The Light We See

by J. Lynn Bailey

  “Ella, please, you have to do the trial.”

  “How long is it?” she whispered as she stared out the window of her bedroom.

  “Eight weeks. We’ll travel to Texas once a week for treatment.”

  Ella’s head whipped back to me. “Mom and Dad can’t afford that.”

  “They can’t, but I can. Been saving up.”

  Ella slowly shook her head. Her hands touched mine. “No, I can’t let you blow your life savings on me, Luke. I just can’t.”

  I bit on my cheek. Tried to be cautious with my words. Didn’t want to hurt my little sister, but things needed to be said. “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do with my own money, El.”

  Ella smiled. Crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, guess you’re going to need my consent to do anything to my body.”

  She was right. I watched her as she listened to the world around her.

  “Do you hear that, Luke? The sparrows?”

  I listened hard, straining to hear what she heard. But I never could. Ella listened and saw the world differently than anyone else I’d ever met in my life. She only saw the beauty—until now. Until her body slowly withered away right before our very eyes. Took away her dignity, her hope, and her faith.

  “Promise me something, Luke?” Ella turned her attention back to me.

  “Anything.”

  “That no matter what, you take care of Mom and Dad.”

  But the truth was, I wasn’t sure I could. I didn’t have the strength that Ella had. Fighting tooth and nail for her life these past twelve months had been difficult.

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You’ll find a way. You always do.”

  Not with this stuff. Not without her. Not with the way I saw this all playing out.

  I shook my head because it sounded like she was giving up. “The trial in Texas. You’ll try it, right? At least, just come with me and check it out.”

  Ella turned her attention back to the window. Watched as the world outside kept moving. “For you, Luke, and Mom and Dad, I promise I’ll try it. Wouldn’t hurt, checking out the facility.”

  “Good then.” I stood and kissed the top of her bald head.

  “Luke?” Ella whispered.

  “Yeah?” I leaned on the doorframe.

  “I know you’re smoking cigarettes. You need to quit that shit, okay? Mom doesn’t need to lose both of us.”

  How in the hell did she know I was smoking cigarettes? I thought I’d hidden them.

  I shrugged. They were the only thing getting me through this. I wasn’t ready to give them up. Not that I was choosing the cigarettes over my family. Hell, I was the only one I was killing. But Ella was right; Mom didn’t need to lose both of us.

  “For you, I’ll try it.” I knew I was lying. I knew it, and yet I couldn’t help but feed my little sister the bullshit. I was asking her to put herself through another round of treatment, and yet I couldn’t put down the cigarettes. Some brother.

  I left Ella with the sparrows, and I went to find my pack of smokes.

  2014

  “I remember flying down to Texas with Ella. She was weak, but she could make the trip. I remember her climbing the stairs to board the plane. Midway through the climb, she had to stop, catch her breath. And it hit me right between the eyes. This fifteen-year-old girl—smart, athletic, a go-getter—and one year later, she was barely able to make it up a flight of stairs. And not from the cancer, but from the treatment of cancer.” Luke takes a big breath in. Runs his hand through his hair. “Here I was, asking her to do another treatment, and here she was, showing up. I …” He pauses. “I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do at the time or the wrong thing to do. All I knew was, Mom’s and Dad’s hearts were broken, Ella was fighting, and I just had to do something other than watch her die.”

  He drives.

  His words consume me. His tone, the way he talks about his sister.

  “Why did you say you were an only child? Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister who was sick?”

  “Can I answer that question later?” he asks. “I promise I didn’t lie.”

  I nod and stare out the window at the surrounding area called Oklahoma.

  “Anyway, you asked me about God and whether I believe,” he says.

  I listen to the faint sound of “Rocket Man” by Elton John and Luke.

  “As I stood behind Ella as she caught her breath, I prayed. I wasn’t the type of man who prayed, but in that moment, I called God every bad name you could think of. Cussed him out as I watched my sister struggle to breathe. In that moment, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I told God to take me instead. To leave my sister here and let her live her days, that I’d go.”

