Fragments of Light

by Michele Phoenix

  “Hogwash.”

  “And then the cancer. I thought he was doing okay with all of it—with the craziness of the last few months—but . . .”

  “Don’t you go down that rabbit hole, Ceelie. Do marriages struggle? Yes, absolutely,” she said. “Of course they do. And when you add disease to the mix, it gets even trickier, for sure. But that dope—that saint-in-his-own-mind-only—has dishonored himself by throwing in the towel.”

  I felt grief wash over me again with crippling intensity.

  “Do you have a lawyer?” Darlene asked.

  I hadn’t even contemplated the fact that Nate and I shared the same one. “I guess I need to get one.”

  “Mine’ll take good care of you.” She called toward the kitchen. “Find Sue Jones’s number in the address book under the phone, will you?”

  A shuffle in the kitchen indicated that the message had been received.

  “Sue’s a good woman. She’ll make sure you don’t get steamrolled any more than you’ve already been.”

  “Thank you, Darlene.” I fought to keep my voice from breaking as I considered a future that loomed unpredictable and challenging. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the new reality imposed on me—inflicted on me by my husband’s decision to leave.

  “And remember,” Darlene said, interrupting my thoughts, “when you feel like you’re ready for an extracurricular assignment, I might—just might—have a proposal for you.” She smiled in her inscrutable way. There was something wistful and excited in it. “It’s just a little something I want to sort out before, you know, hopping the twig.”

  I’d gotten so caught up in my own predicament that, for just a moment, I’d forgotten that my friend—my stalwart champion—was facing a battle for her life. That she could so casually discuss death felt like a physical blow. “Darlene, ‘hopping the twig’?” I heard the dismay in my own voice.

  She laughed and gingerly moved her legs off the footrest, motioning for me to get her walker from across the room. “Beloved son,” she called dramatically toward the kitchen. “It’s time for you to accompany your momma on another tinkle trip.”

  There was a smile in his voice when he replied, “Yet another item you don’t find in the model-son handbook.”

  Justin helped his mom to her feet and stayed at her side as she pushed her walker toward the bathroom at the end of the entryway hall.

  “I’ll come by again tomorrow.” I had to say it twice, as my first attempt had been muted by unshed tears.

  “I look forward to it,” Darlene replied, wiggling her fingers at me over her shoulder. “This dying thing ain’t for the faint of heart, but it sure will be more fun with the right kind of company.”

  I let her words settle for a moment and considered the kinds of death present in that space. Her life. My marriage. Hope itself, it seemed to me.

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat and tried to summon up the courage just walking to my car required. The rest of it—calling Joe, hiring a lawyer, determining the posture I’d take on the road to divorce—I’d deal with those later.

  Chapter 5

  Cal regained consciousness hanging from a tree thirty feet above the ground.

  He swam back to reality through a swirl of disjointed memories. The roar of planes flying wing to wing across the Channel. The flashes of orange light, bright and terrifying, through the open jump door. The wail of wounded C-47s plunging toward the Channel.

  He had no way of knowing how long he’d hung there, but he suspected from the pain in his neck when he raised his head that he’d been immobile for a while.

  As awareness returned, his feet came into focus first. Then branches. Then the ground below him.

  He moved his arms and legs just enough to scan for pain. There was nothing he could identify as a wound or broken bone, only the aches and abrasions of having been snagged on the doorframe of a plane, then crash-landing in what appeared to be a large oak tree.

  Artillery fire cracked through the fog. Not near, but close enough. Adrenaline surged back. Cal felt it flood his bloodstream and stiffen his muscles. He looked up, squinting into the early-morning darkness, and saw that his canopy was caught on the upper branches of the tree, glaring evidence to the enemy that a paratrooper had landed there. He needed to get down—fast.

