behind the doctor. I felt completely disconnected and alone. Nothing can make someone feel lonelier than to be told that the most important thing in the world would be taken from them. It carves out a hole and leaves a dark, empty space that is impossible to fill.

The doctor talked about treatments and possibilities and everything they would do for Isabella to try and prevent what was essentially inevitable. The cancer was already inside of her little brain. It had burrowed deep into the cracks and crevices of a bodily organ that doctors still knew very little about. It was poisoning and destroying all of the things she had developed and created to be able to think and feel and remember and experience life. 

It would take her mind, and then it would take her life.

I felt helpless. I was unsure if life would be worth living if I lost my daughter.

###

Several weeks later, I sat next to Isabella’s hospital bed as she slept, holding her little hand, her fragile body decimated from another treatment. The lights were off but her rotating star lamp was on next to her bed.

After Isabella was born, I found the lamp in a small, secondhand shop, in a quiet neighborhood on the north side of the city. It was a simple thing. The lamp was shaped like the sun and there were star and planet shaped holes in the rotating lampshade that cast a slow moving universe on the walls of her bedroom.

The universe was slowly orbiting the hospital room. Glowing stars and planets passed over cold, unfeeling machines, chords and wires.

I stared at Isabella’s face, trying to etch every line and angle into my memory. 

Her eyes opened and she looked at me.

“Hi Isabella,” I whispered.

“Hi Daddy,” she said. “You brought my star lamp.”

“I sure did,” I said, leaning in and brushing her dark hair back.

She watched the simple shapes of celestial bodies move slowly around the room, her eyes catching one and following it for a while, before focusing on another and repeating the process. 

“Each one has its own path,” she said, lifting her hand and pointing.

I looked up and watched the movement around us. “You’re right,” I said.

“It’s like each one is unique, just like us,” she continued.

I looked down at her. “That’s exactly right,” I said. “Each one has its own existence.”

“But part of something bigger,” she added, still lost in the mesmerizing movement around us.

Even with its simplicity, Isabella was able to make the star lamp seem so profound.

“I love you, Isabella,” I said to her.

“I love you, too, Daddy,” she replied.

“How much?” I asked.

She looked around the room in exaggerated paranoia then motioned for me to come closer. When I did she leaned in and whispered in my ear, “I love you infinity.” She sat back and looked at me in triumph. “Infinity is forever, daddy, so that means I love you forever.” 

Isabella was obsessed with infinity. The idea that infinity and forever and always meant something never ended was beautiful and wonderful and mysterious. She was tantalized by the idea of these things that were just out of reach of what her mind could comprehend.

She closed her eyes and went back to sleep, letting the weakness in her body take over.

I sat in the dark room, centered in the star lamp’s glowing universe orbiting around me, knowing that I would do anything to save my daughter.

###

The weeks and months passed slowly. The days were filled with a zombie like agony of repetitiveness. Doctors and nurses discussed the next procedure or treatment, the medication they were pumping through Isabella’s already broken body and brain, and what we could expect. But I heard very little of it. I only knew that there was nothing good to hope for in anything they said. I spent each day waiting for night when I could treasure those final, quiet moments with Isabella as she lay inside the universe that lit up and circled the hospital room.

I wanted to stay in those moments forever, underneath the lamp’s glow, and watch Isabella sleep peacefully, a respite from the pain, sickness, and agony that her life had become in the waking hours. Each torturous minute that passed was one closer to the emptiness that awaited me in the loss of my daughter.

###

My twin sister, Stephanie, called late at night on my cell phone, in the quiet hours at the hospital. I stepped out in the hallway, my eyes straining at the change from the darkness to the light.

“Hey,” Stephanie said. She was moving and sounded out of breath.

“Hey, Steph, what’s up?”

I had been close with my sister but we had drifted apart over the years. She worked in science and research, always moving from one place to another in the world, working long hours in strange places. 

“Listen, Stephen,” she said. “A friend of mine is going to call you and I want you to listen to what he has to say. How’s Izzy?”

“The same.”

“No improvement?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, please, listen to me, this is very important for you guys. For Izzy.” She stopped moving and paused before speaking again. “Please just listen and do what he asks.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“He’s a friend. He wants to help. Please, just trust me on this.”