  There’s a long pause. “Rocket Man” comes to an end.

  “Six months after we started the trial, Ella was in remission.”

  I look over at Luke, thinking about the miracle.

  “Two months later, she was killed in a car accident.”

  My gut twists and turns. My body grows cold as chills take over, and my heart sinks. I can’t think of anything else to do but reach over and take Luke’s hand in mine, so I do. “You believe God took her cancer away?”

  He shrugs. “Just uncanny with the timing of it all. I suppose the reason I told you I was an only child was because it was just easier.”

  Neither Luke or I say anything after that. We just let John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Paul McCartney move us.

  Two hours later, it’s three o’clock when we pull into Pauls Valley. It’s the prettiest place I’ve seen in a long time, probably the prettiest destination on this journey. My hand is still entwined with Luke’s, and for the past two hours, we’ve let the music, the lyrics, rest in our hearts.

  Pauls Valley is greener than I’ve seen in the past few days.

  “Beautiful here,” I say. “Where does Walker live?” I ask.

  “Not far.”

  “Do you drive across America often?” I smile, look out my window at a woman walking her dog.

  “Third time.”

  “Why wouldn’t you fly?”

  “Guess it gives me time to think.” Luke takes a left at the stoplight.

  “Where are we headed?” I ask.

  “A little two-bedroom cottage I found just south of town. Under the elm trees.”

  He probably prebooked it, so I wouldn’t cause a stink again about him paying. I roll my eyes. I’m not ungrateful. It’s just hard, accepting someone else’s help.

  “First, let’s stop by the movie place and rent a few movies,” I say, pulling out my phone to find rental places.

  It’s not long before we pull up to a mom-and-pop shop, and it’s really sweet. To rent a movie, you sign it out on a form, and they give you a return date. Everything is done by hand, except payments. They do accept all major credit cards.

  “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Good Will Hunting are due back tomorrow,” I say to Luke, who tried to pay for that, too.

  Our Airbnb is tucked under the elm trees on a river. It’s a two-bedroom cottage, but when we drive up, I see it’s much bigger and nicer than I expected. I guess I assumed that the style of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, reflected age and time and pace, a slow pace. Not contemporary or chic.

  We get out, and I try to grab my bag, but Luke grabs it instead. He drops the bags on the front porch and reaches for a rock just left of the front door, and inside the plastic rock is a key.

  “Genius,” I say.

  We walk inside.

  The kitchen has white cabinets with black handles. A wrought iron New Age chandelier hangs over the island in the kitchen.

  The living room and dining room are combined, and there’s a sliding barn door for each bedroom off to the right. I slide open the first barn door, and there’s a desk, a closet, and a mirror, but no bed.

  Luke peeks behind me. “Where’s the bed?”

  We walk to the next barn door and roll it open, and there in the middle of the roo
m is a queen-size bed.

  “It said two bedrooms, Catherine, I swear. I assumed two bedrooms meant two beds.”

  I feel the rush of warmth come over my body.

  An empty house.

  One bed.

  And the elm trees.

  “I can sleep on the couch,” he says.

  And I don’t argue. I don’t say anything, except, “Or I can.”

  He sets our bags down as his phone chirps, and he reaches into his pocket for it.

  I walk into the living room, sit on the sofa, and pull out my phone.

  No missed calls. No missed texts.

  I think about texting Ingrid. Just to see if she’ll respond. I know she won’t though.

  “I need to make a call,” I say to Luke as he comes in the living room.

  He nods. “Absolutely.”

  I dial Mother’s room. I stand and walk into the bedroom without a bed and quietly slide the door shut behind me.

  “Sandra Clemens’s room,” Pamela says, and I can hear the smile in her tone when she speaks.

  “Hey, Pamela. It’s Catherine.”

