The Color of a Dream (8 page)

Rick scrambled to his feet and launched
himself back at me. He pummeled me in the stomach, then his fist
connected with my jaw. Dizziness swirled around in my brain. I
couldn’t seem to comprehend how to curl my hands into fists in
order to fight back. My brain was in a fog. He hit me again and
again.

The beating eventually stopped, but it took
me a few seconds to realize that Rick was now on the other side of
the room. How had he gotten over there? My cheekbones were
throbbing, my lip was split open and bleeding, but I couldn’t feel
much pain anywhere else. Everything was numb.

I squinted at my brother and wasn’t sure
how, or when, I had caused so much damage, because there was blood
pouring out of his nose and he was doubled over, clutching a
rib.

“Get out of here,” he said. “Go home and
don’t ever come back here.”

I bent to pick up my backpack on the floor.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I said, “because I don’t ever want to see
your face again.”

* * *

Two days later, I was staring out another
airplane window as we lifted off the runway at sunset.

I had called Angela’s parents immediately
after walking out of Rick’s apartment. Obviously they were
devastated and inconsolable but grateful for my phone call. After a
lengthy conversation, they entrusted me with the grim duty of
bringing Angela’s remains home to be buried in their family
plot.

It was the worst week of my life.

I wondered what my parents were going to say
about all of it.

Nadia Carmichael

It was the dream that woke me.

Again.

I was keeping count now, and this was the
fourth time in the past two weeks.

Something was different tonight, however. As
my eyes fluttered open in the darkness, I was able to remember the
striking and vivid images of what I’d seen below me in the
dream—and this time I did not wake in a panic, fearing for my
life.

Allow me to explain. My name is Nadia
Carmichael and almost a year ago, I contracted a virus that
attacked my heart muscle. My health deteriorated quickly until I
wound up in the ICU suffering from heart failure.

To complicate things more, I was six months
pregnant at the time and completely alone because the father of my
child wanted nothing to do with me. He paid me a generous lump sum
to disappear from his life forever, release him of all obligations
and promise never to ask him for anything more.

Thankfully my twin sister Diana took me in
when I was ill and waiting for the transplant. She has since helped
me care for my baby daughter, Ellen, who was born healthy last fall
and is the light of both our lives.

But it has not been an easy road to get
here. Since the transplant eight months ago, I have lived in an
almost constant state of anxiety while my body adjusted to my new
heart.

Although, perhaps “adjusted” is too simple a
word, because twice now, follow-up cardiac biopsies revealed that
my immune system was rejecting the unfamiliar organ inside me. My
body had viewed my new heart as a foreign invader and had attempted
to fight it off.

This is actually quite a common occurrence
for organ transplant recipients. To combat this, I take
immunosuppressive drugs, which I will take for the rest of my life.
The downside is that they weaken my immune system overall and put
me at greater risk for all sorts of other infections.

For this reason I was forced to live like a
hermit the first few months after my transplant and avoid public
places where germs were prevalent. I had to wear a mask when I went
out, but thankfully my pathology reports have shown significant
improvement lately and I no longer have to wear the mask.

Oddly, it was when I began to feel better
and was able to resume a more normal lifestyle that the flying
dreams began.

* * *

Sometimes I fly like a bird, low over water,
but most of the time I soar over cities at night. I’m not sure why
it’s always nighttime in my dreams. Perhaps I enjoy all the lights
in the tall buildings and on the freeways below. The red taillights
on a long stretch of road are especially mesmerizing. So is the
starlight when I look up, though the stars are not always visible.
Sometimes I fly just under a blanket of clouds—or maybe it’s smog;
I’m never sure.

Have you ever dreamed you were flying? If
so, were you speeding along like a bullet through tunnels, or
coasting over fields and mountains like a bird?

Ellen woke me at sunrise the next morning.
Wishing it wasn’t time to get up yet, I rolled over to watch her in
her crib. We shared a room together in my sister’s house in Beacon
Hill. Diana, my identical twin, was a successful divorce lawyer and
she occupied the room at the end of the hall, though sometimes she
slept over at her fiancé’s house.

Incidentally, that was something good that
came from my illness, because that’s how Diana met Jacob. He was
the cardiac surgeon in charge of my case. Coincidentally, he lived
in our neighborhood as well, so he was always nearby, handy in an
emergency.

There had been more than a few of those over
the past year.

A knock sounded at my door and I leaned up
on an elbow. “Come in.”

“Want me to take her?” Diana asked, peeking
her head into my room. “I’m up anyway.”

“It’s Saturday,” I replied. “You should be
sleeping in.”

“So should you.” She padded across my room
in her bathrobe and slippers. Approaching the crib, she began to
speak in a melodic voice. “Good morning, little angel.” She reached
into the crib and gathered Ellen into her arms. “Are you hungry?
How about we change your diaper first?”

I lay my head back down on the pillow and
watched my sister carry my baby girl to the change table. Diana was
cooing and smiling and I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that
despite my suffering over the past year, and the hardships that
still lay ahead, there was so much to be grateful for.

“I had the dream again,” I mentioned to
Diana as I rolled onto my back.

She removed Ellen’s diaper and reached for a
fresh unscented baby wipe. “That’s the second time this week.”

“Fourth time this month,” I added, “but last
night’s dream was different.”

Diana glanced at me with interest. “In what
way?” She lifted Ellen’s behind off the table to slide the clean
diaper into place, then fastened all the Velcro tabs.

“I recognized where I was,” I said, “and I’m
a little freaked out about it.”

“Why?” she asked as she picked Ellen up
again.

“Because I was flying away from the
transplant center,” I replied. “It was all very clear and familiar.
I flew over Cambridge Street, the grassy Common and Chinatown. It
was the first time I recognized any place in one of these dreams.
Before that, I just thought I was flying over imaginary
locations—random fields and rivers, towns I had never been to.”