“I don’t know Steph,” I answered. 

“Stephen,” she said, then paused. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do, it’s just that it’s a lot. It’s starting to be too much.” 

“Please, Stephen, I have rarely ever asked you for anything and I’m begging you here. Talk to this guy, do it for me. Do it for Izzy.”

###

I hung up with Stephanie and thought about what we had said. The finality of my words, and the desperation of hers. 

My phone rang again, almost immediately.

“Hello, Stephen,” a deep, male voice said on the end. “My name is Dr. Javier Garcia, I apologize for calling so late, do you have a minute to talk?” The words came out precisely and even, almost monotone with a slight Spanish accent.

“Who is this?”

“I am a friend of Stephanie, and I would like to talk with you.”

“It’s kind of late, uh, Dr. Garcia, and I’m spending some time with my daughter, can we talk another time?”

“I was actually hoping we could meet very soon. I think that I might be able to help with your situation.”

“Yeah, I guess we can meet.” I was trusting Stephanie, I had nothing else. “Can we set something up for maybe later this week?”

“A car will be at the hospital in twenty minutes, please, be outside the main entrance.”

There was silence on the phone as I took in what he had said. 

“And Stephen,” Dr. Garcia continued. “Bring your daughter.”

###

I can’t say exactly why I did it. I suppose it was a combination of things that had come together, creating the perfect storm of recklessness. But it was mostly because my daughter was dying. If I had taken anything from all of the conversations and whispers and procedures that we had been a part of in the previous months, it was that we were only hanging on and prolonging that inevitable conclusion. I had nothing left and I would have done anything to save Isabella. If my sister asked me to trust this man, then I would.

It was late, but I convinced the shift nurse to allow me to take Isabella for a walk around the hospital floor since she was in between treatments and could leave the room for short trips.

I bundled Isabella up in a wheelchair and took her down to the main entrance where we waited outside the door. Isabella fell asleep and I stood there, desperate and waiting.

Exactly twenty minutes after the phone call with Dr. Garcia, a black, Mercedes van, with no windows in the back, pulled up to the curb and a large man, who moved quickly, stepped out of the driver’s side.

“Mr. Stephen Arnold?” the man asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“My name is Maurice. Please, right this way.” He motioned me to the back of the van and opened the doors, then lowered a wheelchair lift attached to the back of the van. I rolled Isabella onto the lift and Maurice raised her up. I climbed in next to her, locked her wheelchair to an open space, and sat next to her on a leather cushion seat. Maurice got in and drove away with us inside. 

I felt the van navigating through city streets, then the smooth, quicker pace of highway driving took over. After about thirty minutes or so the van exited the highway and made several turns before stopping. Maurice spoke with someone then we began moving again.

We moved forward quickly for a few minutes before stopping again. Maurice exited the van, came around back, and opened the rear doors.

We were on an airport tarmac, facing a sleek looking jet with its doorway open and a wheelchair lift next to stairs leading up to the opening of the aircraft. There was a woman standing next to the bottom of the lift in a black suit coat. She walked over to the van and I stepped down to meet her after checking on Isabella who was still asleep.

“Mr. Arnold, nice to meet you, my name is Dolores, Dr. Garcia is waiting to meet you and your daughter,” she said to me with a smile, perfect teeth shining in the orange glow of the airport lights.

“Wait a minute,” I replied, looking around. “I didn’t agree to any of this. I’m not even sure what this is or where I’m at.”

“You are at the executive terminal at O’Hare Airport, Mr. Arnold,” Dolores answered. “This plane is going to take you to meet Dr. Garcia. I am his representative. You have his word and mine that you and your daughter will be fully taken care of, and she will be treated as well if not better than she could be at any hospital. The plane has full medical accommodations.”

“Where are we going and for how long?” I asked. “This is crazy. You’re going to fly us somewhere? For what?”

My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket, saw it was Stephanie, and answered.

“Good, you’re at the airport, I wasn’t sure you would go, but I’m glad you did. Listen—“

“Steph, what is this?” I interrupted her. “I was willing to meet this Doctor, but this is a little crazy.”

“I know, I know, but please, go with them. They will take care of you and Isabella, I promise. Just go and hear Dr. Garcia out.”

