The Light We See

by J. Lynn Bailey

  Luke unlocks the door with the slide of the key. He pushes and opens it. “After you.”

  I walk through, carrying my overnight bag, and Luke follows me in, shutting the door behind us.

  He sets his bag down. Takes mine from me and sets it down. Runs his hands through his hair. Takes in a big, deep breath. “This is not how I planned on telling you, Cat.” His voice is quiet. I can tell that he’s tired. “Julie is my wife. We’ve been married since 1995, and for a long time, we worked. We worked well together.”

  He sits down on the bed, but I stand. I don’t move. I just watch him.

  “But sometimes, things happen and don’t happen. Feelings and love and all that shit that makes love move forward suddenly goes away, and you’re left with nothing but open wounds that can’t be fixed. And there’s no way you can fix them because you didn’t do anything wrong.” His voice is full of pain. “Life happened.”

  I sit down on the opposite bed, let my bag slide down to the floor.

  “We tried to have a baby. We tried for a long time. And somehow, in all that work, Julie lost herself. I lost myself, trying to find her. She left, and I was left, trying to pick up the pieces of my life, our life.”

  Luke puts his hands just above his knees and stares at me dead in the eyes. “I should have told you this part sooner, too. And I’m sorry I didn’t. I saw Ingrid watching Julie and your father. She’d received random calls in the middle of the night with excuses like wrong number, a sales call—all shit I didn’t believe, and I think she knew it, too. But that’s the thing about love. We believe what our heart wants to see, not the reality of the situation until it’s blindly held in our face. I saw your father with my wife. We knew. We all knew in that moment that their relationship wasn’t platonic. But I tried to make it work, you know? She was my wife, and we’d made a promise.” His voice dies off.

  “I remember,” I whisper.

  I remember that day so vividly—when Ingrid’s words came to life.

  “I saw Father with another woman.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Ingrid. I did. But I had to see it for myself.

  “There’s a reason we keep running into each other, Cat,” he says in the most needful way.

  “Julie needed a baby, and she was willing to do anything to get it. I was just a person to fit the bill for her heart when she needed me.” He takes a big breath in and lets it out. “We haven’t spoken in over five years. I-I never filed divorce papers because I didn’t plan on getting married again. Not until you. And this is where the story gets better, I promise.” Luke reaches over and lightly touches my knee for a moment. “I never forgot about you. Your face. Your eyes, the way they told stories to keep your innermost secrets at bay. I knew if it was fate and if we were meant to be, you and I would meet again. Because I learned through love and loss that, most times, we just need to show up for life.”

  He smiles at me, the real, genuine one, as he reaches up and touches my cheek with the back of his thumb. “Then, I showed up as guy number seven.”

  I try to smile through my heartache.

  “And then you showed up at my house three weeks ago, and I knew.” He pauses. “I called my attorney and had him draw up the divorce papers, and that’s probably Julie calling to cuss me out or ask me what for because she received them.” He shrugs. “But I won’t call her back if you don’t want me to.”

  My mouth falls open. “You have to. You need closure, Luke.”

  He nods. “I have closure. You are my closure. And I think our lives fell into place.”

  I shake my head, trying to wrap my head around all these thoughts that keep running through my brain.

  “What I realized is that we have people we’re supposed to love along the way. Fall in love with. People that we’re supposed to love even if it isn’t for forever. Jules was one of those. And you, you’re something different. Something I’ve never experienced before, Cat. I’d still like to marry you if you’ll have me.”

  There are no second thoughts with Luke. Ever. I didn’t know our time would be limited, but even still, it’s all worth it. All of it.

  I’m driving through New York, and we’re laughing. I don’t remember why we started laughing in the first place, but Luke is laughing, and it’s the most beautiful thing to my ears.

  He’s paler now. His coughing fits are more pronounced and more often.

  He’s growing sicker, and we both know it.

  But we’re laughing, and everything is right with the world just for a moment.

