I squinted at him suspiciously and he laughed.
“Even if I did pay for it,” he said, “it’s absolutely worth it for your first trip to Paris.”
• • •
WE HAD THE MOST DELICIOUS MEAL I’d ever eaten on an airplane, and each had our own tiny bottle of wine. Darren poured mine, narrating in a terrible French accent that made me laugh so hard I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. Along with them, I wiped away the last vestiges of my annoyance that he’d planned this trip without me. We fell asleep holding hands and woke up to the flight attendant bringing us breakfast.
Once we’d gotten out of the airport, Darren led me to the train, which we took into the city, and then we switched to another train underground.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Still a surprise,” he said.
When we popped out of the metro, we were standing right near Notre Dame Cathedral. “Oh my God!” I said.
“Beautiful, right?” he asked. “But that’s not the surprise. Our apartment is close by. I hope it looks as good in real life as it did in the pictures.”
Darren had found a place online and rented it for us for three nights, which in the days before Airbnb was incredible. When we got there it wasn’t quite like the pictures, but it was still lovely. It had a balcony overlooking the Seine and was decorated exactly like you’d imagine a Parisian apartment would be, all ornate molding and bold colors and quirky accents. It also had a round bed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Darren said, when he stepped into the bedroom. “This was definitely not in the pictures.”
I stood next to him staring at it. “I didn’t know they made round sheets. And round blankets. Maybe it’s a French thing?”
Darren scratched his head. “I think maybe it’s just a whoever-owns-this-apartment thing.”
I laughed.
“I hope it’s okay,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
“Of course it’s okay,” I told him. “It’ll be a sleeping adventure.”
• • •
WE HAD TO SLEEP closer to each other that night than we usually did so neither one of us had our feet hanging off the circle. It was kind of nice, sleeping tangled together, like how you and I used to. Is that how you slept with Raina? Or Alina? Or the women I’m sure were in between, even though you never told me about them?
• • •
THE NEXT DAY was a whirlwind of sightseeing—Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Sainte-Chapelle. We sat outside for dinner and could see the Eiffel Tower shimmer with lights every hour on the hour, as if it were shaking fairy dust down on the whole city.
“Are you happy?” Darren asked me, over a dessert of crème brûlée and Vin Santo.
“Incredibly so,” I told him. “Thank you for this trip.” I looked at the starry night sky, the Parisian buildings, and the cobblestone street. I looked at Darren, smiling at me. And my heart felt full. But then that tiny part of me, the one that would’ve liked to plan this trip together, wondered how much he was doing this for me, and how much he was doing it because he wanted to be the kind of guy who planned surprise trips to Paris for his girlfriend. Darren does these things, makes these grand gestures, all the time, and so many years later I’m still not sure how much of it is for me and how much is for him.
Right before we went to Paris, after he’d told me about the mystery anniversary trip he was planning, I’d bought him a bracelet. The kind with a metal bar that can get engraved. On one side it said his name, and on the other, the side that sat against his wrist, it said, “I love you. XO, Lucy.”
When the last scoop of crème brûlée was eaten, I went to pull the box out of my bag. “I have something for you,” I told him. “An anniversary present.”
“I have something for you, too,” he said.
“I thought this trip was my present,” I told him, playing with the wrapped box in my lap.
“It’s just part of it,” he said. “But I know of a better place to exchange gifts than right here.” He checked his watch. “Do you mind running a little?”
I looked down at my feet. “I’m wearing heels,” I said.
“Just a little bit of running. I’ll keep you balanced.”
So he paid the bill, and then we ran, holding hands, across the cobblestoned streets of Paris until we made it to the middle of the Pont Neuf.
“Perfect timing!” Darren said, looking at the Eiffel Tower as it once again shimmered with light.
Then he got down on one knee and pulled a tiny box out of his pants pocket, and before I could even process what was going on, “Lucy,” he said, “will you marry me?”
I felt my body flush, my stomach flip. Perhaps I should’ve expected this, but I hadn’t. And in that moment, I didn’t think about you at all. Or about the fact that Darren planned this trip without me. And didn’t seem to care about my job. And thought my dreams were cute instead of important. All I thought about was how sweet he was. How much he loved me. How much thought he’d put into this proposal, how much planning. How it felt like he was wholly and completely mine. And how much I loved all of that.
“Of course,” I said. “Absolutely. Yes.”
He stood up and tried to slip the ring on my finger—any finger—grabbing at my right hand until I offered him my left in its place.
And then we kissed, and the Eiffel Tower was still sparkling and it was the kind of romantic moment that belonged in a book or a movie or a fifteen-year-old’s diary.
I’ve wondered, since then, if you would go through that kind of trouble to propose to someone. How did you ask Alina? I don’t think you ever told me how that engagement started, just how it ended.
xlv
A few weekends after we got home, Darren left to go to Montreal for his friend Arjit’s bachelor party and I got a call from Jay that Friday night.
“Lu?” he said, when I picked up. “Any chance you’re free on Sunday?”