“Go where? I don’t even know where they are taking me.”

“They can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. At least, not yet. What they have is--it’s complicated, but just go see for yourself.”

I stood in nervous silence on the tarmac between a van containing my sick daughter, and a plane waiting to take us to an unknown destination. I was caught between desperation to save my daughter, and the sensibility to go back to the hospital, put my daughter back in her bed, underneath the stars shining on the walls in her room, and watch her slowly waste away.

“What do I tell Amy?” I asked Stephanie.

“For now, nothing. Wait to tell her anything.”

I looked up at the woman in the suit just a few feet away, waiting patiently.

“Stephen,” my sister said. “Isabella is going to die. Honestly, what do you have to lose?” 

Her words cut deep. The finality of them tore into me. No one had said it until then, but everyone had known it from the first meeting at the hospital so many months prior. 

Isabella is going to die.

I had nothing else to lose. There was nothing on that plane or its destination that could do anything worse to me or Isabella than what we had already been done through no decision or action of my own. At least this would give me some rest from the helplessness that had consumed me from the beginning.

“Ok,” I said.

I hung up and nodded to Dolores. 

Almost immediately we were caught in a tornado of activity. People came off the airplane and down the stairs. Gentle hands wheeled my daughter on to the lift and guided me up the stairs into the belly of the plane. 

Inside was what appeared to be a hospital room that was sleek and modern. Machines were neatly placed into aerodynamic looking compartments. There were multiple beds that looked comfortable and luxurious. The people moved with an almost rehearsed series of actions that showed professionalism and care combined with experience and knowledge. 

I never left Isabella’s side as she was brought into the plane and gently placed in a bed. I sat in a dark leather chair next to Isabella. Dolores walked from the front of the plane and sat across from me.

“We will be taking off shortly, Mr. Arnold,” she said quietly, watching my daughter asleep next to me. “As I said before, you will be well cared for.”

“I’m only doing this because I trust my sister,” I said.

“Of course, and you are right to trust her, she is a remarkable woman who loves your daughter very much.”

“Where are we going?”

Dolores only smiled.

###

Hours passed in flight. I dozed, waking when someone approached Isabella’s bed to read a machine or check a chart. 

Dolores appeared from the front and sat down across from me.

“We will be arriving in about twenty minutes. You and Isabella will go straight in to speak with Dr. Garcia. He is waiting anxiously to meet you and your daughter.” She looked at Isabella for a long moment. “I had a son once,” she said and looked at Isabella. A few quiet seconds passes before she looked up and said, “Buckle up, please.” Then she walked back to the front of the plane.

###

The plane touched down. I saw nothing out of the small windows except darkness, punctuated by an occasional bright light.

We came to a stop and another flurry of activity started. We exited the plane onto a small tarmac that was brightly lit, but surrounded by darkness. The air was thick with humidity. 

Once we were on the ground and out of the plane, Isabella began to wake, stirring in her wheelchair. I kneeled down in front of her.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said in a sleepy voice, her eyes opening, weak and distant.

“Hi, Izzy. How do you feel?”

“Tired. Where are we?” She asked, looking around.

“We are going to see a doctor who might be able to help us.”

“I hope the doctor is nice to me,” she said and smiled.

“I hope he is nice to you too,” I answered.

Dolores appeared out of the crowd of bodies. “Please, follow me,” she said.

We walked off the runway, out of the bright lights, toward a white building made from corrugated aluminum. Not aesthetically pleasing, but utilitarian. The entire area was surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. Either to keep us in, or maybe something else out. 

We entered the building which was cool, modern and sleek inside. Isabella, Dolores, and I walked through a maze of turns and hallways and into an office. There were televisions on the wall, several brown leather chairs and a man who sat behind a glass desk with only a tablet laying on top of it.

“Hello, Stephen, I’m Doctor Javier Garcia,” Dr. Garcia said, standing up. He was a short man, in his fifties, skinny and bald, with intense eyes and tight skin around his face and neck. He walked around from behind his desk and shook my hand firmly, welcoming and kind, but without smiling. He bent down and looked at Isabella who was taking everything in with silence. “Hello, Isabella, I’m glad you are here. We’re going to try and help you. Is that okay?”

