Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  “Yeah?” she said, tossing the towel back on the counter. “That could be fun.” Her easy agreement didn’t surprise me. It was always the simple things that she enjoyed.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you go get a sweater?”

  She scurried off to do that, and I went into my bedroom to get my wallet.

  We got to the dealership as soon as they opened, and a salesman rushed out to meet us when we started walking among the cars. “Can I hel— Hey! Liam Kallen, right? Nice goal last night, man. The Storm are going to get back in the playoffs this year if you keep playing like that.”

  “Thanks. I hope we do.” I instinctively put my arm around Noelle’s waist, drawing her closer to me. She didn’t seem to mind. I pointed at an SUV nearby. “We want to test-drive that one. And some others, too, but let’s start with that.”

  “You don’t want that one,” he said, automatically heading off in another direction and assuming we would follow him. “You’re going to be sticking around Portland for a while. Let me show you a much better option. Same model, but with all the bells and whistles.”

  The guy went through his spiel as he walked, detailing all the many things this vehicle could do and why it mattered, even though I didn’t really care. I would probably buy a car for myself, not an SUV. I liked to have something sporty that could zip in and out. Not flashy, per se, but not an SUV.

  I thought an SUV would be good for Noelle, though. It’d be big, up off the ground. I’d feel better about her being in something like that when I had to head out on a road trip.

  The salesman finally stopped talking and opened the little box on the car’s window that housed the key. “Ready to drive it?”

  I nodded my head toward Noelle. “You first.”

  “Me?” She shook her head. “Why?”

  “I just want to see how you handle it,” I hedged.

  She shrugged and took the key. The salesman asked for our driver’s licenses and hurried off to make photocopies of them. A minute later he returned and handed us the licenses. “Since we’ll know where to find you if anything happens, my boss said you can take it for a spin on your own.”

  She climbed into the driver’s seat, and we left. It was obvious pretty quickly that Noelle had never driven a large vehicle before. It took her a minute to find the true center of the traffic lane once she pulled out of the parking lot, but she adjusted quickly.

  “Where should we go?” she asked.

  “You know Portland better than I do. Pick somewhere. Show me something I probably haven’t seen yet.”

  She made a few turns, going on small side streets instead of the main roads I tended to stick to. A minute later, we were driving alongside a park that was hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She slowed so I could look.

  It had picnic tables and swings and slides—all the usual park fare. A mother and her two toddlers, probably twins, were playing well away from the street. The little boys had shovels and buckets and were building castles out of the sand surrounding the jungle gym.

  “My parents used to bring us here,” Noelle said. I shot my gaze over to her. Her eyes were a little misty, filled with a wistful expression. “Mom didn’t worry about us too much here. Not like at some of the bigger, better known parks in town. There weren’t too many other people who came here, so it was always quiet.”

  “It still is,” I said.

  “Yes.” She turned onto another street and drove for a short distance, but then she stopped and put the SUV in park along the curb. She pointed to a sweet-looking two-story white Craftsman-style house with sage-green shutters and a minivan parked in the driveway. “That was our house.”

  Even though the park was one she’d played at when she was a child, for some reason I hadn’t been prepared to discover where she’d lived. I stared at it, trying to imagine her as a little girl with two younger brothers. My tongue got thick, and my throat seemed to be closing up and not allowing air to get through. “Close enough you could walk to the park,” I said, but my voice cracked on the words.

  She nodded, not taking her eyes away from the house.

  I wished I could buy the house for her. I wanted to take her back in time, so all the furniture she’d grown up with would fill those rooms, and the family pictures would hang from the walls, and there would still be the stains and imperfections and blemishes that showed that a family had lived and loved there.

  But I couldn’t. Someone else had bought the house. The furniture was gone. The pictures had likely burned in her car the night I’d met her. There was no going backward. Only forward, as hard as moving forward could be.

  For both of us.

  Eventually, Noelle put the car in gear and drove us back to the dealership. We did test-drives on five other vehicles before I’d made up my mind. I wanted that first SUV for Noelle, and a sleek, black sporty car for me.

  When I told the salesman which two vehicles I wanted, Noelle turned suspicious eyes on me. Her brow was furrowed, and her scowl was so adorable I wanted to kiss her.

  “Why do you need two?” She crossed her arms over her chest, and I could almost imagine her tapping her foot while waiting for my response.

  “I want the SUV for you.”

  “No. You’re not buying me a car.”

  I’d been expecting her to argue with me, but I hadn’t counted on her spinning on her heels and marching out of the car dealership’s showroom.

  “Noelle!”

  She didn’t stop when I called her name.

  “Be right back,” I muttered to the salesman as I darted out the door, following her. “Wait!” I shouted toward her retreating back. Good thing for me I had longer legs than she did and she was in flip-flops. I caught up to her and reached out for her hand.

  She jerked around as soon as I touched her, her eyes filled with misery. “You can’t keep doing this. You can’t spend that kind of money on me. I would never be able to repay you for something like that.”

