The Color of a Memory

by Julianne MacLean

  “Do you want my opinion?” David asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be able to live without knowing the truth. You’ll go mad.”

  I nodded. “You’re probably right. But the only person who would have the answers I need is Carla, and how in the world am I supposed to find her? All we had to go on was her email address but that no longer exists. I’d love to hire a private investigator but I can’t afford it.”

  “I’ll help you,” David said. “There’s got to be a way. First off, didn’t you and Alex get into the vintage car scene when you were working on your Mustang? I remember him mentioning going to a car rally once.”

  I sat up. “Yes, and we went into a few chat rooms looking for answers to some questions.”

  “Do you remember the sites?” David asked. “Maybe Vintage Car Chick is still around, chatting up other women’s husbands.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re bad.” But then my smile faded as I thought about that. “When do you think they got together? I mean…if she told him she was pregnant the week before he died, obviously they must have been together months before that. I can’t bear to think about it.”

  “Then, don’t,” David said. “You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

  “And how do we know it’s even Alex’s kid?” I asked. “What if she was sleeping around?”

  “That’s a good point, and you can prove anything these days through a simple DNA test,” David replied, “if it comes to that.”

  “That’s good to know. But if Alex really was the father of her child, why didn’t she come forward and try to contact us after he died? She might have been able to sue for a portion of his estate and get child support. He didn’t have a lot of insurance, but he did have some.”

  David considered that. “These are all valid questions you need answered. We have to keep digging.”

  I liked how he said “we.” It made me feel less alone. Less crazy.

  “I need to get back to work now,” he said, “but I’ll come by later if you want. I have some ideas about where we can start looking.”

  “I’d love that, thank you, and will you stay for supper? I promise it won’t be mac ’n’ cheese.”

  “A home cooked meal?” he replied. “I can’t say no to that.”

  We hung up, and by some coincidence, the “Rock-a-bye Your Bear” song came on The Wiggles Show. I sang along with Wendy and realized I knew every word, too.

  Chapter Forty

  After taking care of all the prep work for dinner, I took Wendy outside to play until David arrived. On that particular afternoon, there were some other children on the structure and she was quick, as always, to make friends. Two mothers stood on the far side of the park, deeply engaged in conversation.

  I sat alone on the bench, keeping an eye out for David on the street. Before long he pulled up in a shiny new silver Hyundai Tucson and got out.

  “David!” I called. “We’re over here!”

  He spotted me, waited for a car to pass, then jogged across the street. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a gray cotton button-down shirt, he sat down on the bench beside me.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m all right. You?”

  “I’m good. It was a quiet day at work, and that’s always a good thing.” I felt his gaze on me as I smiled and clapped for Wendy, who came squealing down the big swirly slide.

  “You look better today,” he mentioned.

  I slid a playful glance his way. “Compared to last night? That’s probably not saying much. I apologize if I was a drunken slob.”

  He chuckled. “Hey, don’t apologize. You were funny.”

  “Well, I guess that’s better than pathetic,” I cheerfully replied.

  He patted my knee, then shouted a cheer for Wendy when she coasted down the slide again. We watched her for a few minutes, then I crossed my legs and rested my arm along the back of the bench.

  “You know…” I said, feeling as if there was so much to say, “I’ve been thinking about everything since yesterday, and I’m at least glad this is happening now, two years after losing Alex. Wendy and I have managed to get used to living without him—practically anyway—and the wounds aren’t quite so raw. If I’d found out about this a year ago, it would have been a lot tougher.”

  He watched Wendy with a wistful expression. “It’s never easy to lose someone you love,” he said, “but time is the best healer.”

  I regarded him curiously. “Have you ever lost someone? Besides Alex, I mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “My mom died five years ago. She got sick, and it happened pretty quickly.”

  “What was wrong with her, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  David kept his eyes fixed on Wendy who was now scrambling up the ladder while the other children followed. “It was a brain tumor,” he explained. “By the time they found it, she only had a month to live.”

  “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

  “She was a good mom,” he said. “I miss her a lot, but in some ways, I feel like she’s still around, looking out for me.” He touched his fist to his chest and turned his eyes to meet mine. “She’s in here.”

  Like a flash flood of emotion, my eyes grew wet and my throat ached. The pain spread all the way to my ears, but I took a breath and maintained my composure. “I wish I could have met her.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, you would have liked her.”

  We sat together in silence, watching Wendy play. David leaned forward with his elbows on his knees while I glanced over at the other mothers who were spreading a blanket out on the grass.

  I blinked a few times as I watched them—remembering another time—then let out a puff of air. “Huh.”

  David leaned back to look at me. “What is it?”

  I touched a finger to my lips. “I’m just remembering a day about a year ago when Wendy and I came out here to play. There was another little girl here and I spoke to her mother for quite a while. It felt odd at the time, because after I told her I was a widow, she asked a lot of questions about Alex. She seemed really curious.” I tried to recall more of our conversation.

  “How old was her daughter?” David asked.

