The Color of a Dream (16 page)

Jesse turned his body to face me again. “I’m
surprised to hear that question from you of all people, because
when it comes to Rick you have so much to lose.”

“I do,” I replied, “and I’m not suggesting
that I intend to play nice and throw in the towel. But I also
believe that people can change, especially when they face
certain…
realities
in life.”

“You mean death.”

I nodded and lowered my gaze. “It opens your
eyes.”

He sat quietly, as if reliving different
memories from his childhood.

“He and I were always so different,” Jesse
said. “I’m honestly not sure if his eyes can be opened. He’s seen
death before but it made no difference. It didn’t soften him.” He
paused. “There’s a lot of water under the bridge.”

“Yes, but you were both young when those
things happened. A person can learn a lot in ten years, especially
when the death you’re facing is your own. I’m sure you’ve changed,
too.”

“Not that much,” Jesse said. “I was always
too sensitive for my own good. But this isn’t about me; it’s about
Rick and it wasn’t that long ago that he sent you away. Was he by
your side when you had your surgeries? I doubt it. Did he offer any
support? Did he offer to take care of Ellen?”

“He’s offering that now,” I reminded
him.

Jesse shook his head and I could see that he
was nowhere near ready to forgive his brother. “
Offering
is
a very polite word for it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I replied with a heavy
sigh. “At the end of the day, I don’t know what we’re dealing with,
but I don’t want to burn any bridges either. If we’re going to have
to share custody of Ellen, I want to do that as peacefully as
possible.”

Jesse looked at me intently. “You
do
sound like you’re giving up before you’ve even begun to fight.”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t you believe it’s possible that the
judge might rule in your favor? That he could just award Rick
visitation rights or something?”

I considered it. “I’m a single mother with
serious health problems. So maybe
I’m
the selfish one,
wanting to keep Ellen all to myself. Maybe she’d be better off with
a mother and a father who will be around when she graduates from
high school or when she walks down the aisle.”

“You’ll be around for those things,” Jesse
said, cupping my chin in his hand.

“How do you know?”

He stroked my cheek with his thumb and I
wanted to melt into his arms.

“I guess I’m an optimist,” he said with an
encouraging smile. “Or maybe I should say I have a gut
feeling.”

I wet my lips. “Diana always tells me never
to ignore a gut feeling. She also keeps reminding me that there are
new inventions in medical science every day, and who knows what
might be available ten years from now?”

“Exactly.” He lowered his hand and sat
back.

I shut my eyes and breathed in the fresh
scents off the water. “Maybe we should head home,” I said. “Diana
might want to see Jacob tonight.”

We both stood up and I was filled with
pleasure when Jesse took my hand.

“I still plan to help you,” he said. “I’ll
try to talk sense into Rick. I’ll call him.”

The warmth of his hand around mine made my
whole body tingle. “I’m happy you want to help me,” I said, “even
though I don’t really understand why.”

His eyes smiled at me. “
You don’t?
How could you not?”

A wave of pure elation washed over me, and
for once I let myself dream of a long and happy future that might
be possible after all.

The following day, I fell asleep on the sofa
while Ellen napped. During the nap I had another flying dream.

This was the first time I’d dreamed of
flying during daylight hours. It was a unique experience in
comparison as I soared over a vast evergreen forest in the rain.
Gray thunderclouds hung low in the sky and sharp stinging raindrops
pelted my cheeks. My heart began to pound with fear as a gust of
wind came out of nowhere and knocked me off balance—if balance was
the right word for it. I banked to the right and accidentally
flipped over onto my back. I had to kick my legs and struggle to
flip back around.

The chill of the foggy air reached my bones,
like fingers of death. Soon I began to shiver as I continued to
venture forward over unfamiliar territory, so far from home.

I woke in a panic, drenched in sweat,
clutching my chest, gasping for air. To my surprise, rain was
pelting the window next to me and I felt somewhat reassured. It
really had been a dream, nothing more. I’d simply heard the rain
against the glass while I slept. There was no need to read anything
more into it.

