The Light Before Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  “Yeah. What’s going on?”

  “Umm… this is kind of weird, but there’s a forest fire that just sparked east of town. That’s where the cabin is that you and Jack live in, isn’t it? You aren’t like there right now, are you?”

  I’m working through my head how doubtful it is that Camille pays close enough attention to my schedule to know exactly where I’m at when the weight of what she’s telling me hits.

  “I think you guys have a cat out there?” she says when I don’t answer.

  “A fire?” I ask aloud. My heart does a summersault, and Barbara’s eyebrows crease. I never used to pay much attention to fire season living in Seattle, but we’re closer to the action here. There have already been a slew of fires in Southern Oregon and Northern California, but none of them have even come close to Meadow Brook as of yet.

  “Yeah… well… I don’t know if Jack’s out there…” She pauses, leaving a long opening.

  I’m still trying to process the cabin could be in danger when I tell her, “He’s not. He’s out of town.”

  “Okay, well then, I thought I’d tell you in case you wanted to get your cat before things got too bad.”

  With a heart that is still beating faster than it was before she called, I thank Camille, and the line goes silent.

  “A fire? That’s what Camille called about?” Barbara turns the TV on to her favorite local news channel.

  “Uh, huh. She says it’s out near the cabin. You don’t think she’s messing with me, do you? I mean, Blue’s all alone out there, so I should probably go out and grab him sooner than later.”

  “Not if it could get you killed!” She turns the volume up on the TV.

  “She wasn’t lying,” I say as Barbara and I watch breaking news from the Medford TV station about a fire east of Meadow Brook, their news helicopter catching video of the flames.

  “No, for once she’s telling the truth.” Barbara’s eyes are glued to the screen.

  The flames are licking their way up to the tops of the trees, smoke billowing up into the once blue sky. “I can’t leave him there all alone,” I say, thinking of Blue and how terrified he must be.

  “That’s exactly what you have to do,” she says, keeping her eyes on the news report. “Besides, he’ll know what to do. He’s going to run away from the fire and not go toward it!”

  “But then he might get lost.” I’m up off the couch and grabbing my purse. I’m not going to wait around for the fire to spread.

  “Better him lost than you dead!”

  “If the fire is too much, I’ll turn back,” I promise, keys in hand. “I’ll let Melissa know I’m leaving on the way out, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “But, Natalie, it’s not safe!”

  “I’ll be okay.” I give her a quick hug before running down the stairs, her shouts to reconsider bellowing after me.

  Melissa is just where she said she’d be, in the garage organizing things and listening to a playlist on her phone. She won’t be able to see the plume of smoke from the garage, and she won’t hear breaking news since she’s not listening to a radio. Not wanting to alarm her, I tell her I need to run back to the cabin for something and will be right back. She just smiles and tells me to be safe and that she’ll see me again soon.

  As I start driving east, much faster than I would under normal circumstances, I realize I’m not doing the smartest thing in the world. But I know how much Jack loves Blue, and I don’t want him to lose anything else in his life if I can help it. Of course I get that me getting hurt could defeat that purpose, but I promise myself that I’ll turn back if things get precarious.

  I turn on the radio, find a local news station and listen for evacuation notices, how big the fire is and whether or not they think they’ll get it under control. And while several newscasters talk about the wildfire and how it might have sparked, their coverage is without the intensity I’ve been feeling since Camille’s call. In fact, they’re practically making it sound as though there’s nothing to worry about for now, that it’s far enough from Meadow Brook to not cause any immediate concern. And then, with a promise to keep the audience posted, the station goes back to the national news.

  “Huh.” Relief finds me, even as the plume of smoke grows bigger the closer I get to the cabin. But, as they said on the radio, the fire seems very far away and not an immediate threat. There aren’t any roadblocks to the cabin and no instructions to turn around. Strange that Camille, who seems to hate me with a big chunk of her heart, would take the time to warn me about a fire that might not present any danger at all to the cabin or to Blue.

  With the threat of instant calamity taken off the table, I make that last turn toward the cabin, arriving and then parking in the driveway. Even if the hazard is low, I decide I’ll go in, grab a few important things and somehow wrangle Blue into the cat carrier we got for him. That’s dependent on whether or not I can find him of course. If the fire does end up being a true threat, then at least I’ll know that Blue is with me and safe.