“What do you think it means?” Diana asked,
bobbing at the knees to entertain Ellen.

Feeling restless, I sat up, tossed the
covers aside and swung my feet to the floor. “I feel foolish saying
it.”

“Don’t feel foolish.” She moved to stand
before me. “Tell me.”

Curling my fingers around the edge of the
mattress, I looked up at my sister with bewilderment. “Do you think
it’s possible that these dreams are somehow connected to my donor?
Do you think he’s flying in here to check on me or something?” Then
I shook my head. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Maybe I need a brain
transplant.”

Diana sat down beside me and I reached to
take Ellen from her.

“You’re not crazy,” Diana said. “When you
got sick, I did a lot of research. I read that many people have
reported similar experiences. They sometimes feel differently
afterwards, their tastes change and they feel some connection to
the donor.”

“But isn’t that just psychological?” I
asked. “There’s no scientific proof to support that, surely. Most
doctors say that the heart is just a pump.”

“Doctors and scientists don’t know
everything,” she replied. “Organ transplantation is still fairly
new. You know, I read about a guy who always hated onions. Then he
had a heart transplant and suddenly he couldn’t get enough of them.
He met the donor’s family and found out that his donor loved
onions. It was his favorite food—raw, sautéed, fried…”

I cradled Ellen in my arms and smiled down
at her. “Do you hear that? A man hated onions and then he loved
them. How weird is that?” I turned my attention back to my sister.
“I wish I knew more about my donor.”

Unfortunately, there were strict rules of
confidentiality in place to guard everyone’s privacy. All I had
been told was age and gender. He was male and twenty-eight—the same
age as me—when he died. I didn’t know the cause of death, but I
couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been some sort of
accident.

I’d written a letter of thanks to the family
(which we are permitted to do as long as we don’t reveal our
identity). The organ donor network took care of delivering it for
me. According to protocol, if the donor’s family ever wished to
make contact, it could be arranged as long as we were both willing
and eager.

I hadn’t heard back from the family—at least
not yet—and I could only presume they would find it too painful to
meet me, or that they simply wanted to move on with their
lives.

I often thought about how they must still be
grieving for their lost loved one—and though I was immensely
grateful for the generous gift that saved my life, there were also
feelings of guilt.

Why was I the lucky one? Why had I survived
and not him? Was it somehow fated that he would live and die so
that I could have his heart when I needed it?

Diana pushed a lock of my hair behind my
ear. “Maybe you should talk to somebody about this.”

“Like who?” I asked. “A shrink?”

She considered that for a moment. “No. I
mean somebody who might be more open-minded about this sort of
thing. When I was researching everything to do with organ
transplantation, I came across a book written by a woman who lives
somewhere here in New England. She had an out-of-body, near-death
experience a few years ago and sometimes she speaks in public about
the possibility of life after death. I saw something in the paper
the other day, which is why I’m mentioning it. I think she’s going
to be in town doing a book signing. You should go. I’ll watch Ellen
for you.”

“A near-death experience?” I asked. “That
seems way out there.”

She gave me a look. “You have someone else’s
heart beating inside of you. If that’s not way out there, I don’t
know what is.”

Ellen started to fuss, so we took her
downstairs to feed her.

As it turned out, the woman who had written
the book about her near-death experience came to town the following
week to do a reading at an independent bookstore that specialized
in non-fiction and self-help books.

I decided to follow Diana’s advice and check
it out, but first I ordered her book online and downloaded it to my
tablet. The woman’s name was Sophie Duncan and she told the story
of how her car skidded off a country road on a winter night and
rolled over onto a frozen lake. The ice broke and her vehicle sank
to the bottom. By the time the rescue team pulled her out, she’d
been dead for at least twenty minutes but the freezing temperature
of the water slowed her body systems down, and they were able to
revive her.

The book described how she watched from
above as the paramedics warmed her up in the ambulance. Later she
witnessed the medical team shock her back to life in the ER.

As I read the book, I couldn’t help but
wonder if my donor had had a similar out-of-body experience when he
died. Had he watched from above as the doctors removed the working
heart from his body and placed it into mine?

It all seemed very far-fetched, and Sophie’s
story read more like a novel. Surely it had to be fiction. But when
I found myself standing in the bookstore in front of her table,
looking down at her as she smiled up at me, I knew she wasn’t some
New Age quack. There was an intelligence about her. She seemed
grounded.

“Hi there,” she said, reaching for one of
the books on the table and opening it to the title page. With her
pen poised and ready, she said, “What’s your name? Would you like
me to make it out to you?”

I felt rather awestruck because she was a
bestselling author, yet at the same time I felt I knew her, that we
shared a personal connection. Though I supposed everyone who read
her book felt that way, because she had shared something very
personal and intimate with all of us.

“That would be great,” I said. “My name’s
Nadia.”

While she squiggled a few words and signed
her name, I said, “I already read it as an eBook because I was
interested in what happened to you. I’ve been having some strange
out-of-body experiences myself.”

She closed the book and looked up at me.
“Really?”

Nervously, I continued. “Yes. I had a heart
transplant eight months ago and I keep having these recurring
dreams that I’m flying. Sometimes I’m flying over the hospital
where the transplant surgery was performed.”

She tilted her head to the side. “That’s
interesting. I’ve never spoken to an organ transplant recipient
before. Lots of NDEs, but your story’s a bit different.”

I nodded. “I’m not really sure what to make
of it. I don’t know if I’m just dreaming, or if it’s a memory of
what I did and where I went while I was on the table. Or maybe…” I
paused.

“Maybe what?” she asked, leaning forward
slightly.