  “Oh, honey. How ya doing out there in the wild states?”

  “Good, good. How’s Mother?” I ask.

  Nerves quietly settle in my belly when I hear Pamela. She has a way of taking the fear from me. Fear that Mother will never get better. Fear that she’ll live the rest of her days in silence, unable to speak or have the will to walk again.

  “Oh, she’s doing great. Had a good lunch, and now, she’s outside on the patio, taking in the warm Santa Ana winds.” Her tone is comforting. I feel myself wanting to nestle inside it, collect the kindness and the love, and push it to my heart so that I can feel whole, just like Pamela makes me feel every time I hear her voice.

  I feel it. I feel the wind and the scent of jasmine from outside Mother’s room, the sun on my face.

  “Give her my love?” I ask Pamela.

  “Oh, honey, she knows, but I will.” She pauses, and I hear her breathing. “You all right, sugar?”

  “I’m fine.”

  I think Pamela was sent to us by an angel. She’s the one who has cared for Mother since she went into the facility. At the retirement age, she still works. Still cares for patients, providing their families with love and even after their loved ones pass on.

  “You sure?”

  The truth is, I’m not sure. I’m not sure about anything, except Luke. The story he told me still plays in the back of my mind. The cancer with Ella and then dying in a car accident. Things like that don’t just happen. It makes me think of Father, Mother, Ingrid, and me, and my mind is swarming with thoughts.

  “Yes, thanks, Pamela. I’ll call again soon.” I try to salvage my courage.

  “Okay, honey. Don’t be a stranger, you hear?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good-bye, sugar.”

  “Good-bye.”

  I think accidents happen.

  My counselor when I was in Dublin said that when our emotions align with our self-will, scary things can happen.

  Father spent those last final years hurting Mother, hurting us emotionally, and we endured it. We survived it, and then one day, we just stopped surviving it.

  What could God say to my story? What would Luke say if he knew my story?

  That it was fate that showed up that morning or that people make awful decisions because we’re human and how we’re brought up, raised, exposed to life and the elements of life makes us who we are? Was it fate or poor decision-making that Ella died in a car accident? Did she kill herself? I don’t have the courage or the heart to ask Luke.

  So, when Pamela asks if I’m all right, I’m not.

  I should tell him the story. My story. Our story.

  But there’s something holding me back that rests on the strings of my vulnerability. As if I might open up a wound, uncover the wounds that have been closed, sealed since that night.

  Lying in a courtroom full of people didn’t scare me; it was living with the truth that scared me the most.

  After my mother pulled the trigger, the fatal shot that killed Father, she told me to tell the truth. For the first time in my life, Mother said to tell the truth. But I knew the truth would send her to prison. So, I did what I did best and lied.

  There’s a fine line between the truth and a lie, and it sits somewhere in the middle. And in that is a place where the soul can rest easy, I suppose.

  She begged me to tell the officers the truth that cold January morning before I called the police.

  But I couldn’t. My mother would not pay the price. She’d already paid for her freedom. Taking Father’s words. Being his punching bag, his doormat, so Ingrid and I wouldn’t have to take it. She’d paid every single night since we were little, just trying to be the strings that held the family together.

  When Father had come back in that morning, Mother had reached for the gun, and I believe, because I’d come to her, that she was terrified that he’d kill me.

  So, she’d fired the gun that killed Father.

  And I couldn’t stop it.

  But she did stop the cycle, and I wasn’t going to let her take the fall.

  A mother’s love is the strongest bond in the world. It binds love, cements it.

  A mother’s love is unbreakable.

  But a child’s love, a child’s loyalty to her mother, will never break even in awful circumstances. A child protects the bond fiercely, unknowingly, because of the love that exists inside them.

