Free The Color of a Dream by Julianne MacLean Page B

undergone organ transplants.
    I also investigated astral projection, which
is another form of out-of-body experience, but does not always
accompany death. It can happen during sleep or other altered states
like meditation or surgeries. There were even some websites that
provided instructions on how to do it and control it.
    While I learned a great deal about different
alternative theories—and took the skepticism into consideration as
well—none of it answered the burning question in my mind about what
my dreams truly meant. I had nothing tangible to offer as evidence
of a spiritual or cellular connection to my donor because I had no
idea who he was, where he’d lived, or whether or not he liked
onions…or anything else.
    Nor was I making an effort to take my spirit
on a joy ride each night. It was beyond my control, and in all
honesty, it just felt like I was dreaming.
    I suppose that made me as much of a skeptic
as the next person.

Chapter Twenty-five
     
    Two weeks went by, and because I stayed up
late reading each night, I slept like a log. There were no
thrilling expeditions out the window and over treetops and
telephone poles. There were no dazzling aerial views of the city at
night.
    Eventually I began to let go of the desire
to know more about the man whose heart now beat inside my chest. I
was too busy with motherhood and the requirements of my recovery to
dwell on much else outside my daily routines. I was focused on
Ellen’s laughter in the park, the way she slept soundly in her crib
and the miracle of her first baby steps.
    She was only eleven months old when she
walked from Diana’s arms to mine in the kitchen one evening. A
prodigy, surely. A future gymnast or perhaps a long distance
runner. I suppose dreams come in many forms.
    Nevertheless, the memories of my nighttime
escapades were ever-present in my mind, hovering there like curious
hummingbirds. Each night when I slipped into bed I gazed out the
window and wondered if I would go flying.
    Each morning I woke up feeling
disappointed.
    Then the letter arrived.
    * * *
    “It can’t be possible,” I said to Diana when
I finished reading it. “Full custody… Can he even do this? Why
would he want to? There’s got to be something else going on here
because you know what he’s like. He can’t actually want to be a
father to Ellen.”
    Diana read the letter a second time, then
set it down on the table. “As a parent, he does have legal rights.
I just never thought he—of all people—would want to exercise
them.”
    It was a long and complicated story, but
Diana knew my baby’s father, Rick, better than most people because
she’d almost married him two years ago. I saved her from that
certain peril, however, when I fell for his charms myself and was
the cause of their breakup. Less than a year later, I was alone and
pregnant with Rick’s child, waiting for a heart transplant.
    Now this.
    “Didn’t he say good-bye to those rights,” I
asked, “when he told me he wanted no part in Ellen’s upbringing and
paid me to stay away? I signed a legal document promising not to
ask him for child support or anything else if I accepted the
money.”
    “That protected him, not you,” Diana said.
“The Family Code is written to assure that children have frequent
and continued contact with both parents after they separate, and it
encourages parents to share rights and responsibilities. So if he’s
asking for full custody, he must have something up his sleeve.”
    “But what if it’s not in the child’s best
interests?” I asked. “Rick doesn’t even know Ellen. He’s never seen
her or held her. He doesn’t know her sleep schedule or what she
likes to eat.”
    I felt sick to my stomach at the thought
that I could lose any of my rights as a mother. That my child would
be separated from all that was familiar and full of love. Her life
would be drastically changed. I couldn’t bear to think of handing
Ellen over to a man who thought only of himself.