The Color of a Dream

by Julianne MacLean

  “It’s through there.” Rick pointed toward the bedroom.

  As I rose from my chair, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen when Angela walked through the door. Whether she was pregnant or not, I knew there was no chance Rick was ever going to marry her, but if he was leading her down that garden path it was time for him to set her straight. She needed to know the truth so that she could get on with her life.

  As I moved through the bedroom, I glanced briefly at the unmade bed and felt a sudden, sharp pang of jealousy.

  It was enough to stop me in my tracks. The image of Rick sleeping with Angela was more than I could stomach. I had to shut my eyes and fight hard to purge the thought from my brain.

  Then I began to question my feelings.

  Was I truly over her? What if she decided to leave Rick and come home, pregnant and alone? Could I forgive her for any of this?

  God, oh God…

  I opened my eyes again and put one foot in front of the other. Maybe this jealousy had nothing to do with Angela and was merely a product of my resentment toward Rick. Those roots were certainly buried deep. The seeds had been planted many years ago—on the day he drove me home from a football game and refused to hit the brakes when I asked him to.

  As I pushed the bathroom door open, however, all thoughts of the past flew out of my head, for there was Angela, lying on the white tile floor in a puddle of blood.

  Adrenaline spiked through my body and I rushed to her side. “Rick!” I shouted. “Get in here! And call 911!”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  We learned, after the paramedics arrived, that Angela had not tried to commit suicide but had most likely attempted to perform an abortion on herself by using the knitting needle they found on the floor beside her.

  Later, the autopsy would show that she had indeed been pregnant, so there could be no doubt about whether or not she had lied to Rick about her condition in order to trap him. She’d been telling the truth about that—and the fact that I had not arrived in time to help her would haunt me for the rest of my days.

  In that moment however, after they wheeled Angela into the ambulance and Rick and I were left alone, there were other issues to discuss.

  “What did you say to her last night?” I asked, feeling distraught and needing answers as I followed him back into his apartment.

  Rick went straight to the kitchen and pulled a cold beer out of the fridge. He twisted off the cap, pitched it into the trash can and tipped the bottle up. Then he leaned back against the counter and faced me. “Do you want one?”

  “No!” I replied, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb between the kitchen and living room. “I just want to know what happened. Tell me what you said to her and why you left her alone.”

  “I wasn’t her babysitter,” he replied. “And I didn’t say anything.”

  “You must have. You said you had a fight. She couldn’t have been arguing with herself.”

  Rick set his beer down on the counter. “Fine. If you really want to know, she told me she cancelled the appointment for this morning because she wanted to think about it some more. She wanted me to think about it, too, but I told her I’d already made up my mind and I wasn’t going to change it. I told her I didn’t want to have a kid or get married. Not today. Not ever. I was honest with her, Jesse.”

  I felt my eyebrows pull together in a frown. “How did she take it?”

  “How do you think she took it? You know how emotional she was. She cried and begged and pleaded.”

  Suddenly there was a heavy pounding in my ears and a heated blood flow to all my extremities. My fingers began to twitch and before I knew what I was doing, I had stalked across the kitchen and grabbed hold of Rick’s shirt in my fists.

  “What is wrong with you?” I demanded to know. “She’s dead! Don’t you care?”

  I was no longer the nerdy baby brother who couldn’t fight back when he was surrounded by linebackers. I was now as tall as he was and I’d been chucking heavy suitcases for a year. Tonight it was just the two of us, alone in his small kitchen.

  He tried to slap my hands away but my grip was rock solid as I dragged him along the length of the counter and shoved him up against the refrigerator.

  “Of course I care,” he replied.

  “No, you don’t. You never loved her. Not like I did. She was nothing to you.”

  “She was something,” he said, “but you need to calm down, Jesse, because she wasn’t that special. Remember, she cheated on you.”

  I dragged him away from the fridge and shoved him so hard up against the wall, I knocked the breath out of him. “Don’t you ever say that again.”

  Suddenly he head-butted me in the nose and pain shot through my skull. I saw stars and stumbled back a few steps. The next thing I knew Rick was hauling me into the living room by the shirt collar and throwing me onto the sofa.

  “Get a grip!” he shouted, standing over me and pointing a finger. “You’re upset.”

  “Damn right, I’m upset.” I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand and realized I was bleeding. “Jesus.”

  He pointed at me again. “Stay down.” I thought maybe his intention was to fetch me a washcloth or something to staunch the flow of blood, but he made no move to administer first aid. He simply stood there, staring at me with a look of warning.

  “If you grab me again,” he said, “I swear I’ll finish you.”

  That was all I could take. Something exploded in me and the whole world turned red. I shot like a rocket off the sofa and tackled him onto his back on the living room floor.

  I punched him in the face but he punched me back which caused a ringing in my ears.

  Grabbing him by the shirt, I hauled him to his feet and threw him into a small table. The lamp smashed to the floor.