  Cal briefly considered his options. The parachute’s lines were too tangled to allow him to swing toward the center of the oak, and he didn’t think he had the strength to hoist himself up to the thicker branches above him. Coming to a quick decision as staccato bursts of gunfire rang out in the distance, he released the gear he could reach and watched it drop. Then he pulled the M2 switchblade from the double-zippered pocket at the neck of his jump jacket, took a deep breath, and cut himself free.

  Cal realized that he’d misjudged the distance to the ground as he was falling. The base of his helmet bounced off a large branch as he plummeted, and his brain erupted in a bright flash of light. He landed hard on the gear he’d dropped moments before and stifled a yelp as his leg bent and buckled under his weight. A half-dozen injuries in his high school football days had taught him to distinguish between broken bone and torn tendon. He suspected this was the latter.

  Cal tried to sit up, but the spinning in his head made him collapse again into the damp grass. He took a breath and squinted hard against overwhelming nausea, reaching for his Garand semiautomatic and bringing it to his chest. From his prone position, he could see the broad building he’d skimmed before getting hung up. It looked like a small castle and stood just fifty feet from him, its windows dark. He knew this was occupied France, and there was no telling whether its occupants, if any, were friend or foe.

  Cal also knew he needed to get to cover before assessing his next move. He scanned the space around him and felt the world tilt again as he turned his head. Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, he set his gaze on a grove of small trees another fifty feet away and, with what felt like his last ounce of strength, began to crawl toward it, dragging his gear behind him, trying to ignore the pain and dizziness that hampered his progress.

  He was nearly there when the spinning in his head overwhelmed his efforts. Letting out a soft groan, he pushed himself onto his back to rest for a moment, a finger on the trigger of the Garand at his side.

  Looking back, he wouldn’t be sure how long he lay immobile, praying for the waves of vertigo to pass. It was the sound of approaching footsteps that finally snapped him from the veil of blackness descending over his mind. Fueled by adrenaline, Cal forced himself onto his side, arching his back and craning his neck as he aimed his Garand above his head toward the sound coming from somewhere near the oak tree.

  “Non! Non! Non!” Hushed words. Outstretched hands.

  Cal squinted up toward the voice. It took him a moment to take in what he was seeing. He’d expected German Wehrmacht. Instead, this was a girl, her expression tense and her words urgent.

  “I am a friend,” she whispered in accented English, motioning with one hand for him to lower his weapon. She took a step toward him. “I am a friend.”

  Cal lowered the Garand just a fraction in surprise, then raised it again, his mind too tense to trust what she was saying. She looked like a teenager. Maybe thirteen or fourteen. The movements of her small, thin frame were quick and lively. But there was something world-weary in her hazel eyes, something courageous in the set of her jaw as she stared him down.

  “Américain?” the girl asked, still standing where she’d stopped.

  Cal nodded but kept his rifle leveled.

  There was nothing overtly threatening about the young woman in the blue button-down shirt and long, beige skirt. Her gaze was direct and unflinching as she said, “I am Sabine.” She motioned toward him, indicating that she wanted to come closer. The pain in Cal’s neck and ankle came back into focus as he moved his finger off the trigger and dropped his hand onto the grass. He realized he had no choice but to trust what he saw in the girl.

  Sabine hurr
ied to his side when he groaned. She knelt next to him, scanning his body for evidence of an injury.

  “You are shot?”

  “I don’t think—” His voice was so hoarse that the words were barely audible. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I don’t think so.”

  Sabine nodded. “You must come inside.” Her voice was soft and lilting despite the seriousness of the circumstances. “The Germans—les boches . . .” She made a face and glanced toward the gate in the stone wall behind her. Cal looked too, realizing that neither the wall nor the fields beyond it had been visible when he landed. The fog was lifting.

  “They are not far,” Sabine continued. “You must get up—quickly.”

  Cal looked up. “My chute—”

  “I will get it.” From the confidence in her voice, Cal knew she somehow would. She stood and held out a hand to help him up. “First, sit.”

