The Color of a Memory (The Color of Heaven Series) (16 page)

So here I sat on the sofa, sipping an extra-large cup of coffee while Wendy bounced and danced on the carpet to The Wiggles.

“Hot potato, hot potato…”

Oh, to have that much energy again.

The phone rang and I realized I had more energy than I thought. I practically dove across the sofa to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hi Audrey. It’s David.”

My heart came alive, because there were still so many unanswered questions in my mind, and David was my best hope to resolve them. “Hey,” I said.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked. “Is the room spinning?”

I laughed. “A little bit, yeah. Though I’m not sure if it’s the hangover or the fact that Wendy is watching
The Wiggles
right now. Boy, that’s one colorful TV show.”

“The music’s kind of addictive, isn’t it?” he replied. “I watched it once with my nephew and I couldn’t get that “Rock-A-Bye Your Bear” song out of my head for days. Seriously, I lost sleep, and I still know every word.”

“They’re musical geniuses.” Raising my coffee to my lips, I took another sip.

“Have you ever taken Wendy to see them perform live?” David asked. “You should, next time they’re in New York.”

“She’d love that,” I replied.

He was quiet for a moment, and I sipped my coffee while The Wiggles continued to sing.

“I can’t help wondering why you’re calling,” I finally said, wanting to give David a nudge—though I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he might say. Not if it concerned Alex and his personal emails on the station computer. But I knew I had to face it.

“I came in early,” he told me, “to check through some old files.”

“Thanks for doing that,” I replied. “Did you find anything?”

He let out a sigh. “Sorry. Everything was purged awhile back so I couldn’t get at Alex’s emails, but I did ask the chief whether or not he’d been taking a course to upgrade his certification. The chief had no record of it.”

Though I wasn’t surprised to hear that, it still felt like a punch in the stomach. I tipped my head back onto the sofa cushion. “I appreciate you telling me.” I couldn’t seem to form any other words.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I swallowed hard over a lump in my throat. “I’m not sure. I just wish he’d told me the truth or I had probed a little harder when he started acting differently. I suggested he go see a doctor, but that was it. I just let it go. Now I’ll never get the chance to talk to him about it.”

“I’m sorry, Audrey,” David said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“Don’t apologize. You’ve been wonderful. I just have to figure out where to go from here. Do I just let it lie and try to forget about it, focus on the good stuff? Or do I keep digging?”

I could hear the familiar sounds of the fire station in the background—voices of the other men laughing about something.

“Do you want my opinion?” David asked.

“Of course.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to live without knowing the truth. You’ll go mad.”

I nodded. “You’re probably right. But the only person who would have the answers I need is Carla, and how in the world am I supposed to find her? All we had to go on was her email address but that no longer exists. I’d love to hire a private investigator but I can’t afford it.”

“I’ll help you,” David said. “There’s got to be a way. First off, didn’t you and Alex get into the vintage car scene when you were working on your Mustang? I remember him mentioning going to a car rally once.”

I sat up. “Yes, and we went into a few chat rooms looking for answers to some questions.”

“Do you remember the sites?” David asked. “Maybe Vintage Car Chick is still around, chatting up other women’s husbands.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re bad.” But then my smile faded as I thought about that. “When do you think they got together? I mean…if she told him she was pregnant the week before he died, obviously they must have been together months before that. I can’t bear to think about it.”

“Then, don’t,” David said. “You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“And how do we know it’s even Alex’s kid?” I asked. “What if she was sleeping around?”

“That’s a good point, and you can prove anything these days through a simple DNA test,” David replied, “if it comes to that.”

“That’s good to know. But if Alex really was the father of her child, why didn’t she come forward and try to contact us after he died? She might have been able to sue for a portion of his estate and get child support. He didn’t have a lot of insurance, but he did have some.”

David considered that. “These are all valid questions you need answered. We have to keep digging.”

I liked how he said “we.” It made me feel less alone. Less crazy.

“I need to get back to work now,” he said, “but I’ll come by later if you want. I have some ideas about where we can start looking.”

“I’d love that, thank you, and will you stay for supper? I promise it won’t be mac ’n’ cheese.”

“A home cooked meal?” he replied. “I can’t say no to that.”

We hung up, and by some coincidence, the “Rock-a-bye Your Bear” song came on
The Wiggles
Show
. I sang along with Wendy and realized I knew every word, too.

Chapter Forty

After taking care of all the prep work for dinner, I took Wendy outside to play until David arrived. On that particular afternoon, there were some other children on the structure and she was quick, as always, to make friends. Two mothers stood on the far side of the park, deeply engaged in conversation.

I sat alone on the bench, keeping an eye out for David on the street. Before long he pulled up in a shiny new silver Hyundai Tucson and got out.

“David!” I called. “We’re over here!”

He spotted me, waited for a car to pass, then jogged across the street. Dressed in faded blue jeans and a gray cotton button-down shirt, he sat down on the bench beside me.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m all right. You?”

“I’m good. It was a quiet day at work, and that’s always a good thing.” I felt his gaze on me as I smiled and clapped for Wendy, who came squealing down the big swirly slide.

“You look better today,” he mentioned.

I slid a playful glance his way. “Compared to last night? That’s probably not saying much. I apologize if I was a drunken slob.”

He chuckled. “Hey, don’t apologize. You were funny.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than pathetic,” I cheerfully replied.

