The Color of Heaven (The Color of Heaven Series)

by Julianne MacLean

  I loved him so much.

  I will never regret it.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Matt and I stayed in his Chicago apartment for three days before the date of his surgery.

  I won’t describe those days, except to say that we enjoyed each other immensely and made the most of every moment. We laughed and cried, watched television and played cards. We went out to eat and ordered in.

  He showed me the box of manuscripts he had hidden away in his closet. I read his short stories and the novel he had finally finished. I made him promise to submit it to a publisher when he recovered, because I was quite certain it was the greatest novel of all time, though I admit that I may have been biased. Everything about Matt was perfect in my eyes. To me, he was a work of art, but I suppose that’s how love feels.

  I called my parents as well, and told them everything.

  Well, almost everything. There are certain things you just don’t share with your mother.

  I let them know that Matt would have the tumor removed on November 17 at 6pm.

  My mother then told me that Peter had come to the house to ask about me. He was very angry. They couldn’t blame him, and they did their best to talk him through his pain.

  I apologized to my parents, but told them it could be no other way, because Matt was the one I loved.

  In the end, they wished me well and promised to pray for him.

  o0o

  On Sunday night, Matt was admitted to the hospital so they could run tests and prepare him for the surgery, which would last approximately six hours.

  On Monday morning, a nurse shaved his head. He couldn’t eat or drink all day, and he had to have X-rays and blood work.

  Gordon arrived around noon and told us he would stay in Chicago as long as we needed him while Matt recovered.

  Their father called shortly after Gordon arrived and spoke to Matt for a few minutes. He wished him luck and promised to visit him the next day.

  Privately, I thought of their mother and wished she were alive to be here with us at Matt’s bedside, but she had been gone a long time.

  Matt mentioned her when he hung up the phone. He looked at Gordon and said, “I really miss Mom.”

  Gordon nodded and said, “I’m sure she’s here.”

  We all sat very quietly.

  o0o

  Later, I flipped through the pages of a magazine while the nurses puttered about. It was all an act of course—the way I sat so casually. I had no interest in the magazine. My brain was on high alert, listening to everything, watching everything. My heart was burning with terror and dread. I couldn’t eat or drink either.

  Why was this happening? I wondered bitterly. All I wanted was for Matt to be healthy, to come out of the surgery with a positive prognosis. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I would have sacrificed everything—my family, my education—in exchange for the success of that operation.

  It was not up to me, however.

  I knew it, even then.

  Fate had its own designs, and part of that design was about to knock me flat on my back. An hour before Matt was scheduled for the OR, the most unexpected thing happened.

  I look back on it now with gratitude. At the time, however, I was concerned.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Sensing that Gordon needed some time alone with Matt, I rose from my chair and offered to get us each a cup of coffee.

  A moment later, purse in hand, I went to the elevator and pressed the button. As the doors slid open in front of me, I took a step back, for I found myself staring into the eyes of the man I had just jilted.

  Peter frowned at me. I suppose he was shocked to find me standing there, as if I’d known he was coming.

  What was he doing here? I wondered. Had he come to talk me out of ending our relationship? To win me back?

  Or had he come to confront Matt about stealing me away?

  Rage pounded through me. I had only one hour left with Matt before he would be taken to the OR, and I wasn’t about to let Peter take that precious time away. Whatever he wanted, it would have to wait.

  The doors started to close, and we both realized that neither of us had moved or spoken. Quickly, he hopped off and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, glancing over his shoulder with a mild look of irritation.

  “Peter, if you’ve come here to fight with me or challenge Matt, now’s not the time,” I said. “They’re taking him to surgery in an hour.”

  “I know.” He looked down at the floor and shook his head. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  My anger subsided as I watched him shift his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.

  “Then why are you here?” I asked.

  His eyes lifted, and I realized that what I had first perceived as anger was something else entirely. It was concern.

  “I thought you could use a friend today,” he said.

  The whole world disappeared for a moment, then I could do nothing but step into his arms and hold him close.

  o0o

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Peter said, as I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “But I’d like to see Matt if that’s okay. It’s been a long time.”

  “Of course,” I replied. “He’s just down the hall.” All thoughts of coffee left my mind as we walked together to Matt’s room. “Don’t be too surprised when you see him. He’s lost a bit of weight and the nurses shaved his head this morning. He won’t look like the Matt you remember.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I just want to wish him luck.” We stopped outside the door and Peter turned to me. “Maybe later you and I can talk about some things.”

  “Of course.”

  I knocked on Matt’s open door and entered, then gestured toward Peter, who walked in behind me. “Look who’s here,” I said, laboring to sound cheerful.

  Matt took one look at Peter, and his eyes glistened with wetness. He struggled to sit up. “My God. Look at you. Come on in.”

  Peter approached the bed and bent forward to hug Matt. I had to fight against another powerful onslaught of tears.

  “You’re not here to punch my lights out I hope,” Matt joked. “It wouldn’t be too difficult, under the circumstances.”

  We all laughed awkwardly. It wasn’t an easy situation.

  “No, I came to wish you luck. It’s going to be a long surgery, I hear.”

  Matt filled the awkward silence with an explanation about how they were going to drill into his skull, remove the tumor, and put everything back together afterward. He described some of the risks, then asked about Pete’s family, and how work was going at the pulp and paper plant.

  When another strained lull in the conversation arose, Matt looked at me. “Cora, would you give Peter and me a minute? I need to say a few things.”