  “I don’t want you to repay me. You’re already doing everything I want or need from you and more.”

  “What am I doing? I haven’t done anything for you. I just can’t—”

  “You agreed to at least a week before you’d throw in the towel, and only then if I turned into a serial killer,” I interrupted before she could tell me she was leaving. I knew that was what she was thinking. I could see it all over her face, and I just couldn’t handle that. Not now. “Otherwise you said you’d stay for a month. It’s only been a few days.”

  She looked away, her teeth nibbling on her lower lip. “I just don’t understand how I can be doing anything for you. It’s not enough.”

  “It is enough.”

  “I won’t leave. Not yet.” She still wasn’t meeting my eyes, though. “But you can’t buy me a car.”

  “It would help you get out and do things, though. You could drive to the dog rescue and volunteer or something.” Maybe that was what she needed. If she could be part of something where she felt she had a purpose, maybe that would be enough to fulfill her and then she would stay.

  “I can take the Max to Helping Hands. There’s a stop not far from the office. I don’t need a car for that.” Finally, her eyes flicked up to meet mine. She was smiling again, making me want to do anything and everything I could to keep her smiling. “You can buy me a pass for public transportation.”

  Public transportation? I really didn’t like the thought of that, but maybe I was moving things way too fast. Maybe I should go along with her suggestion, so she wouldn’t try to leave when our first week was up instead of staying through the end of the season.

  “Okay,” I said. “But after we buy my car, will you let me take you for a walk in the park you showed me earlier? The one by the house you grew up in?”

  Her smile brightened, making my heart stutter for a moment.

  “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

  She couldn’t have any idea how ridiculously happy that made me.

  I didn’t
understand how Liam could make me go from being one hundred percent positive I should leave right that very instant to thankful I hadn’t, all within a mere moment. But he could. And he had on numerous occasions in the brief time we’d known each other. I was certain he would continue to do so.

  When he tried to buy me a car, there hadn’t been a doubt in my mind that it was time for me to leave, to cut off this relationship—whatever it was growing to be—and move on with my life. Buying me clothes had been bad enough, but a car? There was no way I could turn that into something acceptable in my mind. I wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t his fiancée. I wasn’t even his girlfriend. Even if I were any of those things, I still needed to be able to give to him as much as he gave to me in the relationship. It didn’t need to be the same on a monetary scale, but it needed to be at least close to equal in some measure. A few smiles here and there couldn’t exactly stack up against a car.

  But I wasn’t any of those things to him; I was just his friend. There wasn’t anything more to our relationship than that. I could allow him to think it was bus-pass-worthy, even if I wasn’t completely comfortable with that thought.

  And after our compromise, he’d turned around and suggested we go for a walk in the park? Who was this man? How did he end up in my life? I didn’t get it, but I was glad I’d stuck around long enough that we could come to an agreement that would work for both of us.

  The thing was, whether I was comfortable with the situation or not, I really liked spending time with Liam. I was getting attached to him—more than I should allow myself to—and I didn’t think I wanted to walk away yet. For that matter, I wasn’t sure I would be able to walk away at all. Both of those things probably meant I should force myself to leave right now, or at least as soon as our week was over, because I didn’t know if he would ever be able to reciprocate that attachment. Spending money on a person doesn’t equate to loving them.

  Was I really falling in love with him? I wasn’t sure, but I could see it as a possibility if I wasn’t careful.

  That was something I would have to deal with another day, though.

  We returned his rental car, and then we headed toward the neighborhood I’d grown up in. When we got to the park, he took my hand. I glanced up at him for just a moment, but what I saw in his expression confused me so I turned my eyes away. He wasn’t looking at me like I was a friend. It was more how a man watches a woman.

  I didn’t want him to look at me that way unless he was capable of leaving Liv in the past. Unless he was ready to move forward instead of facing backward.

  That wasn’t to say that I wanted him to forget about her. Far from it. She was a part of him and the man he’d become. I just didn’t want him to look at me and see her, and even he didn’t seem sure he would ever be able to do that.

  We walked along a path that meandered through the trees, the laughter of children ringing in the distance and covering up the noise of traffic and the city. It was easy, here in this park, to forget that we were right in the middle of Portland. It felt peaceful, and everything seemed slower.

  A little girl shrieked nearby, hidden by the line of trees separating the walkway from the play area. Her giggles so infectious, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling right along with her.

  “You like children?” He asked it as a question, but he was already answering it himself, nodding and turning his head in the direction of the girl’s laughter. “Of course you like children. You wanted to teach kindergarten.”

  There was a faint but definite sense of yearning in his voice. He liked children, too.

  “Kids tend to be more honest than adults,” I said. “They haven’t yet been spoiled by the world. Everything is new and fresh and exciting, and life is so full of possibilities.”

  “Like you. I think that’s what I’m so drawn to about you—you still see the good things in life.” His hand closed more fully over mine, and it felt as though he was attempting to guard me against becoming jaded.

