The Light We See

by J. Lynn Bailey

  But on this day, as I see Luke and Fiona make their way down Spruce Street, I know the healing will begin the same time the sadness begins.

  And when Luke is gone and all that remains are the memories, we’ll remember them, feel through them, and tuck them into our hearts for another day.

  I pull out my phone and try to collect the reality around me. I call Eddie McGavin, my old attorney.

  “Catherine?”

  “Hi, Eddie.”

  “Well, I’ll be! How are you doing? How’s your mom doing?”

  “We’re all okay. But I want to talk about the house. I want to sell it.”

  This is met with complete silence.

  “Are-are you sure about this, Cat?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right then. I’ll take care of all of it. Get in touch with a good friend in real estate.”

  He knows that when I make a decision, I stick to it, and seeing as though I’m the only one who can communicate that, I’ll be the one to make the decision. It will help pay for Mother’s care. It will help me let go of the memories I’d rather not remember. Besides, Ingrid said it was time to let go. Why it’s taken me so long to come to terms with this, I’m not sure.

  I come back to the phone conversation, and Eddie is rattling on about the real estate guy and stops with a sigh. “Don’t worry, Cat; I’ll take care of it. I’ll call you when I need to.”

  “Thank you, Eddie,” I say.

  Eddie has been around since Ingrid and I were little. My father met him on the golf course. One thing Father did well was pick good friends.

  “Take care of yourself, Catherine.”

  “You, too, Eddie.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  We hang up just as Luke and Fiona are slowly making their way back.

  Fiona isn’t crying.

  But I see her holding her father’s hand, walking in step with him, and I wonder how many times they’ve taken this walk together. How many times he’s helped fix her heart, but more importantly, how many times she’s helped him fix his.

  Luke looks in the car and motions to me.

  My heart starts to pound. I have to get out and meet her, but my body doesn’t move. It stays still, and I will my legs to move, but they won’t.

  I hear Ingrid’s voice. Go be the person we needed as kids.

  She’s twenty, I try to argue.

  And look what you still needed at twenty.

  Without another thought, I open the car door, get out, and walk to Fiona and Luke.

  Fiona is even more beautiful up close.

  Luke reaches for my hand. “Honey, this is Catherine, my girlfriend.”

  Fiona’s head tilts to the right, and her eyes narrow. She looks back to her father and then back to me.

  “Daddy’s never introduced me to a girlfriend before,” Fiona says as she reaches for my hand.

  I take hers in both of mine, feel the warmth of it. “It’s so nice to meet you, Fiona.”

  “You as well.”

  Our hands linger for a moment as Fiona looks back at her father.

  “Fiona is going to meet us in New York when we get there.”

  “Wonderful,” I say.

  “Told her we were on a road trip, and Bastrop had to be a stop along the way to see my girl,” Luke says, pulling his daughter in and kissing her on the forehead.

  “Call me when you get there, Daddy.”

  Fiona starts to walk back toward the house, and she gently touches my shoulder. “It was really nice to meet you, Catherine.” Her words are like a fine wine as they flow in and out of her mouth so smoothly.

  Fiona walks to the door, and we stand here and watch her. Luke puts his arm around me and pulls me in as we turn and walk back toward the car.

  “How’d it go?” I ask.

  “I didn’t tell her.” His voice breaks. “I couldn’t.”

  I’ve never put Luke up on a pedestal. It isn’t right for anyone to be there, with the exception, maybe, of Molly Ringwald. Because, inevitably, they will fall from grace. Eventually. Something happens. Something is done, or something is said. Luke is no different.

  We’re somewhere between Arkansas and Mississippi when I ask him why. It’s the question that has been lingering in the back of my mind.

  “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” plays. Not loud but loud enough to hear the angst when Diana Ross throws it. Plus, you just feel it.

  Music is healing. It allows me to think. For my mind to wander against the lyrics, sit in them, let them sink into my skin until I can understand what the songwriter was feeling when they wrote the lyrics.

