The Light We See

by J. Lynn Bailey

  I smile. “Yes, you did, and it’s all right. I think you’re right in most cases. I need pieces of my father. The good pieces. The two percent of who he was. I could do without the remaining ninety-eight percent.”

  I see the worry in Luke.

  “She’s going to be all right, Luke. She will be okay eventually.”

  “And then there’s you,” he whispers. “I never expected to fall in love with you, Cat. This … this wasn’t on the agenda or my timeline.” He laughs. “But sometimes, the unexpected happens at the moment we need it most.” He looks at me.

  “What are we doing on this trip, Luke? What’s the point of it all?”

  “Trying to clear away some wreckage of my past.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Sometimes, we get second chances, but I can’t miss this. When my sister died, I didn’t get to tell her things that I wanted to. I think she felt the same way.” He bites his lower lip. “Life can get cut short, and we might never be able to tell the ones we love most how we feel, you know?”

  Yeah, I do know.

  “What do you wish you had said to your dad, Cat?”

  I take in a deep breath and let it out. “I …” I start but stop. Think on it. “I wish I had told him that I was terrified of him. That he scared me. And that I was tired of him hurting our mother. That my heart was broken for him and for my mother and for Ingrid and me. I wish we could have been the family that my mother and father had painted us to be, but we just couldn’t.”

  A long minute passes, and we don’t say anything. My mind wanders to private moments with my family where things could have worked out so differently. When Mother didn’t have to ask us to lie and Father could just be present and in the moment without a reason to bring the hydrangeas. And all the times Father could have held his tongue instead of berating Mother.

  “What would you have said to your sister?” I ask.

  “I would have told her that I should have said yes when she wanted me to play school or Barbies. I wish I could have protected her when kids teased her for being bald. Kids are assholes,” he sighs. “I wish my sister hadn’t seen Benny and me beat one of her ex-boyfriends to a bloody pulp when he told everyone he’d gotten her pregnant and bragged about it. He’d never gotten her pregnant and Ella swore they never had sex.”

  I can’t picture Luke or Benny doing this. But people make decisions, unimaginable decisions, based on emotion, a reaction, and without thinking. I wonder if the driver in the car that hit Benny that night had made a conscience decision to drink and drive. I wonder if Father attempted to make right what he’d done wrong the night before, only to end up in the same spot he’d been previous nights.

  If the goodness in this world were done with bigger intentions, I wonder how much better the world would be.

  Luke doesn’t want to talk about this anymore because I see him pull out his phone and tell me to take the next exit off the freeway into downtown Nashville.

  “Who are we going to see in Nashville?”

  “Kane.”

  “Kane who?”

  “Kane Voss.”

  I slowly turn my head in Luke’s direction. Look back to the road and then back again to Luke. “As in Kane Voss and the Strikers?” I focus on the road.

  “That’s the guy.”

  They’re one of the biggest bands in country music right now and cleaned house at the CMA Awards last year.

  “We’ll check in to our hotel and get showered and then meet him at dinner, if that works for you?” he asks.

  “I’ll check my schedule,” I say, smile, side-eye him.

  I decide I will miss Luke’s lips the most. So, I capture this moment, memorize it, and tuck it into my heart and hold it there.

  I was used to posh places, growing up. It wasn’t like I took advantage; I noticed everything. I noticed the crystal wineglasses in our hotel rooms as children. The large, grandiose beds that we laid our heads on at night when we traveled. The music that played in the lobby just sounded more expensive, more educated, more sophisticated. The places we stayed when we went overseas, how we were treated like royalty, making me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. When people asked to take our bags or fetch us breakfast or lunch and served us dinner, I wanted to help, not be at the receiving end.

  And prison felt better. Prison felt better because I didn’t have to walk on eggshells anymore. I knew where I stood in life, and my responsibility to my family and the world was serving my sentence. Somehow, I just felt safer in prison than I had throughout my childhood—maybe because I hadn’t been free at all. I had been tied to a family whose secrets kept us bonded to ourselves. Chained.

  But in prison, I no longer had to live the lies. I no longer had to live without knowing what to expect from day to day, night to night. I knew where I stood and learned the expectations, and if I followed the expectations, I’d be all right.

  This place that Luke has booked for us reminds me of those places I stayed at as a child—the marble floors, the elegant mahogany four-poster bed, the crystal water pitcher and wineglasses, and the most amazing view I’ve seen since Al and Gene’s overlook in Abilene.

  A wall of windows overlooks the night skyline of Nashville. The different shades of white, orange, yellow. The colorful reflection on the Cumberland River.

  This place is magnificent not because of what surrounds me, but because I am finally free. I am free from my childhood and its uncertainties. I am free from the walls that kept me confined—albeit safe, but confined—and for the first time in my life, even with Luke’s cancer, I am able to be free in this moment.

  I feel his hands gently slide around my waist.

  Luke had arranged for several dresses to be sent up to our room for me to try on. Until I was blue in the face, I told him that I’d like to reimburse him for the lacy yet somewhat conservative black dress I’d chosen.

  He laughed.

  We showered together.

  Made love twice.