  He’s talked me out of the hospital too many times to count.

  When fear lumped in my throat and I didn’t know what to do, he just said, “Stay with me.”

  The fear passed, and he eventually rode out the temporary.

  But now, looking at this man that God gave me, I’m not sure what’s worse—laughing or crying.

  Luke’s smile fades, and I notice his lips have lost their redness. They’re almost match his skin tone. The dark circles under his eyes have become permanent.

  “I’m ready to go home now, Cat.”

  I don’t want to ask if he means home as in Carpinteria or home as in heaven. I’m too scared to ask. So, instead, I just nod as tears fill my eyes, and I say, “Okay.”

  My engagement ring catches the glint of the rising sun. We left early because neither of us could sleep, and I was worried for Luke. Sometimes, his breathing becomes labored.

  I make a mental note to call Fiona when we get to where we’re going.

  She needs to know.

  Above everyone else, including me, she needs to know, so she has time to say good-bye.

  “You’re an excellent father, Luke, you know that?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Luke? Are you okay?” I’ve started to do this recently, check on him, scared that he somehow stopped breathing or his heart stopped or something else completely irrational.

  “I’m with you,” he says weakly, and it gives me peace.

  He grabs the Starbursts from the dashboard, picks an orange one, and hands it to me. He takes a yellow one for himself.

  “Are … are Starbursts good for you?” I ask.

  Luke turns to look at me. His smile starts first, and then he starts to giggle and then laugh.

  Then, I start to laugh.

  “I’m a dying man, Cat. I’m not too concerned.”

  Then, we both start laughing, and tears start to roll down my cheeks. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s the first time he’s said he’s dying or his laughter that affects me so deeply.

  I wipe my tears and will myself to believe it’s Luke’s laughter just so it’s easier to cope.

  “Cat?” Luke’s looking out the window now.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t call anyone, okay? After I’m gone?”

  I swallow, and my throat feels rough, like sandpaper. I don’t answer him.

  If you had asked me in the beginning of this trip, I would have said okay without any other questions. But now, I’ve seen Luke with the people he loves most.

  And I’m not sure if it’s the cancer talking or him, but I say, “What about Fiona?”

  “I don’t want her last memory of her father to be a broken one.”

  “You aren’t broken, Luke; you’re sick. There’s a big difference.” I pause for a moment. “I used to think that was right. To hang on to the good memories of life, but it isn’t the good memories that build us; it’s the ones we don’t want to see, don’t want to remember, don’t want to feel.” I think about my own past. “You taught me that, Luke.”

  Luke doesn’t say anything more.

  I break the silence by asking him about what his perfect world looks like because as we approach Upstate New York, I see the worry that he carries in his eyes.

  He reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “We’d get married in a small ceremony, close to where your mother is. Fiona would be my best man.” He smiles. “We’d have
a place in Myers Flat to escape to, to see the big trees. We’d have a kid, name him James, after my dad. We’d make love under the stars in the summer and by the fire during the winter. We’d have the family over for holidays and keep it as low-key as possible. We’d go for walks in the evening, and I’d teach James to play the guitar. But wherever you chose for us to live, I’d hope it was close to the ocean,” he sighs. “This is hard.”

  I don’t ask why because I know why. We won’t get this future together.

  “But we have today, Luke.”

  Because Luke taught me to stay in the present moment. To breathe it in. When I am weak, he is strong. And when he is weak, I need to be his strength.

  “Our son, James, will learn to play the guitar. I’ll find our place in Myers Flat. I’ll be sure Fiona knows her little brother. I’ll have a place by the ocean, so we’re closer to you.”

  I look over, and I see a single tear slip down Luke’s cheek.

  “Are you scared?” I ask, pulling strength from within me that I know I’ll need. I reach my hand around his neck, feeling the warmth of his skin.

  “No, I’m not scared to die. I’m scared you won’t live your life.”

