The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online Page B

least not that I was aware of.
    “Did you get out?” I asked Gordon. “I suppose you were outside chasing mice?”
    He purred as I scratched behind his ears. Then I glanced around uneasily, wondering if someone had indeed come inside. Mrs. Cassidy perhaps? But that couldn’t be. She had given me her only key.
    Tiptoeing quietly into the kitchen, I looked around for signs of an unexpected intruder or any other clues to suggest someone had been inside the house while I was asleep. With Gordon in my arms, I searched both floors from top to bottom, and even descended to the musty basement, but nothing seemed out of order or missing.
    “Maybe I forgot to close the door all the way,” I said to Gordon as I put him down on the kitchen floor. “Maybe the wind blew it open.”
    He continued to purr and rub up against my legs.
    “Are you hungry?” I opened the refrigerator door and withdrew a carton of milk. I poured some in a saucer and watched him lap it up at my feet.
    Then I glanced at my laptop on the table and recalled my research on lucid dreaming. I remembered trying to fall asleep with memories of Ethan, but I couldn’t seem to recall if I’d simply replayed everything in my mind before drifting off, or if I’d actually dreamed it. I was confused and muddled. It felt as if my brain were full of cotton.
    On top of that, I was heartbroken all over again. As I recalled the tragic end to that incredible summer—and thought about what had happened the following year—I had to sit down and take a breath to steady my nerves.
    Later, when I got in the shower, I was further unnerved when a narrow stream of dirt slid down the drain, which could only have come from the bottoms of my feet.

Chapter Fifteen

    “Can I ask you a question, Gram?” I said as I rolled the bedside table toward her. “How’s the lock on your front door?”
    She adjusted the tray to her liking and reached for the bowl of Jell-O. “What do you mean? Are you having trouble with it?”
    “Not exactly, but when I woke up this morning the door was open, so I’m wondering if the latch is loose, or if I didn’t close it tightly enough last night.”
    “Open!” she replied in shock. “You were upstairs sleeping the whole time?”
    “I was on the sofa, actually. I fell asleep watching TV.” I decided not to mention that I had been staring at a fake fire and might have walked in my sleep out her front door. I still couldn’t explain it myself and wasn’t sure what had happened.
    “Did Gordon get out?”
    “I don’t know, but he was there, sitting in his favorite spot on top of the piano, at dawn when I woke up.”
    “He thinks he’s a guard cat,” she informed me, “but he’s not. You’re lucky some crazed hoodlum didn’t walk in and try to steal my good silverware.”
    “I doubt that’s what today’s hoodlums are looking for, Gram. They’d be more interested in that giant flat screen TV of yours.”
    “And what would they do with it?” she demanded to know. “Lug it down the street?”
    “Probably,” I laughed. “Thieves are bold these days.”
    She nodded in agreement and finished eating her Jell-O.
    “Can I ask you another question, Gram?”
    “Of course, sweetheart.”
    I looked down at my hands in my lap and tried to figure out what, exactly, I wanted to know.
    “Do you know much about what happened after that first summer I spent with Ethan? I mean…did you ever talk to Mom and Dad about my…” I stopped, because I couldn’t bring myself to speak the word out loud.
    Gram’s eyes lifted and she set her empty bowl on the tray. “Are you talking about your abortion?”
    I inhaled deeply, relieved that she was willing to be blunt. “So you did know.”
    She reached for my hand. “Yes, I knew. Your grandfather and I felt very guilty about it, since we were the ones responsible for you that summer. The whole thing was so hard on your parents.”
    “It was hard on me, too.”
    “I’m sure it was. You were young