The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time (3 page)

I chuckled and rubbed her arm. “It’s lucky you didn’t slip when you were at the top with the hose in your hand.”

“You’re right,” she replied. “And let that be a lesson to you. No matter how bad it is, it could always be worse.”

“Very true,” I agreed with a laugh. “But really Gram, in the future, you need to ask for help for things like that.”

“I don’t have much choice about it, now,” she replied grumpily. “The doctor says it’ll take a few months for me to get back on my feet. A few
months!
He says I’ll have to use a walker for a while and go to physiotherapy appointments. I won’t mind the physio. It’ll just take the place of my Zumba class. But I think he’s just trying to intimidate me. You know, he suggested I
not
have the surgery, just because I’m eighty-six.”

“I didn’t realize you had a choice,” I replied.

“I didn’t! Unless I was willing to spend the rest of my days sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home. I told him
that
wasn’t happening.”

I chuckled again. “Good for you, Gram. Any woman of eighty-six who’s capable of cleaning her own gutters deserves to be treated with a little respect.”

“Damn straight!”

I laughed and kissed her hand.

“How’s Gordon?” she asked. “Did you feed him?”

“I did, and he’s just fine, but missing you. He’ll be glad when you can come home.”

“So will I. You know, they say they’ll be getting me out of bed and walking in a day or two.”

“They don’t waste any time, do they?”

“They certainly don’t. But I suppose, at my age, every minute counts.”

Gram closed her eyes and lay back down on the pillow. I sat quietly for a moment, not wanting to tire her out.

“It was so good of you to come, Sylvie,” she said after a short rest. “So very generous. I hope it will be better for you this time.”

Something shivered in all my nerve endings. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know,” she replied with a note of compassion. “It’s never easy for you to come here. Memories can sometimes be…
a burden
.”

I thought about that as I recalled my dream and how disheartened I’d felt when it began to fade and Ethan was gone. I had been carrying that so-called burden for many years.

While Gram closed her eyes again and rested, I wondered if I wasn’t as “over this” as I’d thought I was, because all I wanted to do now was go home, fall asleep and return to the dream and the happiness I’d felt there.

Was that even possible? I had seen a documentary once about lucid dreaming, where the subject was consciously aware he was asleep and could control what happened in his dream world.

That must have been the kind of dream I’d had that morning, because it felt so real, yet I’d understood that it wasn’t. I worried, however, that if I could control what happened in my dreams, I might want to go to sleep and remain in that state forever.

Chapter Seven

That night, I returned to Gram’s house and was greeted by Gordon who purred and rubbed up against my legs at the door. First I picked him up, snuggled with him, and fed him. Then I couldn’t help myself. I opened my laptop at the kitchen table and googled “Lucid Dreams.”

What I found surprised me. There were dozens of websites devoted to the “science” of lucid dreaming. It was described as a state of REM where the dreamer is consciously aware that he or she is dreaming and can control what occurs. Some sites provided in-depth, step-by-step instructions on how to master your dreams and achieve an exhilarating feeling of freedom and empowerment—for there are no boundaries in dreams, no social or physical restrictions to impede any experience.

As I recalled the thrill I’d felt that morning after dreaming I’d returned to my youth and spent time with my grandparents and Ethan, I grew more curious about learning how to control these vivid hallucinations during sleep.

I spent more than an hour researching the subject online and eventually stumbled upon another phenomenon called
astral projection
, which was described as an actual out-of-body experience where the soul could leave the physical body and travel to other spiritual realms.

Feeling a bit creeped out, I decided to take a break, so I rose from my chair to make a cup of herbal tea.

I was just setting the kettle on the stove when my cell phone vibrated. I picked it up off the counter and discovered it was my sister, Jenn.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me. How’s Gram doing?” she asked.

“Better today,” I replied as I turned the knob on the stove. “They plan to get her out of bed and walking tomorrow.”

“Wow. That soon?”

“Yeah. She’ll probably be discharged within a week.”

“I’m amazed,” Jenn replied, “but I suppose she always was a trooper. How about you? Are
you
holding up okay?”

“Of course,” I said, offering no more information than that, because I could just picture Jenn pacing around her kitchen, wondering if I was falling apart yet.

“Do you have any idea how long you’ll be staying?” she asked. “I mean, how long will it be before Gram is able to manage on her own?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “It’ll be a few weeks at least. Maybe a month. The nurse told me she won’t be able to climb stairs easily, so I’ll probably set up a bed for her on the ground floor until she’s more mobile.”

Jenn paused. “I’m glad you’re there to take care of her. You know how much we all love her.”

“Of course I do.” We were both quiet for a moment. I reached for the box of tea bags in the cupboard and opened it.

Somewhat cautiously, Jenn asked, “So you don’t mind…you know…being back there?”

I froze with the tea bag dangling from the string, drew in a deep breath, and finally dropped it into the mug.

“It’s actually nice being here,” I assured her. “I think enough time has passed.”

It was partly a lie, of course. Jenn didn’t say anything right away and I suspected she didn’t believe me, which only made sense. She knew me too well.

But still… Did no one have
any
confidence in me?

Aside from the lucid dreaming thing this morning, hadn’t I proved I’d grown stronger over the past year? I’d made a lot of changes in my life—for the better. I’d left my sleazy job at the bar, had gone back to school and graduated at the top of my class. I hadn’t dated any alcoholic losers or married men in over a year. Now I was here, back in Portland, taking care of Gram. I thought I deserved a pat on the back.

