The Color of a Dream (17 page)

Maybe I was presuming too much about Nadia
as well.

But wasn’t this just like Rick to make me
doubt myself?

“You’re wrong about her,” I said. “Nadia’s a
good mother and you’d know that if you could see her with Ellen. I
haven’t met Christine, but if she’s a decent person like you say
she is, I’m sure she wouldn’t want to separate them.”

“I’m Ellen’s father,” he insisted, “and as
her father I will make sure she has a real family with two
respectable parents and a stable home. It’ll be worse for Ellen
later on if she stays with Nadia.”

“I disagree,” I said, “and I’m asking you to
reconsider. Please, Rick
.
You could ask for joint custody or
visitation rights. Let Ellen stay where she is.”

Silence. “That’s not going to work for
us.”

I scoffed. “Why not? Is it too
inconvenient?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Rick said. “Christine
and I are going to start a family. A
normal
family without
any of the problems Nadia will present. We want Ellen to be a part
of that. She’ll be happier and far better off in the long run.”

“And what about Nadia?” I asked. “Doesn’t
she matter at all?”

“She needs to recognize that this is for the
best. Ellen will have a better life with us. It would be selfish of
her not to let us take her.”

By now my blood was boiling and I wanted to
smash my phone repeatedly on the counter. Instead, I shut my eyes
and counted to ten because I liked my phone.

“If you came out here and met your
daughter,” I said, “you would see that Nadia is what’s best for
her. Not you.”

Neither of us said anything for a long time.
My heart pounded thunderously in my ears.

“We’re done here,” Rick said. “Don’t call me
again.”

Shutting my eyes with defeat, I lowered my
phone and ended the call. Then I quickly dialed Nadia’s number.

I wanted to tell Nadia everything about my
conversation with Rick, but not over the phone. She didn’t answer
my call, so I texted and told her I was coming over. A short while
later, I was sitting on her sofa while she fetched me a glass of
water.

Her sister Diana had gone to a movie and
Ellen was upstairs, asleep for the night.

“Rick thinks he’s changed because he wants
to be a family man,” I said, “but I don’t believe he’s changed at
all because he’s not thinking of Ellen’s happiness. Not really.
He’s certainly not thinking of yours. I know my brother, and he’s
only thinking of what he wants for himself. He’s putting a mask on
the whole situation by saying it’s what’s best for Ellen.”

Nadia handed me the glass of water and sat
down beside me. “Did you ask him if he would consider shared
custody?”

“Yes, but he was like a brick wall. He said
no.”

“And he knows about my health risks,” she
said. “He plans to use that against me?”

I saw the heartbreak in her eyes and wished
there was something I could do to ease her pain. “I’m sorry. I’m
mortified.”

“Why would
you
be mortified?” she
asked, frowning with bewilderment.

“Because he’s my brother and I couldn’t make
the smallest dent in his opinion.
God!
I’m fit to be tied.
It takes me right back to how things were ten years ago when I
couldn’t believe the things he said and did. I tried to talk sense
into him then but it made no difference. He just wasn’t capable of
recognizing someone else’s pain.” I set the glass of water down on
the coffee table and pressed my forehead into the heels of my
hands.

Nadia rubbed a hand over my back and
squeezed my shoulder. The rapid beat of my pulse slowed down and
the fire in my blood began to cool.

“This isn’t your fault,” she said. “I
appreciate that you tried, but he is who he is. I’m glad I know
because at least I’ll be prepared for what he plans to bring to the
courtroom. I’ll bring the same thing. If he wants to accuse me of
being a bad mother, I’ll shine a very bright light on the fact that
he wants to destroy a little girl’s relationship with her mother.
I’ll make sure the judge knows how much Ellen and I love each
other, and how happy she is here with me and Diana.”

I sat back and tried to see clearly through
my rage. “You don’t deserve this.”

“Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
I don’t think anyone deserves half of what gets thrown at them in
life. Not even Rick. He had a rough year, too. It’s no wonder he’s
feeling desperate.”