  “I have to get out there,” Cal said, pushing himself upright, the gunfire in the distance a call to arms. The world spun and he shook his head to try to clear it. “Gotta get out there,” he murmured again, closing his eyes against a crippling dizziness. The pain at the base of his skull became a stabbing throb. There was a rushing sound in his ears, and darkness tinged the edges of his consciousness again. He felt Sabine’s hands lowering him back to the ground and berated himself for his weakness.

  She leaned in to look at him more closely. “Your head,” she said. “Did you hit it?”

  Cal remembered the sharp whack as his helmet had made contact with a branch during his fall from the tree. “I think so. After I cut myself loose.” He suspected he’d hit it earlier too, when he’d first gotten hung up in its branches.

  Sabine glanced up at his parachute. “You were high. Too high.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out on my way down.” He attempted a smile, but even that seemed to increase the pain that extended from the nape of his neck to the space behind his eyes.

  The girl released the chinstrap on his helmet and gingerly lifted it from his head. She ran her fingers over his scalp, then checked them for blood. There was none.

  “Nothing serious, right?” Cal said.

  She gave him a look before saying, “You stay here.” Then she scurried off.

  Cal felt the darkness in his mind overtaking conscious thought.

  “Non—non—non!” She was back, but he had no idea how long she’d been gone. “You stay awake.” She shook his shoulder. “Mister GI! You stay awake.”

  “Cal.” The effort of speaking made him stifle another groan. “My name—”

  “Cal,” Sabine repeated after him, the name somehow shortened by the crispness of her French pronunciation. “Let us help you now.”

  From his position, all he could see were two sets of feet next to Sabine’s, one in muddy wooden clogs and the other in small, well-worn, ankle-high boots. It hurt to turn his head, but Cal forced his gaze up nonetheless. An elderly man wearing a dirty beret, his face gaunt under a few days’ beard growth, scanned the woods and fields around them, his posture tense, his vigilant eyes a startling shade of pale blue.

  Beside him, a younger girl—maybe seven or eight—stared at Cal through heavy, chestnut-brown bangs with something that looked like awe. Somehow she perfectly matched the stained boys’ overalls and scuffed boots she was wearing.

  Sabine took a hunting knife from her pocket and handed it to the younger girl, saying something to her in clipped, urgent French. Cal watched as she galloped toward the tree, took hold of one of its thick, lower branches, and heaved herself onto it.

  “We must move fast,” Sabine said. “Lise—my sister—she will cut down the parachute.”

  The old man leaned over to open a makeshift stretcher on the grass. He moved around Cal’s head and slid his hands under his shoulders while Sabine grasped his legs at the knees. “Un, deux . . .” he counted, his voice gravelly. On three, they lifted Cal onto the stretcher, which was little more than a piece of oiled canvas stretched between two hand-hewn poles. He was surprised at how easily Sabine managed his weight. He was six foot one and a solid 180. Still, she and the stooped man in clogs lifted him as if he weighed no more than a child.

  Cal caught a glimpse of the young girl as they rounded the corner of the small castle, its circular tower reaching into a brightening sky. She’d already unhooked the top of his canopy from the high branch it had gotten snagged on and was using Sabine’s knife to cut through the lines trapping it in the tree.

  “She is our little monkey,” Sabine said. “She will get your parachute.”

  Chapter 6

  I was taking a midday nap upstairs, about two weeks after Nate walked out, when I heard the front door open. Grabbing my phone and tapping nine-one-one on the keypad, just in case, I tiptoed out of the bedroom. Nate was halfway up the stairs when I rounded the corner. His face fell.

  After a few moments of overfull silence, I said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be home.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Explain that I’d fought cancer for several months and was still recovering my strength? It seemed self-evident.

  “Why are you here?” I asked again. There was an edge to my voice.

  “Just need to get a few more of my things.”

  I fought the urge to ask questions. To plead. To demand answers. I fought the urge to slap him too.

  Instead, I stood aside and let him pass, then I retreated downstairs on unsteady legs and went through the motions of making a cup of coffee.

