The Light Between Us Box Set

by Thomas Grant Bruso

  I turn back to Claire who holds a small box in her hand. She hands me my purchase, and I see her eyes start to well up. “Merry Christmas,” she says.

  “I can’t wait to see the look on his face,” I say, mostly to myself. To Claire: “Thanks for holding onto it for me.” I dig out my wallet from my back pocket, and hand her my credit card.

  She runs my card through the machine. “For you, my dear friend—any time.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  I scribble my signature across the bottom of the receipt and hand Claire her copy, tucking mine into my pocket. I am about to leave the shop when the young man from earlier approaches the front counter with a picture frame three times larger than his too-thin figure.

  I smile and thank Claire again. On my way out, I catch a quick glimpse of the young man. His acne-pocked face, stooped posture, and scraggly line of facial growth remind me of somebody I know. Something in his awkward stance, the way he leers at me from his under pulled-down cap, surprises me.

  I say, “Bret? Bret Hicks?”

  Slowly, warily, as if he does not want me to notice him, he looks up at me. A sense of hopelessness pervades his gaunt face. It has been more than a year since the last time we spoke.

  I try hard to dispel those images of Bret and his senseless friends teasing Darth Vader last year.

  Tufts of Bret’s beard are wiry and grungy. His septum is pierced and the out-of-character appearance reminds me of a lost, angry bull.

  But I keep my thoughts to myself.

  “Christian.” He says my name as if it is alien to him. And after a year, it certainly could feel that way.

  I have forgiven Bret for his hostile behavior. “How have you been?” I ask, smiling.

  He shrugs, using one hand to grope inside his jean pockets for a handful of crumpled twenty-dollar bills, while the other hand clamps the edge of the painting. He slaps the money on the counter.

  I lean against the counter and stare down at Bret’s purchase: Summertime on Lake Champlain.

  Bret stares down at the floor, shifting in his second-hand Nikes.

  Claire says, “You’re twenty-five dollars short, young man.”

  Bret grouses, leans the picture on the floor by the counter. I watch him dig through his pockets for any loose change. Empty-handed, he looks up at Claire, eyes flicking right and left, ashamed. “Can you hold it for me?” he asks. “I’ll head home and get more money. I’ll be back.”

  I pipe up before Claire can answer. “I’ll pay the remainder,” I say.

  “No. No,” Bret says nervously. “I got it.”

  “Here. Let me help.” I reach into my wallet and slide three ten-dollar bills across the counter to Claire. I wink at Bret. “You can pay me back whenever you can.”

  Bret is still, silent, his hands jammed deep in his pockets, but then he stares up at me and grins askew. “Thanks.”

  Claire wraps Bret’s purchase in shiny gold Christmas paper and hands the package to Bret. “Take care, young man. Happy holidays.”

  I reach across the counter to hug Claire. “Happy holidays, Claire.”

  “To you as well. Give my best to Philip.”

  I nod, taking my change from Claire’s outstretched hands.

  At the front of the store, I hold the door open for Bret as we step out into a blistery cold day.

  Flakes of icy snow dance around us. The scathing wind slaps the back of my neck. I watch as Bret climbs onto the seat of his bicycle, and tucks the picture under his arm.

  I try to yell over to him. But the fierce wind breaks my voice and carries it down the narrow road.

  I walk towards Bret, my head bent against the wind. I clutch my purchase in my left hand and wave at Bret wildly with my right. I grab his attention by yelling over the brutal gales. “You want a lift?”

  He looks around the area, puzzled. “Where’s your car?”

  “I don’t drive.”

  “Then how—”

  I hold up my cell phone. “I was going to call a taxi.”

  Bret nods, but as he does it, he loses his grasp on the painting. I tumble forward, skidding along black ice, and reach out to rescue the picture. In my clumsiness, I stumble and slam into the cold, hard ground, feeling pain crawling up my lower back.

  Looking up at a startled Bret, I pull a face: I am going to be sore tomorrow.

  Bret climbs off his bike and reaches down to help me up.