  “Of course.” But I couldn’t seem to move my feet.

  Gordon was at my side instantly. “We’ll go get that coffee now,” he said, as he led me out of the room.

  We didn’t leave the floor, however. I, for one, wasn’t about to spend ten minutes lined up in the cafeteria. Gordon felt the same. All we did was stroll up and down the wide corridor, waiting for a reasonable amount of time to pass before we could return.

  I wondered what Matt was saying to Peter, and suspected he was apologizing for stealing me away, and for deserting us in high school when he became friends with Doug Jones.

  I had not forgotten the list of regrets Matt had told me about the first time he came to see me at Wellesley, and was quite sure he was ticking this one off, too.

  He was making things right.

  o0o

  Peter left Matt’s room a few minutes later and found us by the nurses’ station. “Thank you,” he said, “for letting me see him. I’d like to stick around if you don’t mind. I’m going to grab some coffee now, but I’ll find you in the waiting room later. He told me what floor he’d be on for the surgery. I’ll sit with you, if you like?”

  I touched his arm. “That woul
d be nice.”

  I watched Peter get on the elevator, then hurried back to Matt’s room.

  Gordon didn’t follow.

  Chapter Forty-six

  A nurse was taking Matt’s blood pressure when I entered the room, so I waited quietly at his bedside, holding his hand.

  He looked at me with playful, sexy eyes, and we shared a private chuckle at the strangeness of all this. We were young, passionate lovers, but here we were, mucking our way through blood work, brain seizures, and the terrifying notion of dying early in life during a complicated and dangerous surgery, now only minutes away.

  As soon as the nurse left the room, I lowered the bedrail and climbed onto the mattress next to him. He put his arm around me. I laid my head on his shoulder.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I touched his lips with the pad of my finger and said, “Of course it will, and I’m going to be right here when you wake up.”

  Leaning up on an elbow, he pressed his lips to mine and reminded me of how virile he was, despite these unthinkable circumstances. If not for the fact that a nurse could walk in at any moment, we would have made love, for we were both aroused. We understood the meaning of self-restraint, however, and laughed about the inconvenient IV line that was blocking our intentions, and the constant noise outside the door.

  Eventually we gave up on the possibility of messing around like a couple of teenagers, and simply held each other.

  “I’m glad you came to find me,” I told him. “These past few weeks have been the happiest of my life.” I rested my chin on his chest and looked up at him. “And all those years together in Camden… We were just kids, but it always felt like more. Now you’re here with me again, and I don’t ever want to be apart.”

  “We won’t be. You’ve given me something to fight for, Cora. I want to be with you, so I’m going to make it through this, and tomorrow we’ll start making plans.”

  I managed a pained smile and fought hard to believe him. I just had to. The alternative was unthinkable.

  “I love you,” he whispered, as he kissed my forehead and held me close. “I’ve said it before, but I need to say it again. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to marry you, Cora. I hope you’ll say yes.”

  My eyes filled with tears. “Of course I will. I’m saying it right now. Yes.”

  Just then, three nurses marched into the room. One of them started clapping her hands. “All right you two love birds. Break it up. This isn’t a hotel room.”

  I laughed as I wiped a tear from my face, slid off the bed and rose to my feet.

  “It’s time to go now,” another said. “We’re going to wheel you to surgery and take very good care of you. I promise you that.”

  She met my gaze directly. “You can follow us and keep holding his hand until we reach the OR doors. Then you’ll have to wait outside.”

  I took hold of Matt’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll be there the whole time.”

  o0o

  Peter was sitting outside the OR in the waiting area, blowing on his hot coffee. I paused a moment to watch him—he hadn’t noticed me yet—and wondered what I had done to deserve such kindness from him.

  In my own mind, I had always denied him what he wanted most—my complete and utter devotion. Even my virginity I had given to Matt without hesitation after barely more than a week, and I wondered if Peter somehow knew it. Could he sense it, or see it in my eyes?

  He looked up at that moment and smiled at me, and all my fears faded away. No, he didn’t know how far Matt and I had gone. He was completely unaware.

  “How are you doing?” he asked, when I sat down next to him.

  “As well as can be expected.” I checked my watch and counted forward six hours. “But I think it’s going to be a very long night.”

  I was surprised when he touched my hand. “Yeah, but you’ll get through it, Cora. He’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

  I hoped so. I really hoped so.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Peter, Gordon and I sat together in silence for a long time. Peter read the newspaper while I tried to read a magazine, but eventually I tossed it aside because I couldn’t concentrate on the pictures or words. All I could do was stare at the wall and wrestle with my fears, or think back on all the special moments Matt and I had spent together.

  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’ll say yes.

  After a while, I stood up to stretch my legs and wandered around the waiting room, strolled 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. All I wanted was for Matt to push through those swinging doors at the end of the hall, walk toward me with a smile, and say that it was all over and everything was going to be fine.

  I leaned against the wall 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 wall. “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 really 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 swallowed over the lump of despair that was rising in my throat. “I’m sorry, Peter. I cared about you very much, and I still 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 really sorry that this is happening.”

  I took a moment to digest all 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. “Well… 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 Wellesley.”

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

  I pushed away from the wall 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 small smile when Peter inclined his head and shrugged apologetically.

  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. Really. I want you to be happy. That’s all.”

  I pulled him into my arms and hugged him. “I want you to be happy, too. I know you will 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 will be.”

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

  “So that’s all 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. “Tell 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 really hope he makes it.”

  Chapter Forty-eight