  “Why didn’t you tell her?”

  Again, a long silence.

  “She started talking about college, Dartmouth. She was accepted for spring. It’s the college she’s dreamed about since she was a little girl. Her eyes were so bright, Cat. I couldn’t bring myself to ruin that moment for her. I just want my little girl to have these pockets of happiness. That is what I live for.”

  I understand where Luke is coming from.

  Every time Father apologized to Mother, I’d see the hope in her eyes, that it would somehow get better. Somehow, a magical potion or elixir or a miracle drug would fix Father, and the hope in Mother’s eyes would give Ingrid and me hope. Somehow, I would trick myself into believing that everything would be okay. Ingrid would ask me if things were going to be all right, and I would say, “Yes, probably.” Every single time. And every single time, we both bought it—until we couldn’t anymore.

  So, I understand why Luke couldn’t tell Fiona because it is the same reason we couldn’t tell Mother that Father wouldn’t get better. It’s a devastating truth to know our mind can be stronger than our heart.

  “What’s your plan?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Brass In Pocket” by The Pretenders starts to play.

  Luke begins to cough.

  “Pull over,” I tell him. Rub his back, grab a few paper towels from the roll we stashed underneath the seat.

  Luke pulls over.

  I hand them to him. I take in our surroundings, and it’s just past four in the afternoon.

  I reach down and get the trash bag ready. Gently, I take the bloodied paper towels and hand him two fresh ones as the rasp in his cough gets worse.

  It looks like it feels awful now.

  I feel the strain in his face and his body every time he heaves forward.

  Sometimes, he gags, and I want to take it all away for him.

  If I could take his spot, I would. He’s got a daughter who will need him one day when she walks down the aisle. She’ll need him to fix the leak in the sink when her partner is out of town or when she needs help with the baby. Fiona will need her father. And all that will be left is his memory.

  I exchange the paper towels once more, and the coughing fit slowly ceases.

  I hand him a bottle of water and tell him I’m driving.

  Luke doesn’t argue, doesn’t counter with a rebuttal. He simply gets out of the driver’s seat. He knows as well as I do that he can’t drive.

  While Luke gets into the passenger seat, I get in the driver’s seat.

  He’s tired. I see it in his eyes. Looks like he’s lost weight.

  “Are you ready?” My best attempt to live in the present.

  “Ready when you are.” He wipes his mouth one last time. Takes in a few deep breaths. “We’ll pull over in a few hours and stay in New Albany.”

  I hit the blinker and ease on the gas pedal as we get back on the highway.

  “You look familiar,” Clara, the front desk person at Miss Sarah’s Inn, drawls. She looks to be about my age, maybe a little younger.

  I wonder if Luke ever gets tired of this whole song and dance. Never once does he roll his eyes or lose his patience. He gives the smile that tips up to the right, the one I love, shrugs, and tries to play it off. But ninety percent of the time, the other person catches on.

  “Oh, my good word.” Clar
a covers her mouth when she sees the name on the card. “Are you really him?” Clara hands Luke’s card back.

  I whisper into Luke’s ear, “I’m going to go clean out the car while she fangirls. Remember, I’m the one who gets to make love to you tonight. Don’t let this shit go to your head.”

  Luke looks breathless at me. Then, he says, “That’s hot.”

  I briefly kiss him on the cheek and walk back outside to the car.

  I’m finishing up when Luke walks out. I notice in the sunlight that his eyes look tired. I see the dark circles beginning to form under his eyes.

  I’ll do the driving from now on, I say to myself.

  We get into the car, drive to room four, and park the car.

  “Cute place,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Luke agrees as we get out of the car and grab our bags.

  The room is cute with a sitting room and a king-size bed. All the amenities.

  But before I can set down my bag, Luke comes to me, slides his hands around my waist, kisses me gently at first and then with need.

  Immediately, my body responds.

  “Shower with me,” he commands as he pulls away and gazes into my eyes.

