The Color of a Dream by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online Page A

said that. What do you want,
Angela? Why are you calling?”
    And that’s when she dropped the bomb.
    * * *
    “You’re what ?” I slowly stood up.
    “I’m pregnant,” she said. “And I need your
help.”
    “Why would you need my help?” I
asked. “Because that baby can’t be mine.”
    Or could it? Had she already been pregnant
when she left me?
    No, that wasn’t possible. Rick would have
told me.
    Or maybe not.
    “No, of course not. It’s Rick’s,” she said.
“There’s no doubt about that. He’s the only one.”
    The only one . The words were like a
knife in my gut and I had to force myself to relax my shoulders and
breathe.
    “What do you want from me?” I asked as I
closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the doorjamb.
    She paused. “I’m hoping you’ll talk to Rick
for me because he doesn’t want me to have the baby.”
    I opened my eyes. “What do you mean, he
doesn’t want you to have it? Does he want you to have an
abortion?”
    “Yes.”
    The anger I felt initially—when I first
heard her voice on the other end of the line—began to recede. It
was replaced by something else. I’m not sure what exactly because I
was distracted by logistics and a long list of questions.
    “How far along are you?” I asked.
    “About six weeks.”
    I sat down again. “Explain this to me,
Angela. Do you want to have an abortion?”
    “No. I want to have the baby. I tried
talking to Rick but he won’t budge. He says he’s not ready for kids
and he wants to get his career going first. You know… I think I
would find it easier to go through with an abortion if I had a ring
on my finger, but he’s not ready for that either.”
    “You mean to say…you’d agree to have the
abortion if he proposed to you?”
    This made no sense to me, and I began to
feel as if I might have dodged a bullet when Angela dumped me.
    “Yes,” she said, “because at least then I’d
know there would be other children. But right now, I’m not sure
about our future. He doesn’t seem ready to commit.”
    I hate to say I told you so…
    Leaning an elbow on the table, I cupped my
forehead in a hand. “What do you want me to do about it,
Angela?”
    Did she actually think I would call Rick and
try to talk him into marrying her?
    “Could you talk to him for me?” she asked.
“Could you get him to let me have this baby?”
    I took my hand away from my face.
“ Let you have it?” Now I was angry. “It’s not up to him,” I
said. “It’s your body. He can’t force you to have an
abortion if you don’t want to.”
    “But he said he wouldn’t be happy if I had
the baby. I’m afraid I might lose him if I don’t do what he
wants.”
    Oh, God. Was she really saying this?
    “Then go ahead and lose him,” I said. “If
you want to have this baby, kick Rick to the curb because he won’t
be there for you either way. And he certainly doesn’t deserve your
devotion. I warned you when you left here that he wouldn’t be
there, not like I would have been. You know that I would have never
forced you into…”
    I stopped myself because we couldn’t go
back. Even if we could, I wouldn’t want to. It was too late. But I
didn’t want to see Angela crushed by Rick’s selfishness, either.
I’d loved her once and nothing would ever change that.
    I realized she was crying. Part of me wanted
to comfort her, to take her into my arms and tell her everything
was going to be okay, but I couldn’t do that. We were on opposite
sides of the country, and more importantly she was pregnant with my
brother’s child.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she
said. “I can’t raise this baby alone and I’ll die if he leaves
me.”
    “You won’t die,” I told her. “You’re a
strong woman. You’ll be just fine.”
    She continued to weep into the phone. “I
want to have the baby. I really do.”
    “Then tell him that.”
    We sat in silence for a long time. I
listened to her blow her nose.
    At last she spoke. “Okay. I