“Hello,” she said softly. “Yes, I suppose.” She looked up at me.

“It’s okay, Izzy,” I said, feeling less hopeful than I sounded.

“We will talk, Mr. Arnold,” Dr. Garcia said to me. “Dolores will take Isabella to her room so we can speak openly.”
“No,” I replied. “She stays with me.”

“Please, she will be safe, as I hope you have seen, we will take care—“

“I said no. She stays here, with me. That’s final.”

Dr. Garcia looked at Dolores.

“Okay,” he said after a few moments. “I just don’t want her to be confused or hear anything that might make her nervous.”

“She has heard enough to make her confused and nervous for a lifetime. Her safety right now is a bigger concern and I want her with me.”

“Fair enough. I understand.” Dr. Garcia stood up and walked back behind his desk. “Can we get either of you anything? Coffee perhaps. Something to eat?”

“No, thank you, I’m just a little anxious to hear what all of this is about.”

“Of course, please have a seat so we can talk.”

Dolores quietly left the room as I sat down.

“May I ask what you do for work, Mr. Arnold?” Dr. Garcia asked, after Dolores left.

“I’m a high school teacher. I teach history.” I was becoming impatient. “Where are we right now?” I asked.

“Ah yes, a teacher,” he said, as if he didn’t hear my question. “Just to give you a little background, I am an explorer and a researcher. I like to uncover things. Find things and figure out what they are or where they come from. Maybe as a history teacher you can appreciate this. When I find something that I think might contain useful, maybe even practical knowledge, I study it. Inside and out. I break it down and examine every piece of it, every nuance and molecule, and I try to see how I may be able to apply it to the world around us.” He stopped talking and looked at me, concentrating on what he would say next. “I cannot tell you exactly where you are or what this place is at the moment, but as a tradeoff, I can tell you that I believe I may be able to heal your daughter,” he said.

I stared at him. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for by leaving the hospital in the middle of the night and boarding a strange plane, belonging to strange people, to an unknown, strange place. Was it to hear a strange man tell me that he could heal my daughter? 

“I don’t even know what that means,” I said, reigning in a rising tide of dark emotions that had been buried deep.

Dr. Garcia never took his eyes off of me. “I think I have something that can make her better.”

I stood and stepped toward him.

“Who do you think you are?” I said, raising my voice. “You think you know something no one else does? You think out here in the middle of—wherever the hell this is—you have some secret that no one knows about?”  

I moved closer to the desk. Dr. Garcia sat back in his chair and watched me. 

“We have spent miserable months talking to everyone we can about trying to heal her and no one has been able to do anything. You think you have the answer?” I continued.

“Daddy.” I heard the voice in the background.

“I can’t believe I’m here, I can’t believe I did this,” I continued, not registering where the voice was coming from.

“Daddy.”

“I can’t believe you tricked me, you probably tricked Stephanie, too!”

“Daddy.”

Then everything stopped.

Dr. Garcia’s eyes, which had been focused on me, calm, calculating, even patient, focused on Isabella.

Then he moved. 

He reached under his desk and touched something. Then, agile and quick, he darted around his desk toward me, only he pushed me aside.

I whirled around and saw just past him—

Isabella. 

She was in her wheelchair, her body smaller and more frail that I had even remembered. Her eyes were wide open in fright and there was dark crimson blood pouring from her nose. Her hands were covered as she held them up in front of her face like a wounded animal, confused and scared at what was happening to her.

I wanted to go to her. 

I wanted to pick her up and hold her, wipe the blood away, suck out of her the evil thing that was doing this and take it inside of me and let it eat me from the inside out and destroy me so that my daughter could live her life as she was meant to.

But I knew that I couldn’t do any of that. The reality of what the disease had done to the inside of my daughter’s brain was right there in the form of dark red blood covering her face and hands, staring at me, daring me to fight it, knowing there was nothing I could do. 

The evil that possessed her brain had revealed itself and it made the pain of watching my daughter waste away more real than anything I could have seen or imagined.

I stood and watched, drowning in helplessness and terror, as Dr. Garcia raced to her side and tilted her head back, grabbing her hands and holding them to his chest. 

