The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) (9 page)

It was yet another first. One of many to come.

o0o

Scrambling up the path, I didn’t stop to look back until I reached the top of the ridge. Then I turned.

He was still chasing me!

Briefly, I considered dropping my pack so I could run faster, but I couldn’t possibly survive without it and the thought of coming back for it didn’t appeal to me either. So I sprinted like a son of a bitch across the snow covered rocks while the bear growled with exasperation, halfway up the path.

I don’t know what suicidal notion came over me, but I headed straight for the opposite edge of the ridge and took a flying leap over the side. One would think I’d had a parachute strapped to my back.

The next thing I knew, I was sliding down the stony slope on my backside, screaming my head off, tumbling head over heels like a bouncing ball, smacking into a few jagged boulders along the way.

I must have hit my head at some point because I have no memory of reaching the bottom. All I remember is regaining consciousness.

Slowly I sat up and looked around. I was surrounded by low-lying, snow-covered evergreen shrubs shivering in the wind.

The bear?

Apparently he had elected not to pursue me down the slope, which came as a great relief, of course.

Until the excruciating pain began.

When it didn’t let up, I wondered if I might have been better off if he’d followed.

Chapter Twenty-five

As I limped across the snowy ground toward a patch of stunted spruce trees that would offer some cover from the wind, I wondered if my positive thinking and cheerful optimism had been simply a big crock of stupid naiveté.

I felt totally defeated by Mother Nature. Even my spirit felt bruised. As for physical damage, my tooth had gone through my lip and I was spitting out blood. On top of that, my entire head was throbbing. I suspected I’d cracked a cheekbone and might have even fractured my skull.

All I wanted to do was lie down and not move a muscle until the spring thaw.

Before long, I came to a large spruce that must have toppled in a storm, or been struck by lightning. It was resting against another tree which provided a sheltered area beneath.

Dropping to my knees, I crawled under the splayed branches and hid next to the massive trunk.

I knew I couldn’t lie on the snow all night or I’d freeze to death, so I pulled a few items out of the pack—the rolled up tent and the sleep pad—and lay down on top of everything.

I made no fire that night. All I could do was lie still and try to heal—and pray that the bear was not watching me from the darkness like the lynx.

As luck would have it, it began to snow.

At the time I thought I was cursed, but later I came to realize it was a blessing in disguise, because that fresh blanket of snow buried the trail of blood I’d left behind.

Chapter Twenty-six

The night I spent under the tree after running from the bear was one of my worst nights in the wilderness. It came only second to the night after Seth fell into the ravine.

Though perhaps one could argue that my polar bear night—accompanied by a cracked jaw and bloody lip—was a crucial turning point in my life because that’s when the seeds of my future were planted.

It probably sounds crazy, and in my line of work, if I were hearing this story now, I would try and educate the patient by suggesting that sometimes a person can retreat into fantasy in order to seek comfort or escape an unpleasant reality.

No question, that’s exactly what I did that night.

In my case, however, I have no regrets about my so-called escape from reality, because I’m not sure I would have survived the next year without more of the same.

o0o

It was exceedingly dark and cold that night, no moon or starlight at all, and I was in so much pain I couldn’t sleep.

Loneliness hit fast and hard. All I wanted was to be back in my warm bed at home, even if I was tossing and turning, or at the coffee shop once again chatting with the clerks in the morning. I imagined our conversation and the feel of the hot paper cup in my hand as I slipped it into the cardboard sleeve.

A hot beverage is one of those simple things in life we don’t appreciate nearly enough. I swore that, if I was ever lucky enough to set another kettle onto a stove to boil, I would never take it for granted again.

It was dark in the woods. There is no other darkness like it anywhere, and I feared I might simply expire from loneliness.

In an effort to ward off such wretched thoughts, I did something proactive instead. I dug into the pack to search for Seth’s phone.

There was barely any battery life left, but enough at least for me to scroll through his photo gallery and search for the pictures of his wife in the park on that hot summer day in Boston with the swan boats in the background. That woman had inscribed his compass with words I could not let myself forget:
So you’ll always find your way home.

I needed to hear her voice.

At last I found the video Seth had shown me, and I pressed play
.

There she was.
Carla,
with that cute, flirty smile.

Her eyes were impossibly blue. I exhaled with a feeling of calm, and it helped to stop the shivering.

“Someday I want you to buy me a house on a lake where I can plant purple flowers…”

I watched that video over and over until the battery died. Then I rummaged through Seth’s wallet and found the printed photograph of Carla. Because my own wallet and phone had been lost in the crash, it was the only picture I had of another human being. I stared at it for a long while, then slipped it back into the wallet and put it in my pocket.

That night, I fell asleep dreaming of the house on the lake with purple flowers.

Looking back on it, I now believe that God had not forsaken me after all. On that particular night, he was definitely paying attention.

Loneliness

Chapter Twenty-seven

Carla

I never did tell Gladys about how Seth cashed in his life insurance policy and left us with nothing but his personal belongings, because I couldn’t bear to tarnish her memory of Seth as a brave mountain climber and devoted father. Nor did I want her to know how Kaleigh and I had been struggling over the past few years—because there was nothing she could do about it anyway. She wasn’t any better off than we were.

