The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) (7 page)

“I’m here,” I said, dropping to my knees beside him.

His eyes flickered open and he turned his head to look up at me. “That was dumb,” he croaked. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s been a rough day,” I gently replied, working hard to maintain my calm as I glanced down at his broken legs.

“I’m cold,” he said, and began to shiver.

“Take my jacket.” I quickly unzipped it, pulled it off and covered him with it. “Is that better?”

He nodded, then coughed up some blood.

Oh God… Please
not this
…

I have to be honest. I knew I couldn’t save Seth. There was absolutely nothing I could do. He had tumbled down a steep, rocky incline, broken both his legs and probably his back, and it was obvious he was bleeding internally.

Even if I could fashion some sort of stretcher to move him, where would I take him? There was no hospital nearby. No doctors, no nurses.

Desperately, I glanced up at the sky.

God. Are you there at all? Now would be a good time to send a helicopter. Please, I’m begging you.

Nothing.

I looked back down at Seth. “What can I do?”

“Water?” he asked.

I reached into the bag, withdrew the bottle and fed him some.

He tried to swallow but choked and coughed it up.

I put the water bottle away.

“Sorry about the things I said earlier,” Seth muttered. “I didn’t mean them.”

“It’s nothing,” I replied. “Everything’s fine now.”

He nodded and lay there, blinking up at the sky. “I think I hear the plane,” he said. “They must be coming for us.”

I listened but heard nothing. “It shouldn’t be long now,” I said.

Then I removed both our gloves and held his hand.

o0o

Three hours later I stood with my back against the steep rock face, staring blankly at Seth’s lifeless form.

A knot had formed in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t seem to move from my spot, nor could I believe this had happened. That
any
of this had happened.

Seth was gone and I was alone now—going over and over in my head the significance of his final wishes.

What a quiet day it was. There was not a single breath of wind in the air.

I glanced up to watch a gull soar against the blue. He was white on the bottom and gray on the tops of his wings. Graceful and majestic looking.

Eventually, my mind turned to certain practicalities.

What was I to do with Seth’s body? He had made his wishes clear to me, but I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to carry them out.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t very well leave him for the animals. Nor could I bury him because the ground was frozen solid.

In the end I decided it would be best to do as he asked: burn his remains and save his ashes. If I could, I would fulfill his wishes, or perhaps I would deliver them to his family.

After coming to that decision, my heart began to pound heavily and I felt nauseous. I slid down the wall of rock to sit on the ground, where I wept uncontrollably for a very long time.

Changes

Chapter Twenty

Sharp branches cut my cheeks as I flew through the forest, spear in hand. By this time my hunger had mushroomed into something astronomical, and I knew I could no longer continue to watch the skies and pray to be rescued. Clearly that was not to be my fate. At least not today.

Tomorrow perhaps?

Hah
. Call it a gut feeling, but something told me that no one would
ever
come for me. I was here for the long haul and I had only one choice.

I could lay down and die, or I could live.

If I was going to live, I’d have to learn to take care of myself—to eat, drink and stay warm—and accept the fact that perhaps I was here alone for some reason I could not yet fathom.

Though I prayed it would be clear to me one day.

Or maybe there was no rhyme or reason to it. I was just here, like the birds and the fish. End of story.

But no. This was not to be the end of
my
story. At least not today. Not if I had any say in the matter. I was starving and weak from hunger, but I was not without intelligence and resourcefulness. I had everything Seth left to me—his compass, wallet, cellphone, a knife, two ice axes, warm clothing, water bottles and camping gear—which included the tent I had retrieved from the bush.

I’d used his knife to carve the spear which I now held in my hand.

Somehow I would find my way in and out of the forest to catch something to eat.

I would catch it, kill it, and cook it.

Which brings me back to my current predicament…

o0o

In pursuit of a white rabbit—or rather a fat Arctic hare—I was growing rather tired.

I’d spotted him on my way to the creek where I’d hoped to spear a fish. The hare caught my attention not long after I entered the woods. The instant I saw him, I threw my spear.

Naturally, I missed. I’ve since learned not to
throw
the spear. It only works to kill things at close range.

Anyway, he was startled by my presence and hopped into the bush, but I picked up my spear and followed.

I was fast and nimble on my feet at first, and exceedingly motivated. Though I suppose he was, too.

So I ran. Fast and hard, never losing sight of him, not for a single second. It wasn’t easy, either. Those hares can move. By my estimation, he jumped as far as six feet in a single bound and traveled as fast as a car.

By some miracle I caught up to him and threw myself into the air to catch him in my arms. I had him, too. For a few brief, heart-stopping seconds I hugged him to my chest and marveled at the fact that I’d caught a rabbit. But then the slippery little rascal squirmed from my grip and I had to scramble to my feet, get on the run again.

I followed that darn rabbit out of the woods, then found myself in the presence of something quite unconceivable.

An entire herd.

There must have been a hundred of them, out in the open, under the sun, bouncing about, happily.

Imagine what a sight that was for a starving man in my position to behold.

o0o

If someone had been filming me, the footage would probably have gone viral on the Internet within a day.

I can’t even picture what I must have looked like—diving through the air to catch hopping rabbits in a herd, losing one after the other. Diving again.

But I never gave up, not even when one exceptionally belligerent rabbit kicked me repeatedly in the face and gave me a bloody nose.

They can be quite vicious, I discovered.