“You’re far more understanding than I
am.”

She reached for my hand. “If there’s one
thing I learned when I was in the hospital—it’s that life is short
and we can’t waste precious time feeling hateful or carrying
grudges. I love Ellen more than anything and I have to believe that
it will all work out somehow. That the love I feel for her will win
out over whatever Rick is trying to do. And I don’t plan on dying
anytime soon. I have a new heart and I’m getting stronger every
day. Surely this gift came to me for some greater purpose and I
believe that purpose is Ellen. I was put on this earth to be her
mother. She’s the reason I found the strength to live. It couldn’t
have been for nothing. It couldn’t have been a false dream. And if
she’s meant to be with her father, to know him, then so be it. I
just hope he’ll see that she would better off being loved by
all
of us.”

Whatever doubts I’d entertained about the
true motivations behind my attraction to this woman vanished in
that instant when I recognized the depth of her wisdom. I was not
here because I wanted to fix what I couldn’t fix before. I didn’t
want to save Nadia to make myself feel better because I was unable
to save Angela. Nadia was nothing like Angela. She didn’t need
saving. In fact I felt humbled sitting there beside her. I was in
awe. She was all heart from head to foot, and if anything, I was
beginning to believe she had come into my life to save
me
.

“I want to be with you,” I said without
thinking.

“I want to be with you too,” she whispered
in return.

For a long time we held each other. Then
finally, I kissed her.

Nadia

When Jesse Fraser kissed me on the sofa that
night it confirmed my belief in dreams coming true—but I had no
idea how relevant that concept would become as we continued to
share things with each other.

“Nothing about this day has been easy,”
Jesse said as he cupped my cheek with his hand, “until now.”

“You think I’m easy, do you?” My smirk
brought him closer for another kiss that caused my insides to
jangle with excitement.

Later he wrapped his arm around me and I
rested my cheek on his shoulder.

“That phone call wasn’t exactly a walk in
the park,” he said, “and it was a rough day at work.”

“Why? What happened?” I lifted my head to
look up at him.

He entwined his fingers around mine, then
told me about the hunter who fell into a ravine and broke both his
legs. “I wasn’t sure if we’d even be able to locate him,” Jesse
said. “The rain was pelting the windshield and the fog was as thick
as soup. At one point, I thought for sure the wind was going to
flip us over and drop us into the trees.”

My head drew back. “What time was that?”

He thought about it. “I don’t know. Sometime
between two and three, I guess.”

A fire began to burn in my belly as I stared
at Jesse. “That’s really weird because I had another flying dream
today, and it was the first time I ever had one of those dreams
during the day. I was taking a nap right here on the couch and I
dreamed I was flying over a forest in the rain. It was stressful,
not like the other times when I was flying at night.”

Jesse sat up. “That is weird.”

Our eyes locked on each other’s and my heart
began to race.

“What’s it like when you fly at night?” I
asked, though it wasn’t an innocent question. I was fishing for
information, exploring what was surely a bizarre and preposterous
theory. Was I astral projecting in my dreams to wherever Jesse
was?

No, that couldn’t be true. It was crazy.
They were just dreams.

Clearly, I was still a skeptic.

“If I’m flying over the city,” he replied,
“it’s usually pretty calm. There’s not as much wind at night.”

“You must fly over the hospitals,” I said.
“You deliver patients, right? You land on the rooftops.”

“All the time.”

My breaths were coming faster and I sensed
by the flash of light in Jesse’s eyes that he was thinking the same
thing I was.

But he wasn’t. He was thinking of something
else entirely. Something far more incredible.

“When did you have your transplant?” Jesse
asked me. “What was the exact date?”

I told him the date and he reached into his
pocket for his phone. He stood up and searched for a number.
“Excuse me for one second.”

He left me there on the sofa while he went
into the kitchen to call someone. I tugged at my shirt to
straighten it and shifted to a more comfortable position while I
waited.