As I rose to my feet, however, I thought
about what Jesse had read on the Internet about the meaning of
flying dreams and it made sense that I’d had a more frightening
experience this time. Because of what was happening with Ellen, I
no longer felt quite so secure. I’d been on top of things before
with my improved health and the joy of watching her grow, but now
my happy life was threatened. It felt like I was no longer in
complete control of my destiny.

No wonder the wind flipped me over. It was
probably a sign of things to come. A Rick-storm on the horizon.

Ellen began to cry so I went upstairs to
change her diaper. I was in the middle of the task, reaching for a
wipe when the phone began to ring. I had no choice but to ignore
it. Hopefully, whoever was calling would leave a message or call
back later if it was important.

Jesse

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d flown
in weather as bad as that. The rain was relentless, showering the
helicopter windshield like spray from a fire hose. The wind also
didn’t help matters any. As my co-pilot and I flew higher up the
ridge toward the cabin—which we hoped would be visible in the fog—I
felt the engine shudder beneath my grip on the cyclic stick.

Before long we spotted the hunter who had
fallen into a ravine not far from the cabin. We hovered dangerously
low while lowering a basket to retrieve him. Both his legs were
broken and we weren’t sure about his spine. It was dicey, but the
medics secured him on a board and we delivered him safely to the
hospital.

Afterward my co-pilot and I flew over the
city, back to the hangar where I filled out my report. There were
no more calls before the end of my shift and I was thankful because
it felt like one of those days—the kind when you begin to question
how long your luck will hold out before it takes a sharp turn
south.

When I arrived home the first thing I wanted
to do was call Nadia, just to hear her voice, but I’d promised her
I would call Rick today. I wanted to do that for her first. So I
made a pot of coffee to help draw the chill out of my bones. Then I
dug my brother’s number out of my wallet.

* * *

There were a number of reasons why I felt
sick to my stomach when I dialed the number and listened to it ring
once…twice…then three times in my ear.

I hadn’t spoken to Rick in a decade. The
last time we spoke I may have broken his nose. He’d since had
cancer. And now he was trying to take a child away from her
mother.

Just before the forth ring someone picked up
on the other end. “Hello?”

It was a woman.

The fiancée most likely.

She sounded young.

“Is Rick there?” I asked.

“Yes, just a moment.” She sounded overly
cheerful, like a character out of
The Sound of Music,
singing about her favorite things.

I braced myself for the deep timbre of
Rick’s voice, which I hadn’t heard since the day we fought like a
couple of mangy dogs in his musty LA apartment.

“Hello?”

My fists clenched. “Rick? It’s Jesse.”

There was a long pause and I heard the creak
and click of a door closing. “Hi,” he said. “Mom told me you might
call.”

I sat down. “Yeah. She was surprised to hear
from me.”

“I’m surprised, too,” Rick said. “But I’m
glad. It’s good to hear your voice, Jesse. I mean that.”

He sounded nothing like his old self. First
of all, the Rick I remembered would never say anything so generous
and sentimental to me. There was also a shaky quality in his voice
that I’d never heard before. Was he actually torn up?

“It’s good to hear your voice, too.” It
seemed the right thing to say.

“So I guess Mom told you about my cancer
scare,” he said.

“Yeah. I was sorry to hear about that.
You’re doing okay now though?”

“I’m doing really well,” he replied.
“Actually, better than ever. That may sound crazy to you—to anyone
who hasn’t gone through what I have—but when something like this
happens to you, sometimes you’re almost grateful for it. It opens
your eyes… You know.”

My stomach dropped because those were the
exact words Nadia had spoken when we sat on the bench by the
river.

Suddenly I felt like an outsider to this
experience they shared—an experience I knew nothing about.

Well, maybe not nothing. In my line of work,
I saw things on a daily basis that most people never see.

But still, I felt a twinge of jealousy to
think that Rick and Nadia had a mutual understanding of something
so profound.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said. “And I hear
you left your job?”