  A groan escapes my throat, and deep inside me, I’m scared he’s right. I feel the tears threaten to fall. I swallow them.

  I wait one moment before I speak, praying my voice doesn’t crack, “I promise you, I will live.” Right now, I’m not sure I trust my own words, but I’d never lie to Luke. I just hope I can do it.

  “They talk about a man’s dying wish. I have one wish.” Luke looks out the windshield now.

  “What’s that?” I whisper.

  “That you and Fiona each find a person who loves you just as much as I do.” He pauses. “It will be different, the love, but the amount of love is the same. And don’t settle, Cat. Don’t settle for someone just because you want your heart to stop aching. Don’t settle for anything less than you’re worth. Find someone who takes your breath away. Find someone who will make you laugh. Find someone who takes care of you, and most importantly, find someone who loves you when you don’t feel lovable. When you’re broken, make sure they don’t fix you but help you through it, okay? Find someone like that because that is what you deserve.

  “You don’t deserve guys one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, and nine. You deserve guy number seven because he will always remember you. He’ll hold your heart in the most delicate way possible, but give you the truth when you need it. And don’t compare my love to anyone else’s. It will be different. But give different the benefit of the doubt. Give it a chance.”

  The sunlight shines down between the clouds.

  “The light we see isn’t because it’s there; it’s because we took the time to notice it,” Luke whispers. “I spent my life going a hundred miles an hour. If it wasn’t construction, it was projects at home. If it wasn’t filming, it was doing interviews. I never gave the people I loved the most my time. So, when my time was called short here on this earth, I began to reflect on all the time I didn’t spend doing what I wanted to do or what I should have done. Don’t make that same mistake. Give yourself the gift of time because we never know when it will be cut short.”

  The envelopes.

  The time we spent with his family, his friends.

  This was Luke’s amends.

  He stopped his time in Southern California to slow down. To give his time to the people he loves most in this world. He gave them what he couldn’t for many years. This trip was about a dying man’s wish to be with the love of his life.

  “The envelopes,” I say.

  He nods. “The envelopes were letters to some, money for others.” Luke reaches into his back pocket, pulls out another white envelope, and puts it on the dashboard. “Don’t open this until I’m gone, okay?”

  I look forward, willing myself to keep driving and not fall apart. I hold my breath, keeping the sob in my throat. I finally swallow. My eyes burn, and I bite the side of my tongue, so my tears won’t fall.

  When I’ve gathered enough courage, I say, “I will always remember the way you love me, Luke, and know that I am worthy of that kind of love again. I can’t—I can’t guarantee I’ll find it, but I’ll be open to it.”

  New York passes by us as we make our way down the stretch of road.

  The fall colors, the life sits and waits for us as Luke directs me where to go.

  Off the beaten path. Behind a grove of trees are black wrought iron gates.

  “This place is beautiful,” I say.

  The man in the booth just off the gates greets us with a tip of his hat. “Mr. McCay, I assume.”

  “Rodney, good to meet you. Thank you.”

  Rodney doesn’t give off the fact that Luke looks significantly different.

  “Ma’am,” he says to me.

  “This is my soon-to-be wife, Catherine.” Luke smiles a goofy smile that makes me laugh.

  I put my hand through the window, and we exchange a handshake. “Hello, Rodney.”

  “Indeed,” he says. “The house is ready for you, and Dr. Brinkman arrived yesterday along with two nurses. And your publicist.”

  My stomach begins to twist and turn at the thought that Luke will need a doctor and two nurses because that means we’re another step closer to his departure.

  “Thank you, Rodney.”

  He tips his hat again, and I drive forward. The road weaves through black spruce and eastern hemlock and then opens up to a two-story brown palace with green ivy growing up the face of it. In some ways, it reminds me of home. Its size, its circular driveway, but that’s it. I hope the memories inside are better.

  “This is beautiful, Luke. How long have you had this?”