A few minutes later he appeared in the
doorway looking white as a sheet. He stared at the phone briefly,
then set it down on the coffee table.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he
said.

I blinked up at him curiously. “Believe
what?”

He came to sit beside me again and took both
my hands in his. “I think I delivered your heart to you.”

I wasn’t quite able to comprehend what he
was telling me. “That’s impossible.”

“Why? I just called my supervisor. I asked
him to check the schedule and reports for the day you had your
surgery, and I was flying that day. It was all there in the report
and I remember it now. I landed at Boston Mass to pick up a medical
team and flew them to another hospital to retrieve a donor heart. I
can’t tell you which hospital… That’s supposed to be confidential.
But afterward I flew the team back to Boston Mass. How many donor
hearts could have been delivered to Boston Mass that day? Not more
than one, surely.”

Though this was unbelievable to me, I was
still fixated on another piece of this puzzle. “You must land on
that helicopter pad all the time,” I said, “and you work mostly
night shifts, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“I didn’t tell you this,” I said, “but over
the past few months, every time I had one of those flying dreams, I
thought I was dreaming about my donor. I thought maybe I was
somehow remembering how his spirit floated out of the hospital when
he passed. I know that sounds nuts, but the dreams were so vivid
and real, and when I recognized the hospital here in Boston, I was
kind of freaked out. Now I’m wondering if I was dreaming about
you
. If I was somehow there with you when you were flying
those nights?”

He took hold of my hand. “I don’t know about
that, Nadia—and I’ll be honest, it does seem nuts—but I do know
that I picked up a heart on the day you had your surgery and I flew
it to the hospital where you were waiting for it.”

His gaze dipped lower to my chest.

I was no longer self-conscious around Jesse.
Reaching down, I unbuttoned the top three buttons of my blouse,
opened my collar and showed him the top of my scar. “Thank you for
that.”

Our eyes met, he smiled and I was filled
with the most breathtaking swell of joy.

“You’re more than welcome,” he said.

Six weeks later

The thirty-day notice to appear in court
arrived when I was just heading out for a long walk with Ellen.
Seeing the words printed on the page was like a knife in my heart,
but I refused to let it defeat me. Instead I focused on the factors
that stood in my favor.

I’d had my parental evaluation. It had gone
well. Ellen was happy and smiling the entire time, the house was
clean and well organized for a growing toddler, and Diana and Jacob
had been there to meet the evaluator as well.

It didn’t hurt that my sister was a
successful attorney engaged to a cardiac surgeon who lived a block
away. They made me look good and the evaluator was duly
impressed.

On top of that the letter from my doctor
made me out to be a transplant superstar. My pathology reports were
excellent, my diet and exercise routine superb and all my regular
cardiac biopsies over the past six months had showed no signs of
organ rejection.

Today, however, as I stood in the blinding
sunshine with Ellen strapped into her stroller, I had to accept
that despite all those triumphs, I was still required to face Rick
in a courtroom and defend myself as a mother.

And I might lose my daughter.

I realized I was now facing a different kind
of threat, but no less vital. Just over a year ago I survived heart
failure. Now I had to fight to keep my daughter, and that was a
life or death situation as well, because if I lost Ellen, how could
I possibly go on?

Determined to maintain a positive outlook, I
texted Jesse and told him about the notice, then I stuffed it into
my bag. As I withdrew my hand, I noticed some redness on my
forearm. Was it some kind of rash?

Under normal circumstances I would have
called Dr. Reynolds and arranged to have him look at it immediately
because I was at high risk for infections that could become life
threatening if left untreated. But this wasn’t the best time to
introduce something dodgy into my medical reports, so I decided to
keep a close eye on it and hold off making an appointment for
now.

* * *

Jesse received my text and called later to
ask if I was free for dinner.

“Don’t worry about the court date,” he said.
“Everything’s going to be fine. And I have something I want to show
you. I just called Diana to see if she was free to watch Ellen for
us tonight. She said yes.”