He patted my knee, then shouted a cheer for Wendy when she coasted down the slide again. We watched her for a few minutes, then I crossed my legs and rested my arm along the back of the bench.

“You know…” I said, feeling as if there was so much to say, “I’ve been thinking about everything since yesterday, and I’m at least glad this is happening now, two years after losing Alex. Wendy and I have managed to get used to living without him—practically anyway—and the wounds aren’t quite so raw. If I’d found out about this a year ago, it would have been a lot tougher.”

He watched Wendy with a wistful expression. “It’s never easy to lose someone you love,” he said, “but time is the best healer.”

I regarded him curiously. “Have you ever lost someone? Besides Alex, I mean?”

“Yeah,” he said. “My mom died five years ago. She got sick, and it happened pretty quickly.”

“What was wrong with her, if you don’t mind my asking?”

David kept his eyes fixed on Wendy who was now scrambling up the ladder while the other children followed. “It was a brain tumor,” he explained. “By the time they found it, she only had a month to live.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“She was a good mom,” he said. “I miss her a lot, but in some ways, I feel like she’s still around, looking out for me.” He touched his fist to his chest and turned his eyes to meet mine. “She’s in here.”

Like a flash flood of emotion, my eyes grew wet and my throat ached. The pain spread all the way to my ears, but I took a breath and maintained my composure. “I wish I could have met her.”

He nodded. “Yeah, you would have liked her.”

We sat together in silence, watching Wendy play. David leaned forward with his elbows on his knees while I glanced over at the other mothers who were spreading a blanket out on the grass.

I blinked a few times as I watched them—remembering another time—then let out a puff of air.
“Huh.”

David leaned back to look at me. “What is it?”

I touched a finger to my lips. “I’m just remembering a day about a year ago when Wendy and I came out here to play. There was another little girl here and I spoke to her mother for quite a while. It felt odd at the time, because after I told her I was a widow, she asked a lot of questions about Alex. She seemed really curious.” I tried to recall more of our conversation.

“How old was her daughter?” David asked.

My heart began to beat faster. “Just over a year old, toddling around the park, which means she would have been born not long before Alex died.”

David leaned into me. “Did the woman tell you her name?”

I shook my head. “No, and I didn’t tell her mine. She wasn’t from around here, though. I remember that much. She said she was just passing through. I can’t recall where she said she was from…” I wracked my brain to summon that detail, but it was lost to me.

I turned my gaze to David’s. “Do you think it was her? Do you think she might have come to get a look at Wendy and me?”

I couldn’t help myself. Having been the object of a female stalker in the past, I looked around the neighborhood, feeling as if I were being watched.

With a genuine expression of sympathy, David massaged my shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“There was definitely something weird about her,” I said. “The way she looked at me…”

“I don’t suppose you got her license plate number,” he asked.

“No, but I do remember that she was driving something new. It wasn’t anything vintage. I would have noticed that.”

Wendy came running over to us. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“Me, too,” I replied. “Let’s go make supper.”

David and I stood up, and Wendy took hold of both our hands. She walked between us as we crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the apartment.

The phone was ringing as I unlocked the door. I had to hurry inside to answer it. “Hello?”

“Hi Audrey. It’s Jean.”

“Oh hi, Jean,” I replied in a friendly tone as I sat down on the sofa. Covering the mouthpiece with my hand, I whispered to Wendy, “It’s Grandma Jean.”

“Can I say hi?” Wendy asked.

“Sure.” I removed my hand to speak to Jean. “Wendy’s right here and she’d like to say hello.” I handed the phone over and watched her speak to her grandmother for a few minutes. Occasionally I glanced at David who was waiting patiently in the kitchen.

Wendy handed the phone back to me.

“Why don’t you go ask David to get you some juice?” I whispered to her.

“Okay.”

She ran to the kitchen and I put the phone back to my ear.

“Hi again,” I said to Jean. “How have you been?”

“I’m fine,” she replied, “but mostly I’m calling to see how
you’re
doing. You left in such a hurry the other day. I was worried about you.”

Nervous butterflies swarmed into my belly because I didn’t feel ready to have this conversation with my mother-in-law. How could I tell her that her son might have been carrying on an affair with another woman before he died, and gotten the other woman pregnant?

I still didn’t even know if what I suspected was true, so I couldn’t possibly bring it up.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “It was a rough day. There were a lot of memories welling up.”

“I understand,” she said. “We all felt the same way, and that’s another reason why I’m calling.”

I shifted uneasily on the sofa. “Really? What’s going on?”

After a brief pause, Jean began to explain. “I didn’t tell you this before, but I recently went through the Organ Donor Network to send a note to the person who received Alex’s heart two years ago.”

This piece of news hit me like a plank across the chest. I felt the vibration inside myself, and my eyebrows lifted. “What did you say in the note?”

“I wrote that I’d like to get together so we could meet in person,” she replied.

I wasn’t sure how I might have felt about this a week ago—before I found the ultrasound in the glove box of Alex’s Buick—but today I felt an inexplicable bitterness toward the stranger who was walking around with my husband’s cheating heart. It wasn’t rational, I knew that. It wasn’t the recipient’s fault that Alex had acted like a jerk and betrayed his wife and child.

I wondered suddenly if I was going to require therapy after all this. It was just so complicated, from an emotional point of view.

“I didn’t think you wanted that,” I reminded Jean. “When you received that letter of thanks from her not long after Alex died, you said it was too painful. You didn’t want to have any contact.”