  Rick scrambled to his feet and launched himself back at me. He pummeled me in the stomach, then his fist connected with my jaw. Dizziness swirled around in my brain. I couldn’t seem to comprehend how to curl my hands into fists in order to fight back. My brain was in a fog. He hit me again and again.

  The beating eventually stopped, but it took me a few seconds to realize that Rick was now on the other side of the room. How had he gotten over there? My cheekbones were throbbing, my lip was split open and bleeding, but I couldn’t feel much pain anywhere else. Everything was numb.

  I squinted at my brother and wasn’t sure how, or when, I had caused so much damage, because there was blood pouring out of his nose and he was doubled over, clutching a rib.

  “Get out of here,” he said. “Go home and don’t ever come back here.”

  I bent to pick up my backpack on the floor. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I said, “because I don’t ever want to see your face again.”

  * * *

  Two days later, I was staring out another airplane window as we lifted off the runway at sunset.

  I had called Angela’s parents immediately after walking out of Rick’s apartment. Obviously they were devastated and inconsolable but grateful for my phone call. After a lengthy conversation, they entrusted me with the grim duty of bringing Angela’s remains home to be buried in their family plot.

  It was the worst week of my life.

  I wondered what my parents were going to say about all of it.

  A New Life

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Nadia Carmichael

  It was the dream that woke me.

  Again.

  I was keeping count now, and this was the fourth time in the past two weeks.

  Something was different tonight, however. As my eyes fluttered open in the darkness, I was able to remember the striking and vivid images of what I’d seen below me in the dream—and this time I did not wake in a panic, fearing for my life.

  Allow me to explain. My name is Nadia Carmichael and almost a year ago, I contracted a virus that attacked my heart muscle. My health deteriorated quickly until I wound up in the ICU suffering from heart failure.

  T
o complicate things more, I was six months pregnant at the time and completely alone because the father of my child wanted nothing to do with me. He paid me a generous lump sum to disappear from his life forever, release him of all obligations and promise never to ask him for anything more.

  Thankfully my twin sister Diana took me in when I was ill and waiting for the transplant. She has since helped me care for my baby daughter, Ellen, who was born healthy last fall and is the light of both our lives.

  But it has not been an easy road to get here. Since the transplant eight months ago, I have lived in an almost constant state of anxiety while my body adjusted to my new heart.

  Although, perhaps “adjusted” is too simple a word, because twice now, follow-up cardiac biopsies revealed that my immune system was rejecting the unfamiliar organ inside me. My body had viewed my new heart as a foreign invader and had attempted to fight it off.

  This is actually quite a common occurrence for organ transplant recipients. To combat this, I take immunosuppressive drugs, which I will take for the rest of my life. The downside is that they weaken my immune system overall and put me at greater risk for all sorts of other infections.

  For this reason I was forced to live like a hermit the first few months after my transplant and avoid public places where germs were prevalent. I had to wear a mask when I went out, but thankfully my pathology reports have shown significant improvement lately and I no longer have to wear the mask.

  Oddly, it was when I began to feel better and was able to resume a more normal lifestyle that the flying dreams began.

  * * *

  Sometimes I fly like a bird, low over water, but most of the time I soar over cities at night. I’m not sure why it’s always nighttime in my dreams. Perhaps I enjoy all the lights in the tall buildings and on the freeways below. The red taillights on a long stretch of road are especially mesmerizing. So is the starlight when I look up, though the stars are not always visible. Sometimes I fly just under a blanket of clouds—or maybe it’s smog; I’m never sure.

  Have you ever dreamed you were flying? If so, were you speeding along like a bullet through tunnels, or coasting over fields and mountains like a bird?

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ellen woke me at sunrise the next morning. Wishing it wasn’t time to get up yet, I rolled over to watch her in her crib. We shared a room together in my sister’s house in Beacon Hill. Diana, my identical twin, was a successful divorce lawyer and she occupied the room at the end of the hall, though sometimes she slept over at her fiancé’s house.

  Incidentally, that was something good that came from my illness, because that’s how Diana met Jacob. He was the cardiac surgeon in charge of my case. Coincidentally, he lived in our neighborhood as well, so he was always nearby, handy in an emergency.

  There had been more than a few of those over the past year.

  A knock sounded at my door and I leaned up on an elbow. “Come in.”

  “Want me to take her?” Diana asked, peeking her head into my room. “I’m up anyway.”

  “It’s Saturday,” I replied. “You should be sleeping in.”

  “So should you.” She padded across my room in her bathrobe and slippers. Approaching the crib, she began to speak in a melodic voice. “Good morning, little angel.” She reached into the crib and gathered Ellen into her arms. “Are you hungry? How about we change your diaper first?”

  I lay my head back down on the pillow and watched my sister carry my baby girl to the change table. Diana was cooing and smiling and I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that despite my suffering over the past year, and the hardships that still lay ahead, there was so much to be grateful for.

  “I had the dream again,” I mentioned to Diana as I rolled onto my back.