  Without another thought, I slip off my sundress and stand in front of him in my bra and panties.

  He doesn’t break eye contact as he reaches behind me and unhooks my bra, allowing it to fall to the floor. Luke looks down at my body and drinks me in, gently running his hands over my breasts, watching me as he does it.

  And I can’t help what my body does every time he touches me.

  The ache between my legs starts.

  My body breaks into the chills.

  And my breathing becomes labored.

  He slides his finger in through the side of my panties and checks to see if I’m wet.

  I pull him to me tightly as he pushes against my middle, and I almost scream it feels so good.

  I feel him harden against my stomach, and then he pulls his finger from my panties, pulls away only for a moment, and slides off his shorts and T-shirt.

  “Shower, Ms. Clemens,” he whispers as he pulls me near again, and we saunter to the bathroom, his hard body against my backside.

  We make our way to the shower, his lips trailing up and down my neck. His hands full with my breasts.

  Somehow, Luke turns on the shower, and we get in.

  He’s holding me from the front now, and I am staring at his brown eyes with the flecks of green. I wonder how long I’ll get this beautiful sight. I take my fingertips and guide them down his face. The hot water hitting his back.

  I trace the wake of his smile, starting at his forehead—the three lines that are permanently there—dropping my finger down his nose and then back out to his eye, the crow’s-feet that stay, and falling down to his lips.

  The lips I’ve kissed.

  The lips that have kissed me places that make me blush.

  I kiss them sensually and pull back. “I wish we could stay like this forever, Luke.”

  “Promise me something.”

  I smile, still looking at his eyes. He knows I’ll make the promise, no matter what it is.

  “When you look back on this moment after I’m gone, you’ll remember this and not what it will be like in the end.”

  “How? I won’t be here for the end. You’re on your own at that point,” I whisper.

  But he knows I’m kidding. I feel the tears start to fill my eyes.

  I brush my lips against his. “I want to remember everything,” I say. “I want to remember your beauty, your sadness, the highs and the lows because I refuse to waste any memories.”

  He takes himself in his hand and puts it to my opening. He pushes inside me, and I take all of him in.

  My arms tighten around him, and he squeezes his grip on my waist.

  With each of his thrusts, I watch him just as he watches me, and I wonder if two people can feel the exact same thing at the exact same moment without an exchange of breath or words or kisses.

  We take each other in and make unspoken promises. I feel them in my heart.

  Until death do us part.

  We push against each other.

  This love will never end.

  We pull against each other.

  No matter how much time has passed, I want to remember Luke in this way. Giving me love and showing it through his eyes.

  I tighten around him.

  His eyes close as he pushes inside me again.

  “Again,” I say with need, the water falling all around us now because we’ve somehow moved.

  I begin to feel light-headed and know that I’m close to letting it all go. “Luke, I’m not sure I can hang on much longer.”

  “Oh, God, why do you do this to me?” He nips at my neck and says, “Go first. I need to watch you.”

  He takes a few steps toward the back of the shower and lets my backside rest against the shower wall. Then, he pumps into me. I watch what his body does to mine. I see how we fit together so seamlessly, so effortlessly, and that’s how I know this is forever.

  My body feels it coming on as I grow weak, and I begin to peak.

  Luke watches me intently.

  And the feeling gets to be too much. I unhinge just as Luke does.

  It takes us a minute to come down. His body is against mine, and he’s shaking.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, trying to find my breath.

  “Yes. Are you?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  He pulls out of me and begins to wash my body with just a bar of soap. Over my neck, shoulders, chest, breasts, stomach, my back, between my thighs, and I’m free. He washes my hair with ease and a sense of tenderness I’ve never found in another man before.

  I return the favor, but when I get to his stomach, his abdomen, I lean down and kiss both sides where his lungs are. I wish I could will them to be better. Instead, I silently pray that he’ll be okay. And that it will be a miracle. That he’ll be cured. And then we’ll be able to live out our lives somewhere, as long as we’re together. And that Fiona will still have her father, and he’ll be able to walk her down the aisle when she finds the love of her life.

