The Color of Heaven (20 page)

I thought about how blue his eyes were, and how I had become so lost in them, even as a young girl. I remembered kissing him for the first time on

Gordon’s sail boat, and I heard the sound of his voice in my ears. I want to marry you, Cora. I hope you’l say yes.

After a while, I stood up to stretch my legs and wandered around the waiting room, strol ed a little way down the corridor, careful not to step on the lines between the tiles. It was a childish game, I knew, but I needed some sort of distraction.

It was quiet in that wing of the hospital, and I felt very alone. Al I wanted was for Matt to push through those swinging doors at the end of the hal , walk toward me with a smile, and say that it was al over and everything was going to be fine.

I leaned against the wal and stared down at my feet.

“Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

I lifted my gaze and realized Peter was standing in front of me. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

A voice came over the speaker system. “Your attention please. Visiting hours are now over. Visitors may return tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m.”

“I don’t think that’s for us,” Peter said, leaning a shoulder against the wal . “We’re okay here.”

I nodded.

Another moment passed while neither of us spoke. I tipped my head back and looked up at the ceiling, while Peter rubbed out the tension at the

back of his neck.

“You know,” he said, “I always knew you guys shared something that I didn’t real y understand.”

I looked up. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “When we were kids, there was something in the way you looked at each other. You never looked at me like that.” He paused.

“Sometimes I would see the two of you sitting together on the beach, and I didn’t dare interrupt. I knew I couldn’t possibly intrude on whatever it was you were talking about. Sometimes I was jealous and angry. Other times I was…”

He paused again, and I turned to face him. “You were what?”

“I was…
fascinated
. I wanted to know what it was like to be with you like that. I wanted to be close to you, like he was, but I didn’t know how. I was glad when he left, because I knew that as long as he was around, you’d be with him and not me.”

I swal owed over the lump of despair that was rising in my throat. “I’m sorry, Peter. I cared about you very much, and I stil do. I never wanted to hurt you.”

He dropped his gaze. “I know. Part of it’s my own fault. I always knew that if I tried to take you away from him, I’d lose in the end. I knew you loved him. It was plain as day. I’m real y sorry that this is happening.”

I took a moment to digest al that he had confessed. “Thank you, Peter.”

A janitor came around the corner, pushing a broom back and forth across the wide corridor. I watched him for a moment, then returned my attention

to Peter.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“What did you and Matt talk about when you were alone with him earlier?”

Peter drew in a breath. “Wel … First he apologized for how he treated us in high school, when he ditched us for that other crowd.”

“He said the same thing to me when he first came to Wel esley.”

And I had known that he would need to say it to Peter.

“Then he told me that he was sorry for being the reason why you broke up with me, and that neither of you took any pleasure in hurting me – you

especial y. Then he told me that…” Peter hesitated. “That he was going to marry you.”

I pushed away from the wal and regarded him with surprise. “He told you that?”

“Yeah, and I wanted to punch his lights out. If he wasn’t hooked up to an IV, I probably would have.”

I managed a smal smile when Peter inclined his head and shrugged apologetical y.

He cleared his throat and continued. “I figured that’s what he wanted to say to me, when he sent you out of the room. I told him I wasn’t surprised

because I always knew you loved him more than you ever loved me.”

“Peter…” I touched his shoulder, but he raised a hand to let me know he didn’t welcome my pity.

“I told Matt that he better treat you right, and that if he ever hurt you, I’d make sure he regretted it. He accepted that.”

“Peter…” I said again.

“No, Cora. Don’t. Real y. I want you to be happy. That’s al .”

I pul ed him into my arms and hugged him. “I want you to be happy, too. I know you wil be. I just don’t think I’m the one for you.”

“That’s not true,” he whispered in my ear. “I may not be the one for you, but you were always the one for me, and always wil be.”

I shut my eyes over the tears that stung my eyes, and kissed him on the cheek.

“So that’s al you talked about?” I asked, as we started walking back to the chairs in the waiting area.

“No,” he replied. “There was one more thing.”

I stopped and took hold of his arm. “Tel me.”

He looked down at the floor again. “Matt said that if anything happened to him, and he didn’t make it through the surgery, that he wanted me to

make sure you would be okay. So here I am.” His eyes met mine. “I’m here for you, Cora, no matter what. But I want you to know that I real y hope he

makes it.”

When the doors to the OR final y swung open, my whole being tightened with fear.

I stood up quickly and watched the surgeon walk the long length of the hal toward us. He kept his gaze downcast, and I knew in that moment that he

did not have good news for us.

Al the blood in my body rushed to my head. I couldn’t seem to breathe.

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “We did everything we could…”

Gordon bowed his head and wept, while Peter took me into his arms and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Cora. I’m so sorry.”

Life

I sat across the table from my mother and understood completely what she was feeling. I had experienced it myself, one year ago, in a New York

hospital. The world had come to an end for me that day. The pain was more than anyone should ever have to endure.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know about any of that. Why didn’t you ever tel me?”

“Because I was your mother, and I couldn’t talk that way about a man who wasn’t your father.”

A surprising sense of calm descended upon me as I regarded her in the early evening light. “Because Matt was my real father, wasn’t he?”

Mom pul ed a tissue from the box and blew her nose. “Yes.”

We sat for a long time saying nothing, while I waited for my mother to work through the grief she had just relived.

I stood up, went to the cupboard, and searched around until I found a bottle of brandy. I poured us each a smal amount and sat back down.

“So obviously you married Dad after…” I paused. “After my real father died.”

She raised the crystal tumbler to her lips, swirled the amber liquid around, and took a slow sip.