  Grimacing, I hand Bret back his purchase.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  “I’ll be fine.” I think. “Grab your bike. We can stash it in the back of the taxi when it arrives.”

  Chapter 5

  Twenty-minutes later, creeping along black ice and slush, the taxi pulls into the deserted car lot across from Bret’s home on Pickard Street.

  The taxi idles and the heat inside the cab keeps me planted. I stare out the windshield to a ghostly cold day and a below-freezing wind bending snow-covered trees into arthritic poses.

  “We’re supposed to get twelve inches of snow by midnight,” I hear Bret mumbling beside me. Panic chokes his shaky voice.

  I turn to him as he glances through a filmy window to his house across the street. His eyes settle on the torrent of chimney smoke billowing out from his house into the slate-grey sky.

  “Winter,” I say disdainfully. “Seven long months of the nasty stuff.” A muscle in my lower back jerks me forward. I wince.

  I hear Bret say, “Hey, man, you all right?”

  “I’m fine. How was your Thanksgiving?”

  He shrugs. “Quiet. Too damn quiet, actually. The food was good, though.”

  I release a satisfying chuckle. “Food is the answer for everything.”

  “What about you? How was your Turkey Day?”

  I do not have to think about it. “Like yours—quiet. Philip and I went out to eat.”

  “On Thanksgiving?”

  I grimace against the rising pain in my back. “Neither of us wanted to cook.”

  This jostles a smirk from his tight-lipped mouth. “That’s cool, I guess. My mom made her badass sweet potato pie with a brown sugar crumble topping. And she made the turkey skin dark and crispy—the way I like it.”

  “Sounds like a perfect Thanksgiving.”

  “Victor ate with us,” he says, his voice growing low, disdainful.

  As if I am supposed to know who Victor is, I say, “Victor?”

  Shrugs. “Mom’s new beau, I guess. But it sounds gay calling a fifty-three-year-old adult man somebody’s boyfriend. Don’cha think?” He shakes his head, looks out the window into a torn up white lot. “Sorry, man. I meant gay…like strange.”

  I pitch him a smile. “I’ll let it pass this time.”

  Our bald headed driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. “The meter is running, sir.”

  I nod. “Give us a few minutes.”

  He shrugs and turns back to his newspaper. “Suit yourself. Your time, your dime.”

  Bret shuffles around in his seat, unbuckling his seat belt around his chest. He turns and reaches down to the floor for the painting.

  “Wait a minute,” I tell him. “Is that for your mother?” I ask, leaning back, feeling a small pop of pain in my back from sitting too long.

  I think: Something is broken.

  Bret cocks his head in my direction. “How’d you know?”

  “Summertime in the Adirondacks is one of your mother’s favorites.”

  His acne-pitted face is screwed up in confusion.

  “I remember the paintings hanging in your living room when I was in your house last year,” I say.

  The mention of last year’s incident with Bret and his pot-smoking buddies quiets him. He freezes, sits up straight, and fiddles with his hands on his lap.

  “Bret? What’s wrong?”

  I watch as he sucks in a deep breath, his chest filling like a helium balloon. When he releases a steady stream of air, he turns to me. He looks sad. “I want you to know my mother has ch
anged.”

  I stay quiet and let him talk.

  He brushes his tongue across his parched lips. He sniffles. “She ain’t nothing like she was a year ago, man. I swear it.”

  I hear Janice’s adamant warning: You didn’t handle the situation like an adult, Christian!

  I stare out the filmy window glass.

  Bret says, “Things are different now. Life is better.” He shakes his head, kneads his forehead. Turns to the window, then back at me. “I got my GED. Things are getting better.”

  “Bret, that’s great. I am proud of you.”

  “It was hard,” he says, “but I’m changing.”

  “Life is hard. You have to keep trying.”

  “My mother is real proud of me.”

  “She should be.”

  “She wants to make it right with you. She wants to apologize.”

  The cacophony of punishment in Janice’s voice a year ago still yammers in my head like a skipping stone. “Maybe some other time.”