With that still on my mind, I probably shouldn’t have steered the conversation in the direction I did. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” my sister replied.

“Have you ever had a lucid dream?”

She took a moment to think about it. “I’m not sure. What is it…like when you’re half-awake or something?”

“You’re not exactly
awake
,” I explained, “but you’re sort of conscious. It’s when you’re dreaming, but you’re
aware
that you’re dreaming and you can control what happens.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. You could leap off a mountain and go flying if you wanted to, or travel anywhere, go through walls.”

Jenn’s voice became animated. “I think I have had a few of those, but they never last very long. As soon as I realize I’m dreaming, I wake up. Why? Did you have one?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “This morning. I think it must have been the jet lag or something, because it felt unbelievably real. I just wish I could have kept it going longer.”

“What did you dream about?” she asked.

Because Jenn often criticized me for clinging to the past, I decided to steer around the important part of the question. “I dreamed that Grampy was still alive and Gram was cooking breakfast for me, just like old times. I was young again.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know… In my teens.”

Sixteen to be exact.

Jenn fell silent again. “Did you dream about anything else?”

I probably should have told her the truth because obviously she suspected it, but I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture that ended with: ‘I don’t know why you keep torturing yourself, Sylvie. You shouldn’t even go there. Just let it go.’

“No, that was all,” I replied.

We chatted about a few other things and she told me about a cute little outfit she’d just purchased for her baby. Then I promised I’d call the next day, and we hung up.

Right away, I sat down to read more about “How to Master Your Dreams,” because something very powerful was pulling me to try it again.

Chapter Eight

According to what I’d read on the web, there were a number of different strategies a person could employ to bring about a state of lucid dreaming. Some recommendations included keeping a dream journal, exercising specialized methods of meditation, or making a habit of doing repetitive reality checks during the day—checks that would eventually spill over into your dreams. One site recommended staring at the palms of your hands before bed and planning what you were going to dream about.

I tried that trick before I went to sleep, just to see what would happen. For a full ten minutes, I stared at my palms, then I rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I attempted to begin a new dream by imagining myself back in that memorable summer of my sixteenth year. I thought about what sort of person I was then, and how I had come to know Ethan.

* * *

Ethan Foster was not the sort of boy I’d ever imagined I’d end up with. Not because he was trouble. To the contrary, he was the most beautiful person I’d ever laid eyes on—in a masculine way, of course. He was tall and broad shouldered with washboard abs and a perfect tan. His wavy hair was golden brown, his eyes, deep green and long lashed. Jenn, who was thirteen at the time, said he looked like he belonged on a
Calvin Klein
billboard in Times Square. I couldn’t disagree.

On top of all that, his parents were filthy rich. His father was a former Wall Street banking executive who became CEO of some high-tech company I can’t remember the name of. His parents were always flying off in a private jet to Switzerland, Hong Kong or Dubai.

Ethan’s family owned a penthouse apartment in New York City and spent summers at their second home in Cape Elizabeth, just outside Portland. It was a white-painted Palladian style mansion with Greek columns and a gigantic veranda that overlooked the sea that lay beyond a sprawling, sloping green lawn.

The first time I’d met Ethan, I had no notion of any of that. All I saw was a hot guy in shorts who was arguing with his equally hot girlfriend on a summer afternoon, during a crowded festival downtown. A band was playing on one of the rooftop patios and a street parade had just finished. It was boiling hot and Jenn and I were on our own, wandering in and out of the Exchange Street shops. We’d stopped to buy popsicles from an ice cream truck parked at the intersection and couldn’t help but hear the shouting in the lineup behind us. It was mostly the girl, who seemed very aggressive.

“I don’t know what your problem is,” she spat. “It’s just a party. Everyone’s going to be there.”

“I’m not in the mood,” the guy said, directly behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder to get a look at them in my peripheral vision. The guy was standing unsettlingly close to me. He practically spoke in my ear.

The girl shoved him and he bumped into me.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No problem,” I replied, and shared a playfully scandalized look with Jenn, who appeared more than a little unnerved by the whole situation.

“You just don’t want to go because Jeff will be there,” the girl said.

“It has nothing to do with Jeff,” he replied.

“Yes, it does, and you know it. You can’t stand Jeff because he came on to me that time.”

Still listening discreetly over my shoulder, I was aware of the guy letting out a resigned sigh. “I really don’t care.”

“Oh? You don’t
care
?” she shouted. “Is that how it is? Then maybe I should give Jeff my phone number tonight. Would you care
then
?”

“Do whatever you want,” the guy replied with a clear note of indifference.

I shut my eyes and shook my head because I knew he shouldn’t have said that. It was the sort of thing that would set that girl off like a firecracker.

Sure enough, she shoved him again and he bumped into me. A second time.

“Geez, relax, Corrine,” he scolded. “You’re making a scene.”

“I don’t care!” she ranted.

Poor Jenn was white as a sheet by that point. She took hold of my hand and squeezed it.

The outraged girl backed out of the line. “That’s it, Ethan! I’m done with you! You wouldn’t know a good thing if it bit you in the ass. I’m leaving!”

Ethan folded his arms across his chest, ignored her and faced forward. I felt his anger and frustration like a hot radiator, three inches from my back.

“Seriously?” the girl shouted from the middle of the street, spreading her arms wide. Everyone in the lineup turned to look at her, including Jenn and me. “You’re just going to let me go? You’re not going to say anything or try to stop me? Because I promise you Ethan, this is it. It’s the end. No second chances.”