I’d taken Darren’s absence as a chance to plan a Saturday morning boozy brunch with Alexis, a Saturday afternoon trip to the Met with Kate, and a Saturday night dinner in Koreatown with Julia, where we planned to cook meat on sticks while she told me about her string of less-than-stellar OkCupid dates. I’d made not one plan on Sunday. I wanted to spend it at home, cuddled on the couch with just Annie for company. I wanted to eat Cheerios out of the box, which Darren thought was uncouth, and watch reruns of 90210, and stay in my pajamas until at least two p.m.
I sighed. “I am, what’s up?” I asked.
I could imagine Jay scratching his scruff of a beard on the other side of the phone. “So . . . would you be able to do me a huge favor?”
Jay wasn’t the kind of person who called in favors. Hardly ever. The fact he was asking actually made me a bit nervous.
“For you, Jay?” I said. “Of course. What do you need?”
“Would you come to my lab for family day? Vanessa’s coming, of course, but . . . there are going to be lots of kids there and you and I haven’t really talked about this, but we’ve been trying, Vanessa and I, to have kids. And it’s been over a year. And I just think it’ll be easier for her if you’re there too. So, would you?”
Here’s what I love about my brother: When he finally asked me for a favor, he didn’t ask for himself. He asked for Vanessa.
“Of course,” I said.
And so I went out to New Jersey and spent Sunday afternoon touring Jay’s lab and watching him and the other researchers perform experiments for the kids. It was clear that family day was really “kids day,” perhaps conceived as a way to get children interested in science or give them a chance to visit their parents’ workplace, which was usually off-limits. I’m actually not sure why this was a thing, but once I got there I completely understood why it might be hard for someone who had been trying to get pregnant to go alone.<
br />
I wasn’t sure quite how much I was supposed to know, so I didn’t say anything to Vanessa about kids at all. But when we were both standing in the back of a group, watching Jay wow elementary schoolers with a clock reaction—his favorite, the one that went from clear to orange to black—Vanessa said to me, “I’ve stopped taking walks in the park.”
I turned. “You have?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s just so hard to see the strollers and the playgrounds.”
“I can imagine,” I told her, as the group in front of us ooohed when the mixture turned orange. “Have you gone to the doctor yet?”
“A few weeks ago,” she said, looking at the reaction instead of my face. “I’m on medication right now. So hopefully . . .”
I glanced over at her. “I’m sure it’ll happen,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with needing a little help. A lot of people go through this sort of thing and end up pregnant.”
The clock reaction turned black, and Vanessa looked at me. “I know,” she said. “I just never imagined I would be one of them.”
She excused herself to go to the bathroom after that, and I wandered over to a table that looked like it had been set up for an experiment you could do at home, with bottles of hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and yeast. I’d never seen Jay do this one, so I wasn’t quite sure what would happen when they mixed together. I stared at the ingredients, trying to puzzle it out.
“Foam,” a voice said.
I looked next to me, and one of Jay’s colleagues was there. I hadn’t met him yet, but he was wearing a lab coat and a name tag. Dr. Christopher Morgan. He was tall, like you, with curly hair, like you, but that’s where the similarities ended. He had dark eyes, dark hair, and a broad nose that was balanced perfectly by a squared-off chin.
“Hi,” I said to him. “I’m Lucy Carter, Jason’s sister.”
He squinted at me. “I see it,” he said. “In the eyebrows.” Then he smiled. “Don’t tell your brother, but they look better on a girl. I’m Chris, by the way.”
I laughed. “I won’t tell,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
Chris walked to the other side of the table and started tightening the cap on the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “No one seems too interested in my experiment. I thought it would be cool if I showed the kids something they could do at home, but they seem to be more interested in the ones that don’t use kitchen ingredients. I guess I don’t know kids too well.”
He looked about my age. Maybe a year or so older. I figured he probably didn’t have kids—maybe not nieces or nephews either.
“I’m interested,” I told him. “I’d love to see your foam.”
He looked over at me. “Really?” he asked. “You would?”
“Sure,” I responded. But as I was saying it, I wondered if I was flirting with him. Or were we just talking? The diamond on my ring finger felt instantly heavy.
“Well, then,” he said, unscrewing the top. “Some foam, coming right up.”
Chris asked me questions as he poured the ingredients into beakers: where I lived, what I did, how I got to New Jersey that day. I found myself answering without mentioning Darren once. I knew this wasn’t good.
“You know,” he said, “I happen to visit New York City a lot. Maybe next time I come, we could grab a drink.”
“I . . .” I said. And then I lifted up my left hand. “I’m so sorry, but I’m engaged.”
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“No, no,” I said, cutting him off. “Truly, it’s my fault if I gave you the wrong impression.”
Chris looked at my hand again, then back at the ingredients in front of him. “Do you want to add the yeast?” he asked finally.
I smiled, and I did, and we made foam. But as I drove back with Vanessa and Jay to their house later that day, I couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t been engaged. Would I have given Chris my number? Would he and I have met for a drink? Would I have tasted something new and wonderful in his kiss?