  “No time like the present.”

  His comment sits heavily on my chest. My throat tightens. I ask, changing the subject, “How are you going to hide that present from her until Christmas?”

  His shoulders slip slightly. “I’m a fast runner. She won’t see me.”

  I laugh. “Then it’s a plan.”

  He fidgets.

  “I could hold on to it for you until next week,” I volunteer.

  He shakes his head. “I can handle it.”

  I nod. “It was just a thought.”

  “Thanks.”

  “All right.”

  Balancing the painting on his lap, he asks, “How’s Darth?”

  At the thought of Bret’s Huskie, a light turns on in my mind. “He had separation anxiety issues the first few weeks, and bouts of diarrhea and not eating. But he’s transitioned like any normal dog—he’s doing surprisingly well.”

  Bret sits stoically, as if uncertain how to respond. He fingers his coat zipper nervously, yanking it up and down. He stops, looks over at me, and says, “I miss him. But I know he’s in a better place.”

  “You’re always welcome in our home. I’m sure Darth would love to see you.” I reach a hand out to Bret and place it on his bony shoulder. I withhold my remarks about how painfully thin he looks—a bag of bones beneath a too-large hoodie.

  Turning to me, he nods, his eyes glassy. “I was an asshole last year. Words cannot describe how sorry I am to you, Darth and Philip.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  For the next five minutes, we sit in silence. I watch the numbers on the meter ticking, my fare growing.

  Bret looks deep in thought.

  I break the silence. “What’s on your mind?”

  He swallows hard and turns away from the foggy window. He looks down at his lap, shaking his head. “I’m thinking about my mother.”

  “What about her?”

  Silence.

  I watch him tenderly grip the picture.

  “Bret?”

  He glances up at me after eyeing his house across the street. He is crying. “What is it?” I ask.

  “I don’t want my mother to have to go through another bad, violent relationship like she did with Dad.”

  I am floored. Numb, unable to speak. Bret’s surprising words startle me.

  I form my next words carefully. How do I continue?

  Tread lightly.

  Taking a deep breath, I say, “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  He brushes tears away with his thumb. He sniffs. Swallows. Gathers himself, clearing his throat. “Nobody talked about it for years. Not until my mother suggested to me that we should see somebody. Talk about it. Get the pain out.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

  His voice is steely when he tells me, “My father was a violent alcoholic. I hated him for it.” Choking up, he adds, “It made me angry when he gave my mom a bloody lip and two black and blue eyes.” Under his breath, he whispers, vehemently, “Bastard.” He turns to me, and I see fury building behind his eyes. “My father was a coward. I hated him. He got rough with me a few times. Pushed me around. One night he came home, drunk off his ass, and started fighting with Mom. I got in the middle of it and he slammed me hard against the kitchen cupboards.” He pauses, chest heaving, breathing reedy. “I thought I was going to die. I thought he was going to kill me.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to grow up like him.”

  I reach out and clamp my hand on his shoulder to stop him from shaking. “Children who grow up in abusive homes and are subject to domestic violence tend to emulate their parents’ behavior. But that is not you. You’re stronger than your father.”

  A weak smile. “That’s what my therapist told me.”

  “None of what happened in the past is your fault. I want you to know that.”

  Uncontrollable sobs rock Bret as he clings to my arm. “I hated my father for what he did to us. And I hated my mother for marrying him.”

  “Some women do not feel like they can escape an abusive relationship,” I say, trying to keep peace in my voice. “They’re afraid to speak up.”

  Maybe this is too much for an eighteen-year-old to hear.

  “Your mother did the best she could to raise you, given the circumstances,” I say. “You cannot blame her.”

  Bret wipes his nose up and down his coat sleeve.

  I wrap my arm around him. “Your mother needs you right now more than ever.”

  He looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I wish you were my dad.”

  My gut tightens. I say nothing. Force a smile.

  Seconds tick by, and he says, “Thanks for listening to me.”

  “Any time. By the way, how do you and Victor get along?”

