The Color of a Promise (The Color of Heaven Series Book 11) (9 page)

My stomach clenched tight and I asked Wayne to pull over. He was quick to respond, and within seconds, I was spilling out of the car and retching onto the shoulder of the road.

Wayne shut off the engine, got out, and hurried to my side to hold my hair back. “You’ll be all right,” he said, rubbing my back. “Except that you’ll be a little hungover tomorrow, that’s all.”

I was aware of cars speeding past on the road and the smell of new asphalt. After a moment, I collected myself, straightened, and wiped at my burning, watery eyes.

“It’s not just that,” I replied. “It was the text he wrote. You should read it.”

Wayne shook his head with annoyance and leaned into the truck to reach for my phone. He read the whole message and turned to me. “Mind if I reply?”

I waved a hand through the air and leaned back against the side of his truck. “Knock yourself out.”

Wayne typed a message, pressed send, and showed it to me.

Hey Kyle. This is Meg’s brother, Wayne. You’re a dick. Stop texting my sister and see if it’s possible for you to act like a grown-up.

I read it and chuckled. “You’re my superhero. Thank you.”

“He really is a dick. What did you ever see in him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It was temporary insanity, I suppose, because he was so good looking. He’s just the kind of guy I’ve always found attractive… Dark hair, blue eyes.”

“Beauty is only skin deep,” Wayne said, handing back my phone. “It’s the soul that matters. And if he texts you back, don’t reply. Just ignore him. Do not engage. He’ll eventually get tired of badgering you and move on.”

Wayne ushered me into the truck and shut the door. Then he returned to the driver’s seat, started the engine, checked the side mirror and steered us back onto the road.

Another text came in, and it said only thing:
F.U.

“Nice,” I said. “I sure can pick ’em.”

o0o

Kyle continued to try and contact me over the next few days, but it wasn’t what I expected. The following morning, he actually called my cell phone, but I chose not to answer it. He then had no choice but to send a string of texts where he apologized profusely for the things he had said, and begged me to talk to him. He promised it would never happen again. He promised he would never hurt me or say anything so stupid or mean.

But I remembered his false promises on the night he came to my dorm room. It was obvious that he wasn’t someone I could ever trust or depend on, and his volatile behavior was not something I wanted in my life.

I wanted to follow Wayne’s advice and not respond, but after about twenty messages, I felt it would be best to put Kyle out of his misery and accept his apology, but be firm about my decision. All I wanted was for him to move on. I wanted to be free of him.

I accept your apology, Kyle. Thank you. I appreciate that. But I’m sorry… I don’t want to get back together. We’re not right for each other. You know it as well as I do. Take the summer to forget about us and move on. Please don’t text me anymore. It’s over.

To my surprise, he didn’t reply. Not even a simple
OK
to acknowledge my message.

I decided to leave it at that, feeling thankful—and hopeful—that I wouldn’t have to deal with any more drama, and that I wouldn’t receive another abusive text the next time he went out with the boys and got hammered.

o0o

The next four weeks passed uneventfully, with no more texts or calls from Kyle, and it was pure heaven to know that he was on the other side of the country. I didn’t care what he was doing or who he was seeing. In fact, I hoped he’d found a new girlfriend and was madly in love with her, and was now wondering what he’d ever seen in me. That would be just fine, because I had met someone myself—a young man who was the exact opposite of Kyle…fair hair, tall lanky build, and obsessed with school, just like me.

His name was Malcolm. I met him at my summer job as a waitress in a high-end downtown restaurant. Malcolm was a physics grad who had just been accepted into medical school in San Diego. He’d been hired as a waiter for the summer, working the dinner hour.

Malcolm was brilliant, academically speaking, and he never flew off the handle or wanted to tip over a mailbox. He was a grown-up, and very driven and ambitious. That was one of the things I loved most about him, because I was happy being the same way.

We started dating after about three weeks of working together, and by August, things had gotten pretty serious. My family thought he was a healthy change after Kyle, and their approval mattered to me a great deal.

The only problem was that Malcolm was about to start medical school on the West Coast, while I was heading back east to finish the final year of my engineering degree at Princeton, and possibly do a master’s. I was disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to spend more time together because I believed he might actually be “the one.” I didn’t want to break up, but I knew that if we were going to see each other during the school year, I would have to get over my fear of flying.

Was that even possible? I was uneasy as the end of August approached—because I’d never been able to talk myself out of that fear in the past.

“You should let me take you flying and give you some lessons,” Wayne said one afternoon when he was home for four days after a few flights back and forth to Europe. We had just gotten into his truck to drive to the supermarket and pick up some steaks for the barbeque. “We could go to the flying club and you can sit in the cockpit with me, and I’ll let you steer the plane and hold the yoke.”

He backed out of the driveway and started off down the street.

“Are you joking?” I replied. “You’re talking about a small, private plane? I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Wayne replied. “I promise, you’ll love it, and I’ll be right there, beside you the whole time. And I know you, Meg. When you want to accomplish something, you attack it, hard. So attack this. You just need to face your fear and feel like you’re in control.” He glanced at me from behind the wheel as he drove onto the main road. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that when you’re sitting in the captain’s seat, and you see how it all works, you’ll be hooked.”

“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly, gazing off at the mountains in the distance.

Wayne reached across the seat and squeezed my shoulder. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Just give it a try. We could go tomorrow.”

I breathed deeply as I held my arm out the open window and felt the lift of the wind beneath my palm. I couldn’t deny that something in me had always been fascinated by the science of aerodynamics and the fact that a giant 400-ton machine could even get off the ground.