  I listened to his heartbeat just because I could, and we got ready for dinner with Kane.

  “What are you thinking about?” Luke asks.

  “How free I feel in this moment.”

  I feel his lips smile against my neck. He kisses me lightly, sending chills up my spine.

  “Do that again, Mr. McCay. I’m not sure we’ll make it to dinner.”

  There will come a day where Luke and I won’t be able to make love anymore. Where his body will be too weak, where his organs will slowly shut down and stop working. Where his breathing will become labored and slower. And then his heart will eventually stop beating.

  But not tonight, I tell myself as I push the sadness that constricts my throat. We have tonight. Tomorrow isn’t a promise.

  “Marry me, Cat.”

  My mouth falls open, and I slowly turn to face him. “What?” My voice is broken, my tone wavering on disbelief, and love and sadness—because I know in my heart all we have is today even though I want so badly to live out the rest of our tomorrows until we’re old and gray.

  “Marry me.” His voice is strong as if sickness weren’t there.

  He towers over me and lightly cups my jaw in his hand. I lean into it and close my eyes.

  Luke continues, “It’s the way you chew on your lip when you’re in thought. It’s the way your head moves when James Taylor comes on the radio. It’s when it’s quiet around us, and you look at me in wonder. It’s the way you took Fiona in your hands. The look on your face when you saw her was like witnessing active beauty, not because of your admiration of the way she looked, but because you could see her heart, because you know mine, because you own mine.” Luke puts his other hand on my other cheek. “I’ve longed for you, even when I didn’t know you were the person I needed in this life. But now, having met you, having felt you, my only regret is not having more time with you.”

  “We’re given what we need when we need it,” I whisper because I believe this in my bones. I need Luke to teach me how real love works and how to deal with grief w
hen it comes.

  Luke smiles and kisses the tip of my nose. “You still haven’t answered my question. Will you marry me, Catherine Clemens?”

  “Yes.” My answer is rushed and hurried, and it doesn’t sound like I want it to, so I say, “I would love to be your wife, Luke.”

  “I’m really glad you said that because”—he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bright blue box and he gets down on one knee—“I will spend the rest of my life loving you the way you deserve to be loved. Give you everything I have in my heart. Keep you safe. Battle whatever comes our way, and I will continue to fight until I can’t anymore. Will you make me the happiest man alive and marry me, Catherine Clemens?”

  Luke pulls open the box, and all I see is light. Light and rainbows from all different directions.

  “I will.”

  Luke stands, takes the ring from the box, and places it on my left ring finger. I don’t look down at the ring. I just pull his mouth to mine and kiss him as if it were our last kiss. I will him to feel the overwhelming sensation I have in my body right now. One of his hands slides around my waist, and the other goes underneath my long hair where he holds my head.

  We break for a moment and stare at each other.

  Smile.

  Laugh.

  Kiss again.

  “I love you, guy number seven,” I say to Luke as my hand slides down to his, and we make our way to the door to go to dinner with a guitar player who’s magical on strings. “You know I’m only marrying you because of who you know, right?”

  Luke laughs. “If that were the case, I would have asked you to marry me when you came to my house in Carpinteria or the night we’d slept together all those years ago.”

  “I wish you had,” I say as Luke holds our hotel door open for me.

  “Catherine, it’s nice to meet you,” Kane says, holding his tie close to his body as he sits down in his chair.

  “Kane, you’re killing me. I’m really trying to hang on to this woman”—Luke gazes at me—“and your Southern drawl isn’t helping me any.”

  Luke and Kane laugh.

  “Did Luke tell you how we met, Catherine?” he asks.

  “I’m afraid to say, Kane, that he just told me today that we’d be going to dinner with you.”

  “Ah, well, we met in LA—at the beach, of all places. I was strumming on my old Gibson. Who would have thought this guy could kill it on the guitar? He told me I was playing the note wrong. I told him to eat shit and die.”

  We laugh.

  “He offered guitar lessons if I could show him how to surf. Played a lot. Did some gigs together. God, we were young. And dumb.” Kane shakes his head.

  Luke stares at his friend across the table.

  “Then, he takes on this big-ass role as Dylan Klein. All shit breaks loose, and he disappears for years. Then—get this—one day, while I was still struggling to make it in the music industry, I get this Gibson Hummingbird fucking delivered to Tommy Page’s, a guy whose couch I was sleeping on at the time. The delivery guy walks up to the door, and I answer it because I’m the only one home. Because I play gigs at night, right? My hair is a mess. I’m tired. Probably a little hungover. The guy says, ‘You Kane Voss?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ thinkin’, What the hell does this guy want? He hands me a long package with a note that says, From Chicken Legs.”

  Kane beams at Luke, and Luke sets down his water glass.

  “That’s what made my career.”

  Luke shakes his head. “You made your career, not the guitar.”

  “No, I mean, out of all the shit this career has given me—the awards, the people I’ve met—nothing tops that day, man. Nothing. I’d felt invisible. And that somebody was willing to spend that kind of money on me, it meant they believed in me.”

  The waiter approaches our table, and you can tell he’s a bit out of his element—nervous and excited, all at the same time.