On one particular night as I lay in bed tossing and turning, feeling guilty about my anger towards Seth on so many different occasions, I came to a decision that I would ask my boss if I could be considered for full-time work at the bank. Maybe I could even work my way up to a clerk’s position. I already knew the bank’s daily operations inside out, and I certainly needed the money.

I felt good about that decision because I believed it was important to take the initiative in difficult situations and not simply drift along in the current. To have a goal would help.

Nevertheless, I was still unable to sleep. Though I’d cranked the heat up full blast, there was an inescapable chill in the air that night, so I slid out of bed, donned my slippers and fuzzy robe, and went to the kitchen to make a cup of hot chamomile tea.

While I waited in the silence for the kettle to boil on the stove, I stared at the kitchen wall and tried to recall happier times with Seth. I thought about the day we walked to the Public Garden and went for a ride on the swan boats. That was probably our best day. I was so in love with him back then, bursting with hope and optimism. I truly believed he would stay and we would become a real family. Oh, how I’d wanted it to be so.

The kettle boiled and I turned around to pour the steaming hot water into my oversized mug, then took hold of the string and dipped the tea bag up and down.

What a pleasure it was to make tea on a cold night like this.

When it was fully steeped, I moved into the living room and sat on the sofa to watch some late night television.

Mindlessly, I flicked through the channels, then settled on
The Tonight Show
.

As I cupped the warm mug in my hands and blew on it to cool it, a strange feeling came over me.

Sometimes I swore I could feel him out there in the cold, and I felt the chill inside myself. It was a strange feeling because in my heart I knew Seth was gone, but sometimes I still felt
something
—as if he were calling to me, or as if
I
was the one who was lost out there, lonely and shivering in the frigid, unforgiving North.

Why was I feeling this way? Was it possible Seth
wasn’t
dead? What if he was still out there somewhere, surviving and praying to be rescued? What if he was hurt?

Suddenly I was overcome by a terrible sense of loneliness and didn’t know how to fix it. The tension made my jaw ache and I laid a hand on my cheek, stroking the pain gently away.

The Tonight Show
continued, but I was barely able to focus on the opening monologue. I kept thinking of that one perfect day in the park when everything was so lush and green. When I felt it was possible that my husband would stay. I replayed those memories over and over in my mind.

A house on a lake, with purple flowers…

Moving On

Chapter Twenty-eight

Carla

Six months after we held the memorial service for Seth, Jane—one of the temps at the bank where I now worked full-time—expressed her condolences over my loss, then immediately asked if she could fix me up with her older brother, who was widowed as well.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not ready for anything like that.”

Though it was true that Seth hadn’t been gone that long, I had essentially been separated from him for quite some time before his plane went down, and for years had considered myself single. So, why I didn’t feel ready to date, I’m not sure.

I’d always imagined I would love again someday, ever since it became likely that Seth was not coming home to us and I would eventually divorce.

I also imagined that the person who would come into my life would be decent and reliable, a family man who would appreciate the love he had at home and not take it for granted. For once I wanted to be someone’s whole world, and I wanted that someone’s passion to be for Kaleigh and me, not some mountain on the other side of the world. Was that too much to ask?

Those were fantasies, I knew, but how could I ever expect any of it to come true if I kept refusing even to go out on a date? Who was I being faithful to? No one. There was no one in my life now. It was time to stop acting like I was in a relationship.

“I apologize,” Jane said awkwardly as she sat down on the stool at her teller station next to mine. “I shouldn’t have suggested it.”

“No worries,” I assured her. “I think I just need to get my head around the idea of starting over. Tell me about your brother.”

Since it was quiet in the bank and there were no customers, Jane was able to tell me that he was forty-seven years old, incredibly fit and good looking. “Imagine Matt Damon,” she said. “But not like Jason Bourne. He’s like the guy in the zoo movie.”

That sounded promising.

“He has two grown children,” Jane continued, “who are both in grad school, and he works for the IRS. But don’t let his job scare you. He’s lots of fun and has a great sense of humor. He loves movies and enjoys eating out. Makes his own wine.”

“He sounds like a great guy,” I said. “I’m surprised he hasn’t been snapped up.”

She rolled her eyes. “Unfortunately, women throw themselves at him all the time. I don’t know what it is about handsome widowers. He’s like catnip for every woman he talks to. They all want to bring him casseroles and clean his house. I can’t stand it and neither can he. He doesn’t like rejecting people.”

I laughed. “It doesn’t sound like that bad of a situation.”

Jane shrugged. “No, I guess not, but I’d just like to see him end up with a woman who doesn’t have an agenda.” Then she pointed a finger at me. “I love the fact that you said you weren’t ready. You’re just what he needs, because he says the same thing to me all the time.”

A customer came in and I took his deposit.

“Maybe the best thing would be to talk to us both again when we
are
ready,” I said to Jane after the customer left the bank.

“When will that be?” she asked.

I thought about it for a moment, then let out a sigh. “I don’t know. I must need therapy.”

Jane reached over and squeezed my hand.

o0o

That night when I dropped Kaleigh off at the rink, the coach saw me in my car and waved me over. She asked me to come inside for a chat in the office.

My stomach lurched as I pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. Closing my eyes, I let my forehead rest on the steering wheel, then gathered my courage and got out.

A few minutes later I knocked on her open door.

“Hi Carla,” she coolly said. “Come in and have a seat.”

I moved to the chair in front of the desk, but she remained standing.