  When I stand and look back at Luke, with his thumb, he wipes my cheeks and frees them from their sadness.

  “I know you want a different outcome, Catherine. I do, too. But the sooner we can accept this, the sooner we can live. The easy part is on my end, I know. Because the thought of losing you—” Luke stops. Looks down at my lips and back to my eyes. “I’m not so sure I’d be able to make it through.”

  “Yes, you would,” I say and kiss his lips.

  We all have that one fear in our lives that we keep in the back of our minds. All of us. Every single one of us. Whether we talk about it or not, it’s there, waiting to be acknowledged. I didn’t know my biggest loss until I met Luke. And now, here I am, walking through it with him.

  But I ask myself the more important question: Will he be able to let go when it is time?

  Tennessee really is a beautiful state. It reminds me a lot of Myers Flat in Northern California. The leaves are beginning to turn with their burnt-orange vibrancy and their reds.

  Fall is my favorite time of year.

  Mountains, streams, lakes, and sunsets seem to be the focal point here. I could live here. The nip in the air isn’t quite here yet, but the feeling of fall has arrived.

  “Let It Be” by The Beatles is playing through the car speakers. Maybe it’s the trees and the air and the color of the leaves and Luke, but a feeling of complete contentment comes over me. I can breathe deeper, my mind is clearer, and all I want to do is live this one life I’ve been given right now. In the moment.

  I look over at Luke in the passenger side. I’ve been driving since Mississippi. He’s asleep, and he looks just like a little boy who’s dreaming sweet dreams, whose biggest worry is whether or not to play with the boat or the truck today. Whose excitement isn’t money or the right address or the best car or the right image; it�
��s whether or not he gets another day of living.

  I try to pretend Luke isn’t sleeping, that his heart no longer beats, that he no longer needs air, that his soul has left his body. I do this maybe to soften the blow when his time, our time, has run out. Maybe to help ease my heart. But my throat tightens and my chest begins to ache and my head doesn’t allow for my heart to feel. He looks too peaceful, okay with the world and his life and what’s happened.

  When we’re ready to be called home, it won’t matter how much money we had, what house we lived in, what car we drove, what image we had. It will come down to one question: did we right our wrongs? When it comes down to the end, were we good people?

  It hits me like bricks.

  Is that what Luke’s doing? Righting his wrongs? The white envelopes. The stops to family and friends. Maybe he isn’t telling them he’s dying but making sure he’s righted things he did in the past.

  Luke stirs. Slowly, his eyes flutter open, and I’m grateful I’ll get to tuck this memory under my hat and remember it when his eyes no longer open. I watch as his body and brain come alive.

  He looks over at me and smiles. “Must have dozed off,” he says, his voice raspy—maybe from sleep, but maybe from the cancer and I’m too afraid to ask which.

  “A state ago. We’re in Tennessee now,” I say and smile, my hands on the wheel.

  I want Luke to take good memories with him when he goes. Though I’m not sure he’ll need them where he’s going, I want to give them to him anyway, just in case.

  “Where exactly are we?” He looks out the window.

  “You said Nashville, right? We need to go to Nashville?”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” Luke sits up, adjusts himself in the seat.

  “We’re in Dickson. And according to my iPhone, we have about forty-eight more minutes.”

  “Holy shit, I did sleep a long time.”

  “You need the sleep, Luke.”

  A song I’m unfamiliar with comes over the radio.

  “Where do you think you would be if the show hadn’t happened?”

  Luke laughs, shrugs. “I guess I’d be in the same spot.” Luke looks out the window and takes in the scenery. “If you take away all the money, the notoriety, the fame, all that shit, I’d still have terminal cancer. I guess, what’s the hardest in all this is leaving Fiona. You always need your dad. Right?” His head shoots back to me. “I didn’t mean it like that.”