At the same time, any news about a major air disaster left me morbidly captivated and glued to the television set. I would read everything I could get my hands on about it. I wanted to know exactly what had happened, and more importantly,
why
it happened.

Maybe Wayne was right. Maybe I just needed to face my fear head on. Maybe even embrace it.

“Okay,” I said with purpose, turning to look at him. “Let’s do it. Can we make it happen tomorrow?”

Just saying the words sent a burst of adrenaline into my veins.

Wayne grinned at me, looking very pleased. “I’ll see what I can do, Captain Andrews.”

PART III

Nine Years Later

Chapter Sixteen

Jack Peterson

I always knew when rain was in the forecast. I didn’t need a meteorologist to tell me about it, because I felt it in my right knee and thigh, and sometimes in my arm.

As I sat at my mother’s kitchen table at her summer house in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, after my parents had gone to bed, I massaged my right quadriceps. Though the femur was completely healed and I had no trouble walking, it was a bone-deep ache on days like this, when bad weather was coming.

For a moment, I considered taking something for it, but decided against that because this was nothing, really. Nothing compared to those early weeks in the German hospital after the bombing, which included a second surgery to replace my knee and a full schedule of excruciating physio that lasted for many months back home in the United States. Not to mention the burns on my chest and stomach which took forever to heal.

At any rate, I had been on pain killers for a full year, and it hadn’t been easy to get off them, which was why I rarely took anything for pain these days. This level of discomfort, I could handle.

Rising from my chair, I carried my phone out to the front deck overlooking the water, and sat down on one of the Adirondack chairs. I tipped my head back to look up at the stars, but there were no stars that night because of low cloud cover. I couldn’t see the moon either. Nevertheless, it was a warm and windless night. Wonderfully tranquil. Just the sound of the waves lapping onto the beach and the salty scent of the sea made it worth the trip from Manhattan that afternoon.

I wondered what Katelyn and Aaron were up to in Portland. I hadn’t even told Katelyn I was flying home for the weekend, because that had been a rather spontaneous decision. It had been a slow news week with not much happening in the world, so it seemed like a good time to get out of the city.

By now, it was almost 10:00 p.m., and I wondered if it was too late to call.

I decided to text Katelyn to find out what they were up to tomorrow.

Hey there. Surprise—I’m in Cape Elizabeth. You still up?

I set the phone down on the arm of the chair and wondered if things would ever change. Would there ever come a day when my brother’s wife wouldn’t be the main reason I wanted to get on a plane and fly home for a visit—even when I knew she would always love Aaron, and that she and I would never be anything but friends?

At least, since I’d returned home from Afghanistan, I’d finally come to terms with it. I’d learned to accept things the way they were. Life was rough. There it was in a nutshell. And never in a thousand years would I want to jeopardize what she and Aaron had, or cause tension in their family. I loved Katelyn and the kids too much.

As for Aaron, beneath the civility, he and I still didn’t like each other a whole lot—because not all memories could be swept under the carpet—but neither of us wanted our age-old issues to infect the rest of the family, the kids especially.

I had no children of my own and I wanted to be a good uncle to them, and of course, I wanted Katelyn to be happy. I believe that was Aaron’s priority as well—which I respected, because we both loved her—so we found a way to lay the past to rest. At least on the surface.

My phone rang just then. I picked it up and saw that it was Katelyn. “Hello?”

“Hey stranger,” she said. “When did you get in?”

I closed my eyes for a second and wallowed in that familiar sense of calm, because for some reason, just the sound of Katelyn’s voice made everything feel right with the world.

“A few hours ago. It was a last-minute decision. I thought I might go out with Dad and do some sailing, but that was before I realized it was going to be raining all weekend.”

“Yes, they’re calling for some bad weather,” she said. “But it’s not supposed to start until tomorrow afternoon. You could always get out there early.”

“Maybe.” Though I didn’t feel terribly inspired.

“How’s everything at work?” she asked.

Like me, Katelyn was a reporter and was currently lead anchor for the evening news at one of the local Portland stations. She was a celebrity in town, and it didn’t hurt that she was married to the richest man in Maine—the man who built the boat that won the most recent race for the America’s Cup.

“It’s been a slow month for news,” I replied, “which isn’t a bad thing, I suppose.”

“I hear you,” she said. “No major disasters or embarrassing political scandals. We should be thankful.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” I said, and she laughed.

“Would you like to come for dinner tomorrow night?” she asked. “The kids would love to see you. Invite Margie and Stan, too.”

“They just went to bed,” I replied, “but I’ll mention it in the morning.”

“Great,” she said. “Well, I should get going. It’s late. I’ll tell Aaron you’re in town, and we’ll see you around five tomorrow?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

I ended the call, set my phone down on the arm of the wooden chair, and sat for a while on the front deck, alone, listening to the waves and staring out at the dark water.

Eventually, I noticed that the world had become abnormally quiet. The crickets stopped chirping, and there wasn’t a breath of wind in the air. It felt almost eerie, and I sat forward, listening intently, my eyes focused and alert.

Nothing.

The pain in my leg returned, so I massaged the muscle with the heel of my hand, then rose from the chair to go back inside.

If only I had known, then, what was to come—that there would be no joyful family dinner with Katelyn and Aaron the next day. I would not see the children and build houses out of LEGO with them on their family room floor, nor would we eat ice cream with sprinkles on their veranda overlooking the city.

Within hours, there would only be chaos.