I was so hungry, however, I felt no pain. The way they fought back only strengthened my resolve and turned me into something equally vicious—a wild man I did not even recognize.

Eventually I got a good grip on the back leg of one of them and didn’t let go.

Within seconds I had snapped its neck.

The rest of the herd quickly scattered.

o0o

For reasons I don’t wish to revisit, I had no matches left, but on my second night alone in the wilderness, I had taught myself how to start a fire without them. Or rather, Seth had explained it to me, the day before he passed.

It took me five hours to get that first fire going, but I stuck with it and succeeded by carving a long notch into a dry, narrow log and running a stick up and down until sparks trickled down into the tinder.

On the night of my Olympic trials with the flash mob of Arctic hares, I had dinner to cook, so there was nothing to keep me from devoting another five hours to the task of making fire.

I am pleased to report that it only took sixty minutes that night. Then it was time, at last, to roast the rabbit.

I swear, no other meal in my life ever tasted so good.

Civilization

Chapter Twenty-one

Carla

I was sitting in my car, waiting outside the ice skating rink when my cell phone vibrated in my purse. I leaned across the seat, saw that it was Gladys calling, and swiped the screen.

“Hello?”

“Carla, is that you?” she asked, sounding panicked.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Where are you? I just called the apartment.”

“I’m at the rink waiting for Kaleigh to finish her figure skating lesson,” I replied. “She should be out soon. What’s going on? Is there news?”

Long before Gladys had a chance to answer, my stomach twisted into a sickening knot, because something in me knew. I could sense this would not be the call I’d been hoping for.

“They’ve called off the search,” Gladys said with a sob. “How could they do that? It’s only been a week. What if he’s still alive out there?”

I closed my eyes and bowed my head. “I’m so sorry, Gladys.”

Balling my hand into a fist, I pounded it against the upholstered armrest of the car door—though I can’t say I was surprised by Gladys’ news.

For a week they had been searching off the northern coast of Newfoundland—which was where the pilots had last radioed a distress call—but there had been no sign of wreckage anywhere. With each passing day, I’d lost a little more hope because all evidence pointed to the fact that the aircraft had run into trouble somewhere over the ocean. The plane was most likely sitting at the bottom of the ice-cold sea. Case closed.

I was startled when someone knocked on the passenger side window of my car. It was Kaleigh, trying to open the locked door.

Quickly I pushed the button to unlock it and wiped the tears from my cheeks.

“Gladys? Kaleigh just got in the car. I’ll have to call you back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”

I ended the call.

“What’s going on?” Kaleigh asked.

I told her the news.

This time she cried, and I admit, I was relieved to see her shed some tears.

Then she confessed something to me. “I didn’t want to tell you this,” she said, “but I already knew he was gone.”

“What?
How
?”

Her tear-glistened eyes met mine. “I dreamed about it.”

Turning in my seat, I looked at her directly. “What did you dream?”

“That he came to say good-bye, and he said he was sorry for not being a good dad. It wasn’t scary or anything. That’s why I didn’t wake you.”

I laid my hand on her knee. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this.”

“I thought it was just a dream,” she replied. “Maybe it was, but I was pretty sure he was going to heaven.”

o0o

That night, I met Audrey for dinner at a popular wild game restaurant downtown. Kaleigh had been invited for a sleepover at her Aunt Nadia’s house.

Audrey was my half-sister-in-law because she’d been married to my half-brother Alex, who I’d only met a few weeks before he was killed on the job as a firefighter.

Audrey and I became close after meeting for the first time—which was almost ten years ago. Her daughter Wendy was like a sister to Kaleigh, and the two of them were sleeping over at her Aunt Nadia’s place, with Nadia’s daughter Ellen.

We often referred to Ellen, Wendy, and Kaleigh as our Three Musketeers.

“How are you holding up?” Audrey asked when the waitress brought our menus.

“It’s been tough,” I replied, keeping my gaze lowered. “I still can’t believe he’s really gone, and yet at the same time I can. Kaleigh had a dream about it. But even so, there’s something in me… It’s hard to describe. I just feel like he’s still out there. That it’s not over.”

I picked up the menu and looked it over, not entirely paying attention to the descriptions. I just needed time to pause, because it was difficult to talk about Seth. The wounds were still so raw.

After I chose something to order, I set the menu aside.

“It’s going to be hard to let go,” Audrey said. “You were together—well,
sort
of together—for a long time.”

“I hate not knowing what really happened,” I said. “It haunts me sometimes when my imagination takes over.”

Audrey set her menu down as well. “Maybe you should talk to someone about it, like a grief counselor. They can be really helpful. And how about Kaleigh? How’s she dealing with all this?”

I sat back in my chair and stared off toward the bar at the back of the restaurant. “She’s doing surprisingly well,” I replied, “but that’s not necessarily a good thing. I just wish she had gotten to know Seth better. I always thought, maybe someday, he would get tired of climbing and come home to Boston and settle down. Even if we weren’t together as man and wife, I sometimes dreamed that he’d be around to develop a closer relationship with her. But now that will never happen. She’ll never know what it feels like to have a real dad.”

“You don’t know what the future holds,” Audrey reminded me optimistically. “You were always very loyal to Seth, but now that he’s gone, maybe you’ll meet someone.” She quickly covered her mouth with a hand. “Oh God, that was so insensitive. I’m sorry, I have foot-in-mouth disease.”