He wiped her face with a blanket and whispered in her ear. 

The door to the office flew open and several people rushed in. They surrounded Isabella.

Dolores appeared next to me, guiding me back as the cluster of movement, with my daughter at the center, moved out of the room. 

I wanted to follow. I wanted to help, but I had given in. There was nothing for me to do for her. The only hope I had were these strangers. 

###

Dolores took me to a room, away from the frantic commotion of medical staff trying to help Isabella. I recognized that I had little choice in what was happening to my daughter and my only chance was to trust these people. 

“This happened because I brought her here,” I said to the open room.

“No. This happened because she is sick,” Dolores replied.

“She should be in the hospital, in her bed, it was the travel that did this. I can’t believe I brought her here.” I looked around. “Wherever here is.” 

“She could still be in the hospital, Mr. Arnold, in her bed, nice and safe. But then what? How much longer would she lay in her bed in that hospital and waste away?”

I snapped out of my daze. “You don’t have the right to say that,” I said, angry that she would talk like that when she barely knew me or Isabella.

“Am I wrong?” Dolores answered, with little emotion. “You are here because somewhere deep inside you know that there is nothing else left. You were only waiting till the end. Just hanging on.”

She was right. I had nothing else. 

“I know this, Mr. Arnold, because I felt the same way before we lost our son,” she said quietly. “I don’t want you to feel that same loss that we felt.”

I looked up at her.

“Javier and I had a son,” she said. “He was five when he died of a disease that we now believe we have the ability to cure. The same way we believe we can cure your daughter, to spare you the pain that he and I felt. That is all that we want.”

“How do you have a cure and no one else does? How is that even possible?”

The truth is that I wanted to believe. And nothing makes you want to believe more than the desperation staked into your heart by the looming loss of a child. This is how people who are drowning in desperation are taken advantage of. 

Dolores was quiet for a long time. Then she said, “What we tell you is going to sound completely crazy, we understand that, which is part of the reason why we haven’t told you everything yet.”

“Does that include not telling me where I’m at?”

“We don’t tell you where you are because if certain people knew where we were and what we have…” she trailed off.

“What?”

“It could be very bad.”

The door opened and Dr. Garcia walked in the room.

“Stephen,” he said. “Isabella is stable, but she is in trouble.”

“I want to see her,” I said, standing up.

“I know you do, and you can if you wish, but I think we can help her. We have to do it now; I don’t know how much time she has.”

I had nothing to lose, Isabella had nothing to lose.

I sat back down. “Do it,” I said. “Do whatever it is you think you can do.”

I accepted that everything was out of my hands, as it had been from the first day we were told that Isabella was not the healthy young girl we believed her to be. The firm grip that we had on our daughter, and on our life, had, in an instant, been turned to sand. Each grain slipped through our fingers no matter how tightly we tried to hold on, blowing away in the wind of a cruel fate. 

Dr. Garcia looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded and left the room.

“You are doing the right thing,” Dolores said.

“There is no right thing,” I answered. “But I don’t have anything else.”

###

The hours passed slowly. I fell asleep and I dreamt. 

I saw Isabella, standing under a blanket of brilliant shining stars moving over her, almost close enough to touch. She stared up, watching them pass as if each one was a new secret waiting to be unlocked.

She turned to me. Her face was golden and full of life. Her eyes sparkled. Her hair was full and vibrant. 

“They can go on forever,” she said. “They never have to end.” She looked back up as the stars continued to pass. 

###

I woke and found Stephanie sitting across from me in the room, looking closely at a tablet.

“Hey,” I said.

She looked up, eyes wide. “Hey,” she said. She put the tablet on a small table in front of her. “How you holding up?”

“Okay I guess. When did you get here?”

“About twenty minutes ago.”

“Isabella—”

“She’s okay. I just saw a report.”

I sat up in my chair and looked around, collecting my thoughts, small shards of a dream, like a distant memory, still clung to the corners of my brain.

“What is this, Steph?” I asked, hoping for answers, but not expecting much.

She took a deep breath. “It’s a lot to take in. I know. You did the right thing by coming here, I promise.”

“I don’t even know what I did,” I said.

“You gave Izzy a chance. Her only chance.”