  Luke looks up through the front windshield as we drive up to the house. “Escrow closed two weeks ago.”

  I ease the brakes, and the car comes to a stop. I look at him. “You’ve never been here before?”

  “Nope.”

  “You-you just bought a house that you’ve never been to? Never stepped foot in?” I turn off the engine.

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” Luke shrugs. “It’s just a house, Cat.”

  “So, you didn’t know Rodney?”

  Luke smiles. “No, first time I’ve met him. We’ve had a few discussions on the phone.”

  I admire Luke’s ability to be spontaneous.

  “Come on.” He reaches up and touches my face. “Let’s go check out our house.”

  Our house.

  Our home.

  After a trip across the country, we’re finally at a place where we can call home. Whether it’s home really or not, I’m not sure, but I do know Luke is home for me, so wherever he is—is my home.

  The front double doors are magnificent. Hand-carved brown mahogany. They must be twenty feet tall.

  Luke looks at me, and I look at him, our bags in hand.

  He leans in and kisses me on the mouth. “I love you,” he whispers when he pulls away.

  He smells like mint, and if cool water had a smell, it would smell like Luke.

  “I love you, too.” My fingers feel their way to his, and I take his hand as he opens the front door.

  His steps are slower now. His movements less calculated. I feel as though I need to stand behind him and make sure he makes it to where he’s going.

  We come into a grand entryway. The dark brown mahogany floor matches the front doors.

  To the left, the house opens up to a wall of windows that overlooks a valley of trees. The living room has couches and pillows and a massive stone fireplace. To the right is the kitchen with mahogany cabinets and cement countertops.

  The fire is going. It’s warm but not too warm.

  A second story sits upstairs that we haven’t gotten to yet.

  “It’s prettier in person,” Luke says, grabbing the wall to steady himself.

  “I hear a Mr. Luke McCay in the house,” a singsong voice sounds from out of the
blue.

  And the voice comes into view. She’s tall with long red hair that is pulled back. A black pencil skirt with a white blouse and very cute heels. They click down the hallway as she approaches us. A laptop in one hand.

  “Catherine Clemens, my name is Pearl Glenwood, and I’m Luke’s publicist. It’s so nice to finally meet you.” She extends her hand to me, and I, her. Pearl seems to be in her mid-forties, I’d say, but I’ve never been any good at guessing people’s ages, so she could be much older or much younger.

  “Nice to meet you, Pearl.”

  Luke’s hand moves to my lower back.

  “What the hell is on your hand?” she says to me.

  “Luke, fucking seriously, you have to tell me about this shit before it happens.”

  Luke looks at Pearl, and in his calm, cool demeanor, he says, “Pearl, I’m a dying man. I can do whatever the hell I want.”

  But Pearl doesn’t miss a beat, and I see when Luke says the word dying, that it makes her feel uncomfortable. Her quick wit, in my opinion, makes her good at this job. “And it is my job to make you look good until your dying day. So, tell me shit. ’K?”

  Luke laughs, and I laugh.

  Pearl looks down at her phone, which is now buzzing. “I’ve got to take this.”

  “Dr. Brinkman, Luke’s here,” she calls and clicks back down the hallway in the way she came.

  A tall, thin man comes from the other direction. A thin nose with black wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Great to see you again, Doc.”

  Luke and Dr. Brinkman shake hands.

  “This is my fiancée, Catherine.” Luke grins. “I’ll never get tired of saying that,” he whispers in my ear.

  We exchange pleasantries.

  Dr. Brinkman eyes Luke in an investigative way. “Come on, Luke,” the doctor says. “Let’s get your vitals and run some tests.”

  Stay in the moment, I remind myself. I take a big breath in, but I’m reluctant to let go of Luke’s hand that I’ve just taken for my own safekeeping.

  He looks back. “Are you okay?” Looks at my hand that won’t let go.

  “Yeah,” I lie to make things easier for him. I drop his hand as if it were an afterthought.