  My heart began to beat faster. “Just over a year old, toddling around the park, which means she would have been born not long before Alex died.”

  David leaned into me. “Did the woman tell you her name?”

  I shook my head. “No, and I didn’t tell her mine. She wasn’t from around here, though. I remember that much. She said she was just passing through. I can’t recall where she said she was from…” I wracked my brain to summon that detail, but it was lost to me.

  I turned my gaze to David’s. “Do you think it was her? Do you think she might have come to get a look at Wendy and me?”

  I couldn’t help myself. Having been the object of a female stalker in the past, I looked around the neighborhood, feeling as if I were being watched.

  With a genuine expression of sympathy, David massaged my shoulder. “I don’t know.”

  “There was definitely something weird about her,” I said. “The way she looked at me…”

  “I don’t suppose you got her license plate number,” he asked.

  “No, but I do remember that she was driving something new. It wasn’t anything vintage. I would have noticed that.”

  Wendy came running over to us. “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “Me, too,” I replied. “Let’s go make supper.”

  David and I stood up, and Wendy took hold of both our hands. She walked between us as we crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the apartment.

  The phone was ringing as I unlocked the door. I had to hurry inside to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Hi Audrey. It’s Jean.”

  “Oh hi, Jean,” I replied in a friendly tone as I sat down on the sofa. Covering the mouthpiece with my hand, I whispered to Wendy, “It’s Grandma Jean.”

  “Can
I say hi?” Wendy asked.

  “Sure.” I removed my hand to speak to Jean. “Wendy’s right here and she’d like to say hello.” I handed the phone over and watched her speak to her grandmother for a few minutes. Occasionally I glanced at David who was waiting patiently in the kitchen.

  Wendy handed the phone back to me.

  “Why don’t you go ask David to get you some juice?” I whispered to her.

  “Okay.”

  She ran to the kitchen and I put the phone back to my ear.

  “Hi again,” I said to Jean. “How have you been?”

  “I’m fine,” she replied, “but mostly I’m calling to see how you’re doing. You left in such a hurry the other day. I was worried about you.”

  Nervous butterflies swarmed into my belly because I didn’t feel ready to have this conversation with my mother-in-law. How could I tell her that her son might have been carrying on an affair with another woman before he died, and gotten the other woman pregnant?

  I still didn’t even know if what I suspected was true, so I couldn’t possibly bring it up.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “It was a rough day. There were a lot of memories welling up.”

  “I understand,” she said. “We all felt the same way, and that’s another reason why I’m calling.”

  I shifted uneasily on the sofa. “Really? What’s going on?”

  After a brief pause, Jean began to explain. “I didn’t tell you this before, but I recently went through the Organ Donor Network to send a note to the person who received Alex’s heart two years ago.”

  This piece of news hit me like a plank across the chest. I felt the vibration inside myself, and my eyebrows lifted. “What did you say in the note?”

  “I wrote that I’d like to get together so we could meet in person,” she replied.

  I wasn’t sure how I might have felt about this a week ago—before I found the ultrasound in the glove box of Alex’s Buick—but today I felt an inexplicable bitterness toward the stranger who was walking around with my husband’s cheating heart. It wasn’t rational, I knew that. It wasn’t the recipient’s fault that Alex had acted like a jerk and betrayed his wife and child.

  I wondered suddenly if I was going to require therapy after all this. It was just so complicated, from an emotional point of view.

  “I didn’t think you wanted that,” I reminded Jean. “When you received that letter of thanks from her not long after Alex died, you said it was too painful. You didn’t want to have any contact.”

  “It was painful back then,” she explained, “but I think enough time has passed. I feel differently now. I’d like to meet all the people who received something from Alex. I want to see how he helped them. As a mother, it would make me very proud.”

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. If Alex was having an affair, I wasn’t certain I’d ever want to tell Jean. She idolized her son. She thought he was a hero in every sense of the word. It would break her heart to know the truth.

  Then again, the child in that ultrasound photo could possibly be Jean’s granddaughter. Wouldn’t it be wrong to deny her that knowledge?

  “I’ve invited the donor recipient to come for lunch next weekend,” Jean told me. “Would you like to come, too?”

  Again, butterflies invaded my belly and they seemed in an angry tizzy today. I felt shaken. Confused.

  Realizing I had to choose my words carefully, I took a few seconds to clear my throat. “I don’t think so, Jean. It’s not something I want to do. At least not right now.”

  The long silence on the other end of the line made my heart feel heavy.

  “Life does go on, Audrey,” Jean finally said. “We have to keep going, and I’m sure Alex wouldn’t have wanted you to pine away forever. He’d want you to move on and find happiness.”

  Believe me, I have every intention of moving on—just as soon as I dig up the past and take a good hard look at it with a magnifying glass.

  That’s right. I had no intention of letting my husband’s infidelity break me or ruin the rest of my life. I had a beautiful daughter to raise and a job I loved. I deserved happiness like anyone else.

  I just needed to know the truth first.