  She removed Ellen’s diaper and reached for a fresh unscented baby wipe. “That’s the second time this week.”

  “Fourth time this month,” I added, “but last night’s dream was different.”

  Diana glanced at me with interest. “In what way?” She lifted Ellen’s behind off the table to slide the clean diaper into place, then fastened all the Velcro tabs.

  “I recognized where I was,” I said, “and I’m a little freaked out about it.”

  “Why?” she asked as she picked Ellen up again.

  “Because I was flying away from the transplant center,” I replied. “It was all very clear and familiar. I flew over Cambridge Street, the grassy Common and Chinatown. It was the first time I recognized any place in one of these dreams. Before that, I just thought I was flying over imaginary locations—random fields and rivers, towns I had never been to.”

  “What do you think it means?” Diana asked, bobbing at the knees to entertain Ellen.

  Feeling restless, I sat up, tossed the covers aside and swung my feet to the floor. “I feel foolish saying it.”

  “Don’t feel foolish.” She moved to stand before me. “Tell me.”

  Curling my fingers around the edge of the mattress, I looked up at my sister with bewilderment. “Do you think it’s possible that these dreams are somehow connected to my donor? Do you think he’s flying in here to check on me or something?” Then I shook my head. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Maybe I need a brain transplant.”

  Diana sat down beside me and I reached to take Ellen from her.

  “You’re not crazy,” Diana said. “When you got sick, I did a lot of research. I read that many people have reported similar experiences. They sometimes feel differently afterwards, their tastes change and they feel some connection to the donor.”

  “But isn’t that just psychological?” I asked. “There’s no scientific proof to support that, surely. Most doctors say that the heart is just a pump.”

  “Doctors and scientists don’t know everything,” she replied. “Organ transplantation is still fairly new. You know, I read about a guy who always hated onions. Then he had a heart transplant and suddenly he couldn’t get enough of them. He met the donor’s family and found out that his donor loved onions. It was his favorite food—raw, sautéed, fried…”

  I cradled Ellen in my arms and smiled down at her. “Do you hear that? A man hated onions and then he loved them. How weird is that?” I turned my attention back to my sister. “I wish I knew more about my donor.”

  Unfortunately, there were strict rules of confidentiality in place to guard everyone’s privacy. All I had been told was age and gender. He was male and twenty-eight—the same age as me—when he died. I didn’t know the cause of death, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been some sort of accident.

  I’d written a letter of thanks to the family (which we are permitted to do as long as we don’t reveal our identity). The organ donor network took care of delivering it for me. According to protocol, if the donor’s family ever wished to make contact, it could be arranged as long as we were both willing and eager.

  I hadn’t heard back from the family—at least not yet—and I could only presume they would find it too painful to meet me, or that they simply wanted to move on with their lives.

  I often thought about how they must still be grieving for their lost loved one—and though I was immensely grateful for the generous gift that saved my life, there were also feelings of guilt.

  Why was I the lucky one? Why had I survived and not him? Was it somehow fated that he would live and die so that I could have his heart when I needed it?

  Diana pushed a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Maybe you should talk to somebody about this.”

  “Like who?” I asked. “A shrink?”

  She considered that for a moment. “No. I mean somebody who might be more open-minded about this sort of thing. When I was researching everything to do with organ transplantation, I came across a book written by a woman who lives somewhere here in New England. She had an out-of-body, near-death experience a few years ago and sometimes she speaks in public about the possibility of life after death. I saw something in the paper the other day, which is why I’m
mentioning it. I think she’s going to be in town doing a book signing. You should go. I’ll watch Ellen for you.”

  “A near-death experience?” I asked. “That seems way out there.”

  She gave me a look. “You have someone else’s heart beating inside of you. If that’s not way out there, I don’t know what is.”

  Ellen started to fuss, so we took her downstairs to feed her.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As it turned out, the woman who had written the book about her near-death experience came to town the following week to do a reading at an independent bookstore that specialized in non-fiction and self-help books.

  I decided to follow Diana’s advice and check it out, but first I ordered her book online and downloaded it to my tablet. The woman’s name was Sophie Duncan and she told the story of how her car skidded off a country road on a winter night and rolled over onto a frozen lake. The ice broke and her vehicle sank to the bottom. By the time the rescue team pulled her out, she’d been dead for at least twenty minutes but the freezing temperature of the water slowed her body systems down, and they were able to revive her.

  The book described how she watched from above as the paramedics warmed her up in the ambulance. Later she witnessed the medical team shock her back to life in the ER.

  As I read the book, I couldn’t help but wonder if my donor had had a similar out-of-body experience when he died. Had he watched from above as the doctors removed the working heart from his body and placed it into mine?

  It all seemed very far-fetched, and Sophie’s story read more like a novel. Surely it had to be fiction. But when I found myself standing in the bookstore in front of her table, looking down at her as she smiled up at me, I knew she wasn’t some New Age quack. There was an intelligence about her. She seemed grounded.