And instead of letting us go, the researchers or doctors or whatever they were--who were so friendly and polite--took Frances and talked to us about the ways they were planning on experimenting on her before they disappeared. And Erik and I stood there and stammered frantically, trying to convince them--No, you don't understand; she has a genetic condition of some sort, you won't learn anything from an experiment on her; why don't you take one of us instead? Thinking: there must be some mistake, she swore if we did what she said that they would let us go.

What did we do wrong? What did we forget?

But then they told us merrily and happily how they were going to drill a hole in her spine and cut open her nose, and disappeared.

I woke up frantic, thinking, I have to find her and get us out of there.

The clock said 5:15, and I lay there for 30 minutes, telling myself she was fine, just in the next room, and she'd be awake soon and then I could see for myself that no one had come in the night to take her away. Even now that nightmare is clinging to me like humid, smoggy air.

She's fine, of course.

It immediately struck me, looking at that clock at 5:15, how my dream is a (wildly melodramatic) metaphor for our medical merry-go-round: If you just show up for this apopintment, get this test, see this expert, then we'll let you go. You and your husband and daughter can escape to a more regular life. And instead there's always one more test, one more specialist, one more expert, more waiting, and a sense underneath that they're never going to let us out; but that I have to find Frances and get us both the hell out of there.

Of course, no one is going to cut off her nose or drill a hole in her spine.

But the thing that strikes me is that in my dream, the researchers didn't see themselves as bad guys; they were so polite and smiling; they didn't see themselves as causing pain or doing harm. There were so well-intentioned.

It was hideous.

Anyway, enough of that; it's Friday, after all, and a beautiful day.