“After the operation,” she said, “Peter was there for me in every way. He didn’t pressure me to get back together with him. He was just there to

comfort me, always a friend. He knew how I felt about Matt. He may not have truly understood it, but he knew how real it was.

“It wasn’t easy, but I went back to Wel esley after Christmas and intended to finish out the year and get my degree. But after I started classes in

January, I was sick in the mornings, and knew right away that I was pregnant.”

She took another sip of brandy and looked at me solemnly from across the table. “It was the 60s,” she explained. “It wasn’t like it is today, and I was a Wel esley girl. I didn’t know what my teachers or parents were going to say. I was a mess, Sophie, and I missed Matt so much, there were times I

just wanted to curl up and die.”

She paused. “At the same time, I was overjoyed that I was carrying his child.
You
. You were al I had left of him, and I was going to do whatever it took to keep you.”

I frowned. “Whatever it took… Did you even tel Dad? Did he know what he was getting into? That you were already pregnant with Matt’s baby?

With
me
?”

I had a hard time comprehending it.

“Of course he knew,” she said. “He was the one who suggested we get married. I didn’t want to at first. I just couldn’t bear the thought of marrying

anyone except Matt. In my heart, he was already my husband, and I was his wife. I stil loved him, but I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to take care of you on my own. My parents would have pressured me to keep the whole thing a secret and give you up for adoption, then finish my degree. Peter

knew how I felt about that. He knew I would never give you up. He worked hard to talk me into it, practical y begged me to marry him, promised that

he would love you like his own child.

“And he did, Sophie. He was a good husband and father. He loved you because you were a part of me – and God knows he loved me more than I

ever deserved to be loved. He was my best friend, and I don’t know how I would have survived without him.”

She tipped the glass up and finished the brandy.

“Then why did you leave him?” I asked, feeling a sudden jolt of anger in my chest. “He didn’t want you to leave. I heard you arguing about it in the

days leading up to it, but you got on that plane, and you never came back. You left us. You left me. How could you do that? After everything you just told me, how could you abandon me? And Dad? He gave you everything.”

She sat back in her chair and nodded. “Yes, he did, and I’m glad you understand that now, that you know what kind of man your father was, and stil

is. You were never close, I always knew that, but you didn’t know the whole story. If your father was distant toward you, it was only because you

reminded him of what he could never be to me. He always knew I loved Matt most, and then you. When Jen came along, that was different. She was

our child together, and by that time, we had begun to build a real marriage.” She leaned forward. “That’s part of what you need to understand here

today. Time does heal wounds. Eventual y. The scars might remain, but life goes on. I loved Jen, and I loved your father. I always wil . He was my

hero. He never let me down. He never disappointed me, not once, and I wil always be grateful to him for that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That stil doesn’t answer my question. If anything, I’m even more confused. Why did you leave us?”

She stood up. “I think you already know the answer to that question, Sophie. You’ve always known it, but you were confused when you came here.

You don’t understand where you are or what is happening to you.”

My vision blurred. She wasn’t clear to me. Nothing was.

I heard a creak on the stairs and felt a terrible compulsion to weep. “Is there someone else here?”

My mother nodded. “Yes.”

I turned slowly in my chair and found myself staring at my daughter, Megan, who stood motionless in the doorway. Her brow furrowed with concern,

and she spoke with a hint of anger. “I’m fine here, Mommy. I told you that. Nanny’s taking good care of me. But you need to go back now.
Go back.

Go back
.” She started to walk toward me, as if to push me away. She was annoyed with me.

I whirled around to face my mother. “Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” she replied. “There’s stil time, but you must
want
to live.”

o0o

Suddenly I was shooting through a dark, narrow tunnel, rounding a smooth curve. Graffiti lined the wal s – which made no sense to me – and I was

terrified by the speed at which I was traveling, and the strangeness of the place.

Was it a subway tunnel?

Where was I?

o0o

My eyes fluttered open and I blinked up at the bright blue sky. There were no clouds. It was a perfect day.

Was this heaven? How long had I been traveling? Was I real y dead now?

I put my hand on my chest and massaged where it hurt. I walked my fingers across my ribcage, trying to identify the pain, then I struggled to sit up.

Looking al around, I realized I was sitting in a cemetery. The stone next to me said:

Cora MacIntosh

Beloved Wife and Mother

Sept 12, 1948 – Nov 17, 1984

Visions of my mother’s funeral flashed like sparks of light through my brain, along with disturbing images of the plane crash, which we had seen on

television.

My mother was dead. She didn’t leave us by choice. I was wrong to blame her. She never meant to die.

I rose up onto my knees and ran my fingers over the letters and numbers chiseled into the stone.
Sept 12, 1948 – Nov 17, 1984

Why did I never think of her, or talk about her? Why did I push this away?

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, as I touched her name. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and realized I was not alone.

Bewildered and slightly dizzy, I turned to look up. I lifted a hand to shade my eyes from the brightness of the sun.

“Hi Sophie,” the man said. He was very handsome. “I think you might be lost. Please, let me help you.”

He hooked an arm under mine and helped me to my feet.

Standing at my mother’s grave, I gazed into a pair of eyes the color of the ocean on a clear day. There was something familiar in them. I was

spel bound.

“Who are you?” I asked, but somehow I already knew. This man was my father.

He smiled, and I understood immediately why my mother had fal en in love with him, and why they were meant to be together. I understood it in a

way I never understood anything before, except for the love I felt for Megan on the day she was born. It happened instantaneously.

“You’re Matt,” I said, offering my hand.

He shook it. “And you’re Sophie.”

I laughed through joyful tears, wondering how any of this could be possible. I felt truly blessed.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“Me too, I guess.” I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

He was very calm and serene.
Devastatingly beautiful
.