Dating Darren for so long, right after dating you, it made me forget that there were other men. Tons of other men. And my mind went back to the conversation Kate and I had about Liz and her fire metaphors. What if I was cutting off all other possibilities too soon? Should I have tried looking for a bonfire and sparkler and whatever else Liz told Kate about?
But then I got home, and Darren was there waiting with presents for me from Montreal, and we made spaghetti carbonara together and walked Annie and laughed at the ridiculous things the guys had done during the bachelor party, and I thought: This is it. This is what I want. But I think back on that day sometimes and I wonder if maybe my gut was telling me something that neither my brain nor my heart wanted to acknowledge. Would we still be here now, like this, if I had listened?
xlvi
People say rain on a wedding day is good luck. I think someone somewhere just made that up so brides wouldn’t feel so bad when they woke up to a gloomy, overcast sky the day they were getting married.
That’s what our wedding was like, Darren’s and mine. The sun was trying so hard to peek through the clouds, but it never quite made it. We got married six months after Darren proposed—Thanksgiving weekend 2006. He said he couldn’t wait a minute longer to be my husband, and I was so swept up by the romance of it all that I agreed wholeheartedly. I was twenty-six years old. Darren was thirty-one. In addition to Darren’s three sisters and my sister-in-law Vanessa, I had three more bridesmaids: Kate, Alexis, and Julia.
I had all the girls wearing yellow because it felt like a happy color, and Darren and I wanted everything to be happy at our wedding. As happy as we were. No one else made me laugh like Darren did. No one else could turn a day of storm clouds and hurricanes into sunshine and clear blue skies. So maybe it was actually fitting that our wedding day was overcast—because marrying him made it seem sunny. He made the future seem sunny.
I even carried a bouquet of sunflowers—not very subtle, I know. I posted pictures on Facebook—so many people did that I’m guessing you already knew about the sunflowers. I didn’t invite you, though. It didn’t seem right. And I hadn’t seen you at all that year. I’d e-mailed you about my engagement and you went silent, didn’t let me know when you were in town, but I saw you on Adam’s Facebook page, a picture of you, him, Justin, and Scott under a status update that said: The boys are back in town! I felt a pang when I saw that photo, but I remember thinking then that it was better we hadn’t seen each other, better we’d slipped out of each other’s lives.
Darren’s and my wedding was at the Boathouse in Central Park. Our borough, I know, yours and mine, but I wasn’t thinking about that when we booked it. My mom had been pushing for Connecticut, his parents had suggested Jersey, and Darren had thought Montauk would be nice. But I wanted New York City, and something I learned is that the bride usually gets what she wants. And once we saw the Boathouse, in the park, right near running trails, Darren was happy. He even designed our save-the-date card, a photo of both of us, from the knees down, our feet clad in running shoes with a line that said: Whether you come by plane, train, car, or your own two feet, we can’t wait to have you join us for our wedding! I know, I know, you would’ve rolled your eyes if you’d gotten that in the mail. I don’t think you and Alina got far enough along in wedding planning to have a save-the-date card. But even if you had gotten that far, I can imagine you ignoring that custom completely.
The night before the wedding, I’d slept at my parents’ house in Connecticut, and had just woken up in my childhood bed when my cell phone rang. The number calling was long and clearly from outside the country. It could have been a few different people—Kate’s sister Liz, colleagues from the U.K. or Germany, where It Takes a Galaxy was doing almost as well as it was in the U.S.—but something told me it was you. I waited another ring, and another, and then decided to pick up. I thought
maybe you were going to wish me good luck or something.
But you had no idea what day it was. Or at least not consciously. I’ve always wondered if somewhere in the back of your mind you knew. Someone must’ve told you. Or you must’ve seen it somewhere on Facebook. But perhaps not. Perhaps it was a coincidence.
“Luce?” you said.
“Gabe?” I asked.
“It’s me,” you said. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something. I know we haven’t talked in a while. But I . . . I needed you.”
I sat up in my Laura Ashley bed, my body reacting to your voice the way it always does, and leaned back against the pillows. “What’s wrong?” I asked, imagining explosions and wounds and missing limbs.
“Raina’s not a Pegasus,” you said.
I let out a breath. You weren’t hurt. You weren’t in pieces. At least not physically. I hoped not emotionally either. “What happened?” I asked.
“She met an aid worker. She liked him better. Said he was more available than I was. Am I unavailable, Luce?”
At first I wasn’t sure how to answer but then figured I might as well be honest. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been more than a year since we talked to each other. I don’t know you anymore.”
“Yes, you do,” you told me. “I’m the same. You know me better than anyone. I just . . . I need to know: Is Raina right about me?”
I couldn’t believe that I was psychoanalyzing my ex-boyfriend the morning of my wedding. “I think,” I said, choosing my words delicately, “that making yourself available means putting the relationship you’re in first. Not necessarily always, but often. It means making the decision that’s best for the two of you, as a unit, even if it means compromising a little individually. It means sharing everything. The Gabe I knew wasn’t interested in doing that.”
There was a long pause. “I guess I wasn’t,” you said, so quietly I almost couldn’t hear the disappointment in your voice. “I was hoping you’d say something different.”
The Light We Lost Page 13