“Yeah. I know it sounds cliché, but I had to
get out of that LA rat race. I had enough money put aside in
investments and Christine wanted to settle close to her parents, so
I sold the condo. Did Mom tell you about Christine?”

“She mentioned her,” I said.
“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. She’s an amazing woman. I hope you
can meet her sometime.”

“That would be nice,” I replied—again,
because it was the right thing to say. “Listen, the real reason I’m
calling…” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I need to talk to
you about your daughter.”

“You mean Ellen?” He was quiet for a moment.
“Mom dropped a lot of bombs on you, didn’t she?”

I tapped a finger on my knee and wondered
how I was going broach this topic. Looking back on it, I suppose I
could have pumped him for information and gotten him to tell me all
sorts of things he might not have said otherwise, but I couldn’t
bring myself to set him up like that. Despite everything, he was
still my brother.

“About that…” I said. “When I called Mom and
Dad, I already knew you were suing the mother for custody. It’s why
I’m calling you now.”

“How did you know about it?” Rick asked.

Rising to my feet, I moved into the kitchen
and leaned against the counter. “Because I met Nadia Carmichael and
her sister Diana here in Boston. They told me.”

The coffee pot gurgled noisily behind
me.

“How the hell did that happen?” Rick asked.
“Did they hunt you down? Or was it a coincidence?”

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” I told him. “I
got a phone call from Diana. Somehow she knew I was your brother
and that I lived here. She wanted to ask me some questions.”

“What did she ask you? And what did you tell
her?” The shakiness in his voice had disappeared. He now sounded
exactly like the Rick I remembered.

Aggressive. Defensive. Determined to
win.

“She and Nadia wanted to know why you
changed your mind about not wanting to be involved in Ellen’s life.
I told them I couldn’t answer that because I hadn’t talked to you
in years, but I think I understand it now, after talking to Mom and
Dad.”

“You don’t understand anything,” he replied.
“You couldn’t possibly.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven’t been through what I’ve
been through.”

“And you learned so much from it,” I said
with no shortage of sarcasm.

“That’s right.”

I shook my head at him. “Maybe I don’t need
to have a terminal illness to know what you didn’t know before.
Maybe I’ve always known what it means to care about people.”

“I care,” Rick said. “That’s the whole point
of this. I have a daughter and I should be a part of her life.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” I argued,
wanting to stay rational about this, “but have you considered the
fact that you’re going to break a little girl’s heart when you take
her away from her mother?”

Rick let out a breath. “You’re still missing
the point. Everyone knows what matters most is what’s best for the
child and there is no doubt in my mind that Christine and I will be
better parents in the long term. I’m not going to get into all the
reasons why—we can do that in court—but surely, if you’ve met
Nadia, you know she’s a ticking bomb. The fact that she has heart
troubles is just the tip of the iceberg. She’s also a single mother
with no education and a bad history with abusive men. Do you know
what kind of upbringing she had? She was raised in foster homes,
then had an alcoholic father who walked out on them. She’ll be a
terrible mother.”

It was lucky for Rick he was on the other
side of the country, because if we’d been in the same room together
I might have broken his nose again.

“None of that was her fault,” I said. “And
have you stopped to think that maybe she learned a lot from all
those hardships? More than you could ever know? When it comes down
to it, you don’t know anything about Nadia,” I said. “You’ve never
seen her with Ellen. You’ve never even
met
Ellen.”

“I know Nadia better than you do,” Rick
spat. “You only just met her, for pity’s sake.”

It was true, I hardly knew Nadia and maybe I
was foolish to assume that I knew what kind of woman she was deep
down.

In the beginning, I thought I knew Angela. I
let myself fall in love with her without caution or the smallest
hint of vigilance. I remembered how Angela had become a different
person when she told me she was moving out west to be with Rick.
She’d turned out to be nothing like the girl I thought I knew. I
didn’t recognize her and I certainly never suspected she was
capable of betraying me as she had.