  “Fine. He’s cool. He treats my mother kindly. Brings her flowers often. He makes us dinner, or takes us out to eat when my mother doesn’t feel like cooking.”

  “He sounds like a nice guy.”

  Bret nods. “So far, so good.”

  “Be patient with him—and your mother. Remember, this is a new time for everyone. It will take time to readjust.” I ruffle his thatch of hair. “You’re a good kid, Bret. I am proud of you. Go out into the world and do good things for somebody—or something—or both.” I smile.

  I lean back in my seat, and I watch him grasp his purchase from Antiques & Lore. “My mother would really like it if you came in for a cup of coffee one day.”

  “I will. Soon. I promise.”

  He reaches for the door handle and opens the door, inviting a swirling mass of ice and sleet into the toasty interior.

  With one foot out the door, he says, “Give Darth a bear hug for me.”

  “I’ll do better than that.” As Bret stands with his back to me, about to rush across the street to the warmth of his house, I say, drawing him halfway back into the car, “Don’t forget your bike.”

  I ask the driver to unlock the trunk. The massive man leans forward and grunts.

  Bret sets the painting next to me on the seat, and runs to the back of the car, through a blizzard of churning snow, to his bike. I follow him. He heaves the bike out.

  Standing in the cold, we hug. We walk back to the car and I grab his mother’s Christmas present for him. “Don’t be a stranger,” I tell him, slapping his shoulder lightly.

  He nods. “Thanks for the lift.”

  Hunched against the raging snow, he crosses the street and disappears through the front door of his house. I climb back inside the taxi and slam the door.

  On my way home, I ask the driver to drive slowly. I ask him to make a detour through the sleepy small town I call home, which is festooned for the upcoming holiday season: lampposts decorated with white Christmas lights and silver garlands.

  We pass Milestone County’s post office on Harland Street and I stare out at people coming and going, carrying parcels stacked high in their arms.

  At the end of the four-way intersection, a thirty-foot spruce tree in front o
f city hall is decked to the nines, strung with multicolored lights and a large white star.

  The driver takes a sharp right on Poppy Avenue and we head toward the safety of my home. I am suddenly anxious. Thinking about the busy rush of the Christmas season and the invasion of Philip’s and my in-laws sets my heart knocking.

  Chapter 6

  At home, nearly invisible through an overflowing cloud of lavender-scented bubbles, I reach over the edge of the bathtub for a half-empty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. I pour the last dregs of wine into my glass.

  As I reach down to place the empty bottle back on the floor, I nearly clip Darth Vader on the head as he lies on the damp shower mat next to the claw-footed tub.

  Startled, he pulls himself up on all fours and bolts across the room, his nails scraping the tile floor. I feel terrible and I apologize profusely, enticing him back into the room with a smattering of air kisses.

  Looking up at me with his sad eyes, I reach down to pat the top of his greying head, soaking the floor around him with suds. “I gave us both a fright. Sorry, buddy.”

  I look down into Darth’s aging face, his fur turning white around the edges of his mouth and chin. “I am real lucky to have you, Darth.” I run my hand over his neck, and my gentle strokes seem to relax him. He nuzzles his moist snout under my arm, licking me, and then turns in circles until he finally finds a comfortable position on the floor beside me.

  I sip my wine, and at my garbled, “I love you, Darth,” I hear the muffled sound of Philip’s vehicle pulling into the driveway.

  Alerted by crunching snow in the front yard, Darth’s ears perk up. A soft growl gurgles in the back of his throat.

  “Daddy’s home,” I whisper to Darth, and the large animal bounds out of the room, through the master bedroom on the other side of the bathroom door. The heavy padding of paws thump down the hall, and around the corner, toward the kitchen.

  Lying back in the lukewarm bathwater, I sip my drink, listening and smiling at life’s simple joys.

  I hear plates clink. The refrigerator opens and shuts. Utensils rustle.

  My eyes slowly close to the steady rhythm of sounds.

  Home sweet home.

  Then the sounds of Edith Pilaf wafting into the room from the bedroom’s stereo speakers cause me to stir.