  “Miss, may I get you something to drink?”

  “Water, please. Thank you.”

  “Mr. Voss, and, Mr. McCay?”

  “Just water,” they both say in unison.

  The waiter scribbles it down on his handheld electronic device—a way to take orders, I suppose. “I’ll be back with your waters.”

  By the end of dinner, I’ve laughed so hard that my cheeks hurt. Kane is an amazing storyteller and hysterical. And he and Luke together are just as magical. I can see why they gravitated toward each other. How, in Los Angeles, out of the four million people who live there, Kane and Luke found each other.

  Luke bites on his lip and grabs the white envelope out of his back pocket.

  “What’s this?” Kane asks, setting his water glass down on the table.

  Luke shrugs. “A parting gift.”

  Kane puts his elbows down on the table. “You mean to tell me, you came all this way to break up with me?” A smirk begins to form on Kane’s face.

  Luke rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair, crossing his arms. “I traveled all this way for a lot of people. Don’t feel that important.”

  We all laugh, and then it’s quiet.

  “What’s in the envelope, Luke?” he asks. Kane picks it up. Smells it to be funny. Runs his fingers along the sides. Sets it back down on the table.

  Kane’s cell phone starts to sound from his back pocket. He pulls it out to look at the screen. “Sorry, I need to take this real quick.”

  He answers, and all he says is, “Mikey.” He listens. Rolls his eyes. “Again? Yeah. Yeah. Leaving here now.”

  Kane hangs up. “Skipper, our drummer, is going through a breakup. Apparently, he took a bottle of Crown from a liquor store, and no one can find him.” Drops his head. “The media is going to have a field day with this one. Anyhow, I’m real sorry, but I have to cut this short to go find the little fucker.” Kane stands and shoves the white envelope in the back pocket of his jeans.

  We stand.

  Kane comes over, and we hug. Quietly, he says, “Take care of this guy. He’s a keeper, okay?”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  I wish I could take care of him forever. My stomach turns into knots. We’ve joked and laughed and exchanged stories as if Luke were no different than a healthy man walking down the street. As though he didn’t cough up blood on a daily basis and he hadn’t been told that the cancer would take his life.

  Kane walks to Luke, and I see Luke’s genuine, big white smile again. They both laugh about something and embrace.

  I wonder if Kane knows this will probably be the last time he embraces Luke. I wonder if that white envelope that Kane has in his back pocket will tell him what he needs to hear after he’s gone. I wonder if Kane will look back on this moment and wish he had hugged longer, stayed longer, and forgotten about Skipper the drummer.

  Luke feels good enough to drive back to our hotel. On our way up to our room, Luke starts to cough. There’s more blood this time. I take off my light sweater that Luke bought with the dress and put it over his mouth to catch the fallout.

  His hands have blood.

  He takes a sharp right into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him.

  He coughs so hard that I hear him throw up.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  I know he wants his privacy. I know this is hard for him.

  My stomach turns, and I, too, want to throw up. But I also want to be in there with him.

  “Luke,” I whisper. “Please let me in.” I slide down the wall on the other side of the door. “Let me help.”

  The bathroom is silent. I hear the toilet flush.

  “Luke,” I say again, louder. “I need to be in there with you. Please, let me in.”

  A click sounds on the other side of the door, and I scramble to my feet and walk into the bathroom. Luke has his head between his knees, his hair wet from sweat.

  I get down on the floor next to him. Pull his head to my chest and hold him. My sweater is balled up on his face.
His body feels tired and heavy.

  I stroke his hair and collect memories. Even the bad ones will do. What his head feels like against my chest. What he smells like. His breath against my skin.

  We don’t say a word.

  I hold him, and he holds me up.

  “Would you like to get in bed, Luke?”

  He says something, but I can’t understand it. It’s muffled and soft. But he gets to his feet and reaches down to help me.

  Darks circles have already formed underneath his eyes, and he looks exhausted. It’s the first time I think a hospital might be a better idea. I take his hand and lead him to our bed. I take off his clothes and put him to bed.

  “You feel warm, Luke. Should we go to the hospital?”

  “No hospitals, Cat. I won’t go. Not yet. We still have six states left. When we get to New York, then I’ll go if you think we need to.” His voice is weak, tired.

  I nod and kiss the side of his head.

  I go to retrieve water to put by his bedside. I fill the glass in the bathroom and stare back at the woman in the mirror.

  This woman isn’t the same woman I’ve known for the past thirty-four years. She’s different. She’s more. She’s more whole than she was two years ago. Love is stained in her cheeks, in her heart. Her eyes are somehow brighter, more alive, and more forgiving. She carries the weight of her world on her shoulders armor, taking the jabs, the swing of life. And the grief that sits behind her eyes is only visible when she allows it to be. But tonight, she’s not hiding anything. She takes down her hair, steps out of her dress, and stares at herself, the woman she’s proud of becoming.

  A new skin.

  She realizes her greatest heartaches, her greatest failures have become her greatest assets.

  She no longer has to live bound to herself.

  She can be vulnerable.

  She can be who she is, and she is okay with that.