A box fan swirls the sticky Virginia summer air through the room.

Another reason I can’t wait to get back to my condo in Alexandria — air conditioning.

Lassie jumps out of my arms and leaps onto the bed and snuggles into Murdock’s side. Murdock opens one large amber eye, then slowly lifts one of his giant paws, wraps it around Lassie, and pulls him in tightly.

I close the door three-quarters of the way, then descend the stairs.

For the first week of my stay here, when I woke up, my father would be sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee.

“How you doing, Sonny Boy?” he would ask. “You tossed and turned all night,” he might add.

That is the problem with having Henry Bins. If you are having a nightmare, you can’t wake up.

It became too much, the daily interrogation of how I was coping. By the time I finished assuring my dad that each night was getting easier, that my mother hadn’t pulled out a single fingernail throughout the night, that I hadn’t been waterboarded even once, a third of my day would be gone.

Thankfully, for the past couple days he’d slept through my hour, giving me my space.

As for Ingrid, after a tearful reunion at the hospital and then after three grueling days of interviewing, we were finally able to spend the night together. Waking up next to her the following night, watching her sleep, I couldn’t help thinking back to the nightmare; I couldn’t help thinking back to when she told me she was pregnant.

The idea of being a rent-a-dad, of raising a child, of being a father when I only had an hour a day had made me furious at the time.

“I’m only awake one hour a day!” I yelled at her. “What don’t you understand about that? Sixty minutes is all I get, and now you want me to take care of a baby?”

Sure, it wasn’t reality. It was a world being simulated by chemicals and neurons, but it was exactly how I would have reacted.

Then there was the earthquake.

And Opik.

I hadn’t told anyone about Opik. It was too painful. Plus, I didn’t know where he fit into my nightmare. How had a small Eskimo boy crawled into my subconscious? How had I decided upon the name Opik? I had so many questions.

Regardless, the small boy, a figment of my imagination, had impacted me greatly.

If there was one certainty that came out of my nightmare, it was that I wanted to be a father.

I felt horrible, keeping this to myself, not sharing it with the woman I love, the woman I share a home with, but before I told her how I felt, I needed answers.

Answers about my mother.

And my own father.

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