“What does that mean? Is this a research facility, do they have some kind of medicine they just aren’t telling people about? Please, give me something.”

“Yes, they have something they aren’t telling people about and it’s for good reason.”

“What reason?”

Stephanie looked at me for a long time, before saying, “What you are going to see will be shocking. It will be unlike anything you have seen before but it is working.”

“What do you mean?” I tried to stay calm.

“You have trusted me this far and you know I wouldn’t do anything that could hurt Izzy so no matter what you see, remember that.”

I nodded.

“Let’s go see Dr. Garcia,” she said.

I followed Stephanie out of the room then down several flights of stairs. At the bottom we walked down a long concrete tunnel. At the end of the tunnel Stephanie stopped in front of a metal door and placed her hand on the latch. She turned to look at me. “Isabella is safe and she is healing. Remember that.”

She opened the door and we stepped into a dark, cool room. Dr. Garcia and Dolores stood with their backs to us in front of a large glass window that gave off an eerie blue and green glow. 

I approached the window, looked through the glass, and froze.

On the other side of the glass I saw Isabella. She was suspended underwater, floating in what appeared to be a large aquarium. There were dozens of long black cables intertwined around her body. There were thinner ones inside her nose and mouth and ears, while thicker ones wrapped around her arms and legs. She had nothing to cover her face for her to breathe even though she was underwater. 

I ran to the window. “What is this?” I yelled, desperate to help her. “She can’t breathe!”

“She’s okay,” Dr. Garcia said. “I promise you she is breathing just fine and is sleeping peacefully.”

“How? What are you doing to her?”

I couldn’t see any of the other sides of the aquarium. I looked up and I couldn’t see the surface of the water in the tank.

And then I realized.

It wasn’t an aquarium.

I turned and looked from Dr. Garcia, to Dolores and finally to Stephanie. The only reason I hadn’t completely broken from what I was seeing was the faith I had in my sister. 

But it was faltering.

“Tell me what this is,” I whispered.

“It’s the Atlantic Ocean,” Dr. Garcia said. “You walked approximately 200 meters through a tunnel underwater, from our building to this point here.”

“How can she breathe?” I asked.

“The tentacles keep her body alive with everything she needs while they heal her.”

“Tentacles?”

I looked closer. What I thought were cables inside and around Isabella’s suspended body and head were moving and contracting. They had a textured, organic look. They were alive. I followed them and realized that they came from the other side of Isabella. They disappeared off in the distant murkiness of the water. From deeper in the ocean.

“I know it is strange and even difficult to look at,” Dr. Garcia said. “But I can assure you that she is quite safe. We have divers go out and check on her regularly. They take blood samples and conduct tests. All the results show that she has taken to the procedure better than we could have even hoped. Her brain is remarkable.” He turned and looked at me. “She is going to be okay.”

“What do you mean by okay?” I asked.

He placed a hand on my shoulder. “She has the tools to defeat the disease. She will be healed.”

I stared at him, looking for some sign of deceit or trickery. “How is that possible?” I asked.

He turned back toward the glass. He seemed to be measuring his words, deciding what to say and how much.

“Years ago, while conducting deepwater research we found something at the bottom of the ocean. It was something we had never seen before.” He paused. “We believe it came from somewhere else. We began studying it and found it was a remarkable organism capable of intense regeneration. It’s difficult to explain, but your sister has played a large role in the research we have conducted over the last several years.”

Dr. Garcia turned to look at Stephanie who was standing in the back of the room.

“We have believed for a while now that what we found can cure the types of diseases of which your daughter has been afflicted.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What is this that you found? An organism? What does that mean?” I looked back at Stephanie.

“Stephen,” she said, stepping towards me. “We aren’t exactly sure either.” She glanced over at Dr. Garcia and Dolores. “When we looked closely at it, we saw properties that we had never seen before, anywhere. It could do things at the cellular level that we didn’t even think were possible.”

Then Dolores spoke in a soft voice, filled with emotion. “Our son’s name was Noah. He was five years old and he was beautiful and smart.” She stepped next to Dr. Garcia and took his hand, continuing to stare through the glass at Isabella. “He was sick. When we found this organism and studied it, we immediately saw these regeneration properties that we believe could have saved our son. But no matter how quickly we worked, our time ran out.” She turned and looked at me. “We have it now Stephen, and that is what we used to save your daughter.”