  “I’m heading south,” Nate said from the kitchen doorway on his way out. The suitcase we kept on the top shelf of our walk-in closet was in his hand. It looked heavy. “That project my crew’s working on . . . the cabins.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed for a moment. The project Nate was referring to was a dream job he’d bid on and won just before my diagnosis—a community of vacation cabins on the edge of Rend Lake, just north of Marion. It would allow his company to earn steady income during the brutal winters of northern Illinois. Because of my cancer, he’d opted not to oversee the build—the largest his company had ever undertaken—and had sent his foreman to head up the project instead. I’d tried to convince him to go, at least for a few days at a time, since it was only six hours away. Darlene would accompany me to my treatments and he’d be able to go back to doing what he loved. But he’d insisted that I came first.

  That he was heading south after all felt like confirmation that our marriage was truly beyond repair. The emotions welling up in me surprised me, and I wondered if I’d been, on some indiscernible level, still hoping that Nate’s decision could somehow be reversed.

  I tried to keep my tone neutral when I finally found my voice. “Okay.” I couldn’t look at him. I focused on the coffee I held instead and tried, by sheer willpower, to stop my hands from shaking.

  “They’ve run into a snag with the developer, and I’m . . .” Nate trailed off mid-sentence. I felt his posture change. “I’ve spoken with Bruce.”

  My heart sank. Bruce Watkins was our lawyer. Correction—Bruce Watkins was Nate’s lawyer now.

  “He’ll keep things moving while I’m gone.”

  Silence. It was all I had to give him.

  “It’ll be two months, maybe a bit longer, before I’m back. The library renovation starts in April, so . . .”

  “Are you done?” I glanced up at him. The determination on his face was a wounding thing.

  “I just wanted you to know that I’m leaving town and that Bruce will be getting in touch with you. There’ll be stuff to sign.”

  Stuff felt like an insulting word. Something rebellious fluttered in my chest. “I’ll sign the divorce papers when I’m ready.”

  “Cee.” He frowned, looking at me as if he didn’t understand my reticence to make our split official. “This doesn’t need to be complicated.”

  Humiliation and rage tightened my throat and sent shivers down my spine. “Really?” Sarcasm—the brok
en, helpless kind—oozed from the words.

  There was something brittle in the tension between us. A muscle worked in Nate’s jaw. Nothing in his expression even hinted at remorse.

  “I’ll give you a heads-up if I have to come over again before I take off,” he said.

  I shook my head. “You need to leave your key and go.”

  He seemed surprised. “Leave my . . . ?”

  “Your key. Please leave your key and go.”

  “Cee, this is still my house too.”

  I tilted up my chin and looked at him full-on for the first time since he’d arrived. “You forfeited the right to waltz in here and make demands the day you waltzed out.”

  He hung his head for a moment. “I could have done things differently.”

  I let the words and their futility hang there. When he said nothing more, I finally whispered, “Please leave.”

  He turned and went out the door.

  The adrenaline that had kept me together while we were talking dissipated so fast that I sank to the floor, my hands over my face, my body shaking in its core, and let out a howl of pain and disbelief. The tears I’d mostly quelled in the days since Nate’s departure finally poured out through the fissures in my strength, wrung from the fabric of the dreams I’d had for us. My sobs were nearly voiceless—lung-strangling, muscle-clenching, and gut-wrenching. Devastating.

  A creaking floorboard brought me up short. Nate stood in front of me again, but I couldn’t look up.

  “I forgot my stuff,” he said, reaching for the handle of the suitcase he’d packed.

  “Go away, Nate.”

  Without another word, he left.

  He took his key.

  I called Joe the day after my encounter with Nate and told him that I was ready to step back in, but that I’d have to work reduced hours for a while.

  “Listen, if all you do is keep the interns from asking stupid questions, I’ll pay you overtime for part-time work,” he’d grumbled.

  It felt good to have a reason to get up five days a week. I usually headed home around two, but if Joe caught me looking weary, he ordered me to “get the heck outta here” earlier.