The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time by Julianne MacLean Page A

cable.”
    “What’s happening?” I asked, cupping my forehead in my hand, for my head was throbbing.
    There was nothing but noisy static coming from the television, so Gram muted it. “My TV’s not working, and you fell asleep. No wonder. Sometimes I think you should refuse those late night shifts and ask for days only. But I suppose the tips are better at night.”
    I blinked a few times, sat forward, gripped the armrests of the chair, and struggled to get my bearings. “I don’t understand. Are you okay, Gram? What happened to you?”
    “What do you mean? You know what happened.”
    I stared at her blankly and had a vague inkling that she’d fallen off a ladder in her backyard. “Were you cleaning your gutters?”
    She regarded me with a look of confusion. “No, I had some polyps removed. But how can you not remember? You’ve taken me to all my appointments, and what are you going on about…cleaning my gutters? You’re not smoking that marijuana, I hope…or doing any of that crack cocaine. God help us all.”
    “Of course not,” I replied, still feeling slightly dazed and lightheaded. My brain was in a fog and my nerve endings sizzled just under the surface of my skin. My fingertips especially were tingling.
    “I don’t remember driving here,” I said, picking at my chipped red nail polish. “And I don’t remember you telling me that you were having an operation.” I rubbed my eyes and searched all the corners of my mind for a recollection of the day.
    “They say I’ll be going home tomorrow,” Gram mentioned, tentatively.
    I stared at her with wide eyes. “This is nuts. The last thing I remember, I was at home getting ready for bed. I’d just talked to Ethan on the phone.”
    She frowned at me. “You must have been dreaming.”
    “No, it wasn’t a dream,” I said, “but that’s why I called him—to tell him about a dream I’d had—which was a nightmare actually. I dreamed that he died.”
    Gram shut off the TV and stared at me for a few tense seconds before she spoke very carefully. “Sylvie…Ethan did die.”
    Her words sent a fireball of shock into my belly. I shook my head angrily. “No, that’s what happened in the dream . When I talked to him on the phone last night, I told him about it. He said he was fine, and that Grace and Emmaline were fine, too.”
    “Who are Grace and Emmaline?” Gram asked with confusion.
    “His wife and daughter.”
    Gram’s eyebrows lifted. “ You were Ethan’s wife, Sylvie. And you had a son , not a daughter. His name was Tyler.”
    My heart began to pound. “I know that. But then Ethan married Grace.”
    Gram inclined her head. “Are you feeling okay? Because there was no Grace. There was only you and Tyler in Ethan’s life.”
    My stomach was turning somersaults by now, so I stood up and walked to the window to try and make sense of the situation. I looked out at the parking lot below. Cars were coming and going. Everything appeared normal from where I stood, but inside, my thoughts and emotions were reeling. I felt as if I were groping around in a circus funhouse with warped mirrors and crooked floors.
    I tried to remember everything that happened to me yesterday—all the things I’d just described to Gram—but as I stared up at the clouds, the images were already fading.
    “Do you honestly have no memory of Ethan’s death?” Gram asked. “Or are you playing a trick on me?”
    “It’s not a trick.” I turned to face her. “What happened to him?”
    She waved me over. “Come and sit down, sweetheart.”
    I did what she asked and braced myself for whatever she was about to tell me.
    “Six years ago, Ethan and Tyler were killed by a drunk driver.”
    The words hit me like a brick.
    No, that couldn’t be …
    I fought to hold on to some semblance of reason, even though everything in my mind was shifting and rolling like a mist I couldn’t cling to.
    I remembered speaking to my ex-husband the night before, and unquestionably, he