“Is she saved?” I asked.

Dr. Garcia nodded his head. “It will be several days for the procedure to complete itself, but yes, it is doing exactly what we had hoped.”

I stared at Isabella, if she was healed, did I want to ask too many questions? 

“This organism that could save Isabella, where did it come from?”

The room was silent.

Finally, Dr. Garcia spoke, “We don’t know.”

###

I called Amy that night.  

She screamed and cried, a mixture of anger and fear, desperation and relief. A police detective who was with her told me there was an investigation regarding our disappearance and that they only wanted Isabella and I to come home safely. I told him and Amy that we would both be home soon, safer than ever. 

I spoke again with Amy and told her that Isabella would be okay, hardly believing the words as I said them. I sensed the same desperation in her that I had felt for so many months, the longing to believe, even in the unbelievable.

“Please, Stephen, bring her home,” Amy said to me at the end of our conversation.

“I’m bringing her home,” I answered. “I’ll sit in jail forever if I have to and it will be worth it.”

“Just bring her home,” she said.

###

We stayed at the facility for several more days. I spent long hours standing in the observation room bathed in the blue and green glow of the water, watching Isabella float in peaceful suspension while the dark tentacles slithered around her. At night, Isabella was bathed in a spotlight from the observation room; a single bright spot surrounded by cloudy darkness. I shifted from terror at the completely foreign view in front of me to calmness and trust that what was happening, no matter how crazy, would work.

Occasionally, throughout the day, Stephanie would bring me a tablet with charts that she explained showed the incredible progress in Isabella. They were the results from the checks the divers did. I understood very little of what Stephanie was showing me but the colored graphs and numbers that I looked at appeared positive. More importantly, through the ocean water, I could see life returning to Isabella’s face as the tentacles worked. The dark spots under her eyes appeared lighter, the lines on her face and forehead looked softer, her cheeks had more color. 

“How much longer?” I asked Dr. Garcia after the second day.

“We will bring her in tomorrow,” he replied. “She will need several hours to recover from the environment.”

“I need to ask you, Dr. Garcia. Is this organism what I think it is?” 

He paused for a long time, staring straight ahead before finally answering, “I guess it depends on what you think it is.”

“Is it from somewhere else?” 

He turned and looked at me, the light from the ocean cast an eerie blue glow on his eyes. “Everything we see and touch is part of this universe. Whether it’s found in the jungles of the Amazon, or manufactured from spores that grow on food, or—” he nodded at Isabella, floating in the water, surrounded and embraced by dark tentacles, “—or located  at the bottom of the ocean from somewhere much farther away. In the end, Stephen, everything we see, everything we are, and everything we find and create, comes from the stars.” He turned back to look at Isabella. “If we can use any of it to save a life, isn’t that our duty?”

###

Isabella’s eyes opened slowly. I sat next to her in a room that felt like any young girl’s bedroom, with brightly painted walls and stuffed animals in the corners.

“Hi Daddy,” she said.

“Hi, Izzy,” I replied. “How do you feel?”

“Good. Better, I think.”

“You look better.” 

“Do you have my star lamp?” she asked, looking around the room.

“I couldn’t bring it with us, but it’s waiting in your room when we get home.”

“Are we going home soon?”

“Yes, very soon. The doctors were able to help you. I think you are going to be okay.”

“I know, I feel okay.”

I smiled. I could see in her eyes that she had returned.

“I think I will always be okay now,” she said, holding my gaze.

“I love you Isabella,” I said.

“I love you too, daddy. I love you infinity. And now I know what that means.”

 Her dark eyes looked deeper. Like tunnels that went on forever.

###

Several days later we returned home. A van brought us from the airport to the hospital where Amy and the police were waiting. I was immediately taken into custody and brought to the police station. I had been briefed by Javier, Dolores and Stephanie how to handle the events that would follow our return home. I immediately asked for a lawyer and respectfully denied answering any questions. 