  “There are a lot of good things to see.”

  “And a lot of bad.”

  “Yes. And a lot of bad.” I wondered if he had ever been able to see the good things in life instead of focusing on the bad. He must have, at some point. Even now, I could feel a shift within him, where he was trying to focus on the positives. That was a step in the right direction.

  A light breeze picked up, blowing my skirt out behind me and making the wind chimes hanging on nearby porches tinkle. I caught my skirt with my other hand so I wouldn’t flash anyone coming along behind us.

  Liam came to a complete standstill.

  I spun around to face him, one hand still encased in his, my other holding tight to a fistful of fabric. His forehead was creased, and he was tense all over, his shoulders tight and high, the veins in his neck visible.

  “What’s wrong?” I dropped my grip on my skirt, and the fullness of it billowed against his legs.

  “The wind chimes,” he said, nearly choking on the words. “They just take me back.”

  I nodded. I wanted him to talk more, but if I spoke, he would probably clam up, and he might not talk about this ever again. That seemed to be the way of things with most people. Once you gave them the excuse to stop saying whatever was on their minds, they never went back again. I didn’t want that for Liam. I wanted him to find a way to get all of the darkness he held in his chest to leave.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally. He dragged a hand over his face, closing his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat a few times, but I could feel him shutting himself off even though I’d stayed quiet. “She made them for her father. I just— It just made me think of her.” He started walking again, so I went with him, grabbing hold of my skirt again since the breeze hadn’t let up. His eyes faced the path beneath our feet, but I doubted he saw it. “She didn’t ever want to come to the States with me, you know,” he said. “She wanted to stay in Sweden. Her father has Alzheimer’s disease, and she wanted to help her mother with him as much as she could, so she insisted on staying and making her chimes. But I kept begging her to come with me during the season because I was a selfish bastard. And she finally came. Now he doesn’t have her anymore, either.”

  There was more he was holding back, something he wasn’t saying. I could see it in the tension in his shoulders.

  The trail we’d been following was coming to an end, and the section of the park for older kids was up ahead of us—swings and slides and the like, all built for bigger bodies.

  “Want to swing?” he asked, sounding more lighthearted than he had only moments before. “I’ll push you.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t gotten on a swing in years, probably not since I was twelve or thirteen years old. There was a part of me that didn’t want to do anything but what we had been doing because I knew he wasn’t done talking. He wasn’t done getting out all the guilt he’d been carrying around over Liv’s death, even though he wasn’t at fault.

  But he led me to the swing set and got me situated, and after he’d pushed me from behind a few times, he started talking again.

  “I send money to her mom every month,” he said. “To help with her dad. Since I took Liv away from them.” Everything he said was choppier now because he waited until I came back close to him to speak.

  It touched me that he was helping to take care of her parents, but it didn’t surprise me. That seemed like the kind of man he was—giving of himself, whether he was responsible for a person or situation or not. That was how he communicated his feelings for someone, it seemed—giving to them. Doing for them. Taking care of them. The thing he didn’t seem to see was that he hadn’t taken Liv away from them. She’d made a decision, and her decision had led to her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he’d wanted her to come live with him during his hockey seasons, but he hadn’t forced anything on her.

  “How long were you married?” I asked, and I immediately wished I hadn’t. He’d been telling me things without my interruptions perfectly fine. I should
have let him continue at his own pace.

  “Seven years,” he said. “We’d been together since we were teenagers, though. It took a long time to convince her to marry me. Just like it took a long time to convince her to leave Sweden. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved until—”

  I was glad that he stopped himself again, even though my pulse was frantic as my blood charged through my veins.

  For several minutes, he pushed me in silence, allowing me to ruminate a little too long. He kept getting closer and closer to telling me something I wanted to hear, and yet something I didn’t think he was ready to mean. The idea of me staying for the whole four weeks, or staying at all longer than the initial week I’d agreed to, was enough to make me feel slightly sick to my stomach. No matter how much I wanted to stay beyond that, I wouldn’t be doing either one of us any good if I did.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, breaking our silence. “I’m starving.”

  “Yeah, we should go do something about that.” I turned my head around to smile at him, and he stopped pushing the swing so I could get down.

  When we left, he took me to Amani’s for lunch, and we talked about any number of things that had nothing to do with my childhood or his previous marriage. It was an easy conversation—not the sort of fluff that always drove me insane but also not the heavier things that tended to bring him down.

  By the time we finished with all of that, it was only two in the afternoon.

  “Babs and the boys are still going to be at the apartment playing video games,” Liam said. “Probably until after dinner. We need to find something to fill at least several more hours.”

  “I don’t mind being around the guys,” I said. “I have brothers, you know.” He’d given up enough of his day to entertain me. I didn’t want to take up his whole day off, because the guys on the team didn’t get many. “We can just go back to the apartment, and I can find something to do.”