  “Let me know how it goes,” I said to Jean. “I hope it’s a good experience for you, but I don’t think I can be there.” Then suddenly I felt a need to soften my rejection. Quickly I added, “And I think I’m working that day anyway.”

  I could hear the disappointment in her voice. “Okay. I understand. But bring Wendy over soon, all right? We miss her.”

  “Of course.”

  With that, I hung up and pushed myself off the sofa to go cook dinner for my guest.

  Chapter Forty-one

  That night, after I put Wendy to bed, David and I sat at the computer in the living room, searching through old car restoration websites and community forums for Vintage Car Chick. We didn’t find a single thing, but we did venture into our individual Facebook pages. He showed me old videos and pictures he’d posted years ago when he first started his page.

  I played some obscure music for him—indie artists I loved that were off the beaten track—and he played me a number of contemporary bluesy tunes I’d never heard before.

  It was nearly eleven when we said good night. This time I was sober because I had to work in the morning. I didn’t throw my arms around him as I did the night before, but he surprised me by leaning forward and giving me a friendly kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow night,” he said.

  As I locked the door behind him, I stood for a moment in the hall, unable to wipe the smile off my face.

  It had been a fun evening—which was definitely something I’d needed.

  * * *

  At four o’clock in the morning, I woke from a terrible nightmare.

  In the dream, I was sitting in the back seat of the Buick and Alex was driving. In the front seat, beside him, was the woman from the park—the one who had asked me all the personal questions about him.

  They laughed and joked about things I didn’t understand. Everything they said sounded garbled—like the teacher’s voice in the Charlie Brown cartoons—but I knew they were having a good time. They didn’t seem the slightest bit conscious of the fact that I was present in the car.

  I felt invisible and jealous of their connection, and soon my rage escalated to such a state, I began to shout and pound on the glass between the back seat and the front—which was odd because there was no interior window inside the Buick.

  Alex and the woman—I’ll just call her Carla—turned around to stare at me in horror, as if I were a crazed chainsaw murderer. Then Alex slammed on the brakes and they both flew forward through the front windshield, passing through it as if it weren’t even there. They disappeared into the sky, like Keanu Reeves at the end of The Matrix and I was left in the back seat all alone.

  I was wearing my seatbelt. Obviously they hadn’t been.

  I woke in a cold sweat, filled with raging emotions. I couldn’t shake the frustration that lingered from pounding my fists on the glass while I was powerless to break through and tell Alex how I felt. He couldn’t hear me.

  I wanted to scream, but I kept my mouth shut because Wendy was asleep in the next room.

  Never once during my marriage had I ever felt such anger toward my husband.

  I wanted him back, alive again, standing in front of me, so that I could shake him, yell at him and tear a good long strip off of him. Because he deserved it. Oh, how he deserved it.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Perhaps you’ll think I’m stupid when you hear the next part of this story. I certainly felt like an idiot when things transpired as they did. Not long afterward, I wondered if I should get my brain checked.

  I’m not sure what made me forget that my mother-in-law had invited the recipient of Alex’s heart for lunch the following Saturday. She’d also invited me to attend, but I had declined because I was too angry with Alex and didn’t have
the heart to explain why—pardon the pun. Over the next few days I was so absorbed in my own problems and unlocking the mystery of “Carla, Vintage Car Chick,” that I didn’t give much thought to my mother-in-law’s important luncheon.

  David and I both worked heavy shifts that week, so we only spoke a few times on the phone. I also spoke to Cathy, and like the good friend she was, she listened to me rail on and on about what had occurred since I found the ultrasound photo in the Buick.

  I should have known better than to wallow in my anger—I was usually more in control of my emotions—but I needed to blow off some steam, so that’s what I did.

  By Saturday, there was nothing left to say about it and I hadn’t uncovered any additional information, so when Wendy asked if we could visit Grandma, I suggested we pop by after we finished grocery shopping.

  Maybe there was some intuition involved—either on Wendy’s part or mine. I’ll never know, but it was interesting how so many of the puzzle pieces came together on that day. It makes me wonder about the possibility of fate.

  * * *

  When I pulled over at the curb near Jean’s driveway, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Frowning, I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and squinted through the hazy, late afternoon sunshine.

  Yes, it was real. It wasn’t a dream.

  “Stay here, sweetie,” I said to Wendy, who was buckled into the booster seat in the back.

  Flicking the door handle, I stepped out of my vehicle and approached the car that was parked in front of mine.

  A woman was bent over, buckling her own child into the back. I had to wait a moment on the sidewalk until she finished. When at last she straightened and turned to face me, my stomach pitched and rolled like a small boat on a large wave.

  “You…” I said to her—to the very same woman who had found me in the playground across the street from my home a year ago. The woman who had asked far too many personal questions about my relationship with my dead husband.

  As I stood in front of Jean’s home, I felt violated, not unlike the night I stood on the road watching my house burn to the ground because a female stalker, obsessed with my husband, had wanted me out of the way.