One of my greatest desires is to hear Anthony speak. What would he sound like? What would he say? What interests would he have, if he were normal?

Based, I suppose, on these wishes (and the probably-unfounded thinking that the proper connections in his brain could occur at any time), I sometimes have dreams wherein Anthony has the power of speech. These dreams usually follow a similar pattern: He says something to me, I respond, "Anthony! You can talk!" And he replies almost as a matter of fact, "Yes, I can talk," and the dream ends with me being happy.

I had one dream recently, however, that I think was influenced by having seen Awakenings, a movie with Robert de Niro and Robin Williams, many years ago. Perhaps indicating the degree to which that story has remained with me, in this dream I found that Anthony did not want to go to sleep. I asked him why, and he told me that he was afraid he wouldn't still be able to speak in the morning. I was rather concerned because of my newfound joy in seeing my son "back" after all these years, but I knew that going without sleep indefinitely was not realistic. I told him to go to sleep and we would see what happened.

In the morning, he had gone back into his autistic shell.