The following day I was released with no charges filed. I returned home and found Isabella and Amy waiting. The hospital had run every series of test they had and found that Isabella was healthy. The disease that had invaded her brain, destroying it day by day, week by week, was completely gone, and more importantly, her brain had rebuilt itself. 

In the months that followed, multiple investigations were initiated. Everyone from state, local and federal law enforcement agencies to health and medical agencies questioned me and Isabella. We refused to answer anything or allow any further tests to be done on Isabella. Flight logs were scrutinized, the drivers of the vehicles we rode in were interrogated but nothing was uncovered other than a few minor details. We had been flown to the south end of Andros Island in The Bahamian Islands but there were no traces of anyone or anything, just an abandoned airfield and building. 

I did an internet search and found that Dr. Javier Garcia, and his wife Dolores, had not been heard from in five years, after the death of their son.

###

There was one more conversation I had with Dr. Garcia just before we left. 

“There is something to remember, Mr. Arnold,” Dr. Garcia said when we were alone on the tarmac watching the facility being hastily packed up. “There are things we know. Her life and her health are safe. That is the most important. But there are also things we don’t know.” He turned to face me. “All indicators we have, show that your daughter will be healthy and live a long life. But the regenerative effects we have seen from this organism are like nothing we have ever seen. What effect that may have on her brain, her perception, her capabilities, or her surroundings, are unknown.”

“There could be side effects?” I asked.

“There can always be side effects,” he replied. 

###

Now for the reason I am writing this account.

I continue to have dreams of Isabella and I together, like the one first one I had that I realize now was when Isabella’s procedure initially began; when the tentacles first entered her brain. I call them dreams for lack of any better description since they don’t just happen when I sleep. They are more like waking memories, each one longer than the last. 

In some of these dreams I am lying in bed with Isabella. She is three years old. She is covered in pink blankets, and we are bathed in the warm glow of her rotating star lamp slowly casting its universe of moving stars and planets across her room filled with stuffed animals and baby dolls, princess dresses and building blocks. She is lying next to me nuzzled into my chest, feeling the warmth of my body. 

"Daddy?" she whispers to me.

 "Yes, Isabella."

 "Will you always keep me safe?"

“Always," I answer.

 In others, I am swinging Isabella on a tire, tied to a branch of a tree in our backyard and she is asking me if I will always show her the mountains. She is five years old.

Isabella yells, “Daddy!” The wind whips through her hair as she swings back and forth.

“Yes, Isabella,” I answer.

“Show me the mountains!” She yells.

I swing her higher on the tire swing until she can see the city skyline over the fence in our backyard that she calls the mountains.

 "Will you always show me the mountains?!" She asks.
 "Yes, Isabella,” I answer. Every time.

And in others, we are both standing underneath a dark sky filled with stars circling above and around us, each one on its own path, traveling through the universe. This was the first one and continues to be the most common.

At times these dreams, or memories, seem to combine in a way that only dreams can. They are layers that organize themselves on top of each other in a way that only the brain can understand. They seem to make sense as they are happening, but later, they are confusing in only the way that a memory of a dream can be.

I realize now, as the dreams become longer and more intense, that Isabella is causing these waking dreams to happen. Somehow, as a side effect of the procedure and the regeneration process in her brain, she is able to use time and memory to relive these moments in our lives that feed into her simple childlike obsession with forever.   

Little by little, reality is becoming shorter for me as I am with Isabella for longer periods of time in these many moments we lived together in her childhood. I know that at some point, I, or at least my mind, will no longer be able to exist in what I know as reality. I don’t know what kind of control Isabella has over this process, if any, but I can feel it happening more and more, like storm clouds coming over the horizon.    

I have asked Isabella about these dreams and she says she has them too. I ask her if they will continue to get longer and longer until they crowd out what she and I know as reality. 

Isabella only looks at me when I say this as if she doesn’t quite comprehend why I would even ask a question like that. 

I write this knowing that soon, I will only live inside of memories. I understand that as I continue to live with longer and longer memories of Isabella, I may not have the gift of seeing my daughter grow and live her life. But I know that this is the best it could be for us if the only alternative is watching her waste away in a hospital, dying underneath fake stars cast on the ceiling. 

I choose not to question Isabella any further about how and why this is happening, I am just happy that she is alive.

END