Read The Color of Heaven for Free Online Page A

me. I’m taking it pretty hard.”
    “Of course you are. She was your daughter.”
    I tried again to stop crying, but it was no use. The tears were gushing out of my eyes.
    My father was quiet on the other end of the line, and when he final y spoke, his voice quavered. “It’s never easy to lose someone you love.”
    Though he didn’t say it, I knew he was talking about Mom. Nothing was ever the same after she left us that day back in 1984. I was fourteen years
    old, and I remember watching her go through security at the airport. I waved goodbye, but I hated her for leaving us. I hated her.
    I hated her most for leaving me with Dad.
    Oh, how I had wil ed her to come back. If you love me, you won’t leave us . I shut my eyes and whispered out loud, “Turn around, don’t go.”
    But she left anyway.
    We moved two months later. Dad couldn’t bear to go on living in the house that reminded us al of her …
    He was a lot like Michael.
    “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,” I said to him on the telephone, as I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
    “You wil ,” he replied. “You just need to take it slow, one day at a time. Don’t rush yourself. It’s okay to be sad. Just know that…” He paused, then began again. “I want you to know that I’m here for you. I wasn’t always the best father. I didn’t always make the right decisions, and I’m sorry for that, but if there’s anything I can do, just say the word.”
    After I recovered from my astonishment, I thanked him and hung up the phone – and experienced a muted warmth that felt something like comfort.
    Perhaps there was hope for happiness as wel , some day in the future. Perhaps I wouldn’t always feel so disappointed.
    I set the kettle on the burner to boil and tore the plastic off a new box of tea.

Chapter Eighteen
    A few days after our argument in Megan’s bedroom, I cooked a special dinner for Michael. His favorite: maple-glazed salmon with garlic mashed
    potatoes, and fresh sautéed vegetables.
    I showered and put on a skirt (he always told me I looked good in skirts), set the table with the fine china we received as a wedding gift, and set out some candles.
    I wanted to explain to him that I needed time. That was al .
    Our conversation in the hospital – the one about having another child – kept bouncing around in my brain. I wanted to ask him to be patient with me.
    I was not in a good place right now, but maybe one day I would feel ready for something more.
    Just not now. Not yet.
    He cal ed at six and told me he would be home at seven, so I prepared everything, poured myself a glass of wine, lit the candles, and sat down at
    the table to wait.
    He walked in the door at midnight.
    I had already given up waiting, had put the food in plastic containers in the fridge, changed into my pajamas, and gone to bed to watch television.
    I listened to him putter around in the kitchen downstairs. I heard the buttons on the microwave as he reheated the salmon. A short while later he
    shuffled heavily up the stairs.
    I quickly shut off the TV and slid under the covers. I just couldn’t face him. I didn’t want to talk. I certainly didn’t want to ask why he was so late, and risk getting into an argument.
    He slipped into bed a few minutes later, and I pretended to be asleep.

Chapter Nineteen
    Nine months after the death of our child, Michael came home from work, sat me down on the leather sofa in the living room, and told me he was
    leaving me.
    He explained that he couldn’t bear the tears anymore, that I wasn’t the same woman he had married, and that he deserved a brighter future.
    As I sat there staring at his impossibly handsome face – he only got better looking with age – my brain stopped working. I didn’t burst into tears. I suppose I didn’t have any tears left to shed.
    I was speechless, however. Not that I was surprised. I wasn’t. We had been soul mates once – madly, passionately in love – but al that