  Luke is there on the sofa when I come back into the living room. His tousled hair is pushed to one side. His long, lean fingers, hands, rest on his thighs. His eyes lock on me. For a long moment, we drink each other in, tell ourselves this isn’t what it seems and that attraction can flip the mind into believing something it shouldn’t. I don’t want to fall victim to that, but also, I need Luke’s hands on my body. Just to take away the pain I feel in my heart right now. Grief is fickle. It comes, and it goes, like the waves touching the shoreline. Sometimes, they’re mavericks, and other times, they’re just little, slow, small pushes of water. I can trust the fact that this wave hitting me now is gaining strength, momentum. I know in a few hours that it might be enormous, and the only way to rid myself of the feeling right now is to allow myself to forget the here and now.

  “Luke?” a whisper falls from my lips as I watch his dark brown eyes burn into mine.

  “Yeah?”

  What I want to say is that I need him. That I need for him to be inside me. To show me how he makes love to a woman.

  Will he caress my breasts when we make love?

  Does he take control?

  Does he make love like it’s a need rather than a want? Does he make love to a woman while looking into her eyes?

  “Please, don’t make the first move, Catherine.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t guarantee I will be able to control myself or what happens next.”

  He folds his hands into his lap, smiles, looks down at the modern wrought iron coffee table in front of him. “I’ve spent the last seventy-two hours trying to convince myself that what we have experienced together is just attraction. It’s just a game. That someone like you doesn’t really exist and that this”—he points between him and me—“is just a facade.”

  He shakes his head. Laughs. “But I can’t deny it anymore, Catherine.” He meets my eyes. “Your heart is broken; I can tell. Broken into a million different pieces. And I’ve spent this time trying to figure out how I can piece it back together for you. But the truth is, I can’t, not when I’ll be responsible for shattering it when we go our separate ways.”

  Luke stands from the sofa. “I can tell when you look at me, there’s this small piece of your heart that beats for me. I see it in your eyes.” He takes two steps toward me. “So, let’s go to dinner and watch the sunset and the sunrise, and let’s lose ourselves in conversation about the world, travel, and good books.” He takes another step closer to me so
that he’s barely twelve inches away from me. “Let’s get lost in the feelings of the present moment and not in love.”

  Pieces of me want to put my foot down, tell him no. I cross my arms. “As much as I’m sure you’d think my heart beats for you, but rest assured, it’s only lust. You’re a really handsome guy, Luke, but not my type,” I lie and uphold the outward appearance of control, just as Mother taught me.

  Don’t show heartache; it’s unbecoming, Catherine, Mother would say.

  But it’s too late.

  Luke’s left eye squints. He reaches for my hand. Badly, I want to keep it at my chest, tucked in safe against my breast. Safe from his touch. But if I do, it’ll look like I’m irritated. I release my hand and let him take it.

  But he quickly lets go, turns his mouth, and begins to cough into his fist.

  Holds his finger out to signify he needs a minute. After thirty seconds, he stops and pulls his hand away, but I see the blood.

  “Luke,” I say. My voice changes from the brittleness of before. “You’re bleeding.” I take his other hand and lead him to the bathroom. Put his hand under the water I’ve just turned on. When he looks up, I see the tiny drip of crimson on his lip. I grab some toilet paper and wipe it. “Why are you bleeding?”

  “Ulcer.”

  “Are you taking medication?” I ask, wiping his lip now, trying not to breathe in his scent. Take in how our bodies are extremely close right now.

  Luke takes my hips in his hands and moves our bodies apart, but the look on his face betrays him.

  Instantly, my chest begins to ache when he breaks eye contact. Gently, I reach up and lift his chin with my finger, and his deep brown irises with green flecks are staring back at me. I want to be in his thoughts and in his skin. I want to feel his heart as the woman who owns it, not the woman who’s borrowing it. Luke’s made it clear that this is just lust, but everything about that doesn’t reflect what I feel from him.

  “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  “Not long.” He reaches up and takes my fingers from his chin. Pushes past me to look in the mirror.

  The traces of blood are gone, and so are the reminders that he might somehow look at me differently than he does other women.