  Opening the front door, I call out his name, hoping he’s napping on the couch or in one of the chairs. But as soon as I close the door and turn to the dinette, it’s not Blue that I find.

  A sudden coldness hits at my core. I’m absolutely paralyzed.

  “Michael?”

  In a blue dress shirt and khakis, he smirks and holds up the letter I’d been writing to him. “This is pretty lame, Nat,” he says, shaking his head. “The years you and I were together, you’d think I’d deserve more than some fucking Dear John letter.”

  I swallow hard and take a step just to prove I can actually move, then consider whipping around and making a mad dash for my car.

  But I won’t do that.

  With a rush of adrenaline, I know that I have to face Michael down, and I can do it.

  “What do you want me to say, Michael? Do you want me to lie to you and tell you I was wrong, that I should have married you even if you’d cheated on me with more women than you can probably even keep count of?”

  “That would have been behind us!” he snaps, stomping forward. “I was just getting it all out of my system.”

  “You really believe that?” I take a deep breath and step closer to him, unwilling to let fear overtake me. “If you loved me, you’d have never done it at all. You’re lying to yourself to think that would have changed because of a piece of paper.”

  He looks ready to argue but just clenches his jaw and stares at me, his usually pleasant face twisted and confused. “We could have been good together, had beautiful kids, built strong careers. You would have been perfect by my side when it was time to run for office. Don’t you want that… still? I could be a senator someday… maybe even the god damn President of the United States!”

  He reaches out for me, but I shrug away. “I don’t want to be on anyone’s arm. I want to forge my own path and not be some appendage to a man who doesn’t even love me.”

  “That’s not true,” he snarls, his eyes red. “I do love you.”

  “No you don’t, Michael. You love the idea of me and the way I could compliment your life. But you don’t love me, and I… I don’t love you either.”

  He lets out a strangled breath, and this seems to be hurting him so much more than I’d ever imagined. “So being together all those years isn’t love?”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s not. You know it just as well as I do.”

  He drags his hand through his short, blond hair, then steps back and nearly collapses into one of the dinette chairs. “I want to be furious with you,” he says. “I want to make you pay for what you did… how you embarrassed me, but…” He shakes his head. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Relief settles in at his unexpected agreement, and it relaxes me enough to sit down in the chair opposite him. Burying the hatchet may happen faster and prove easier than I’d imagined. But as the shock of seeing him here wears off, I begin to wonder why he’s here in the first place, in Jack’s cabin.

/>   “My parents told you I was here, didn’t they?”

  He looks up at me with a faintly sheepish, guilty grin. “Your mother might have mentioned it. Seems there was some accident involving that foundation for Jack Pierce’s dead wife, necessitating his presence in Seattle.” He leans towards me. “Last thing I ever expected was to find out you’ve been living with him, and here of all places.” He shakes his head and looks around my very humble living situation, a place that was once good enough for my parents to vacation at, a place that would no longer meet their expectations.

  I should have known my parents would pull something, and now they had, helping to orchestrate Michael’s visit, a visit that would have been for naught had I not gotten that call from Camille.

  “The cabin suits us fine, Michael. Whether you believe it or not, I’m plenty happy here, working for a living and sharing this space with Jack.”

  “A working girl.” He says it in a kind of monotone, no judgment filtering through. “That’s what that waitress said, that you were taking care of her grandmother or something.”

  “Waitress?”

  Of course.

  Even as I ask, I know he’s talking about Camille. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how he knew to find her.

  “At a diner in town,” he says, not trying to hide a thing. “I think her name was Cami.”

  “Camille,” I correct.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Camille. You know, I’ve actually been here a couple of days, working up the nerve to come after you. Your dad told me about the cabin, and I’d driven by a few times, but there was always a truck in the driveway, and I’ve never figured you for a truck kind of girl.

  “Anyway, I wanted to get you alone, talk things through. Then your mother tells me about the accident, says Jack is on his way up and that you were most likely staying behind. But when I came out here earlier, you were gone.”

  A chill goes up and down my spine as I imagine Michael having been lurking in the shadows for the last couple of days, probably parking his car in some bushes or trees or a quarter mile up the road so I wouldn’t see it.

  “But then you met Camille.” Deep down, Michael doesn’t scare me. What he’s done—and is doing—definitely rates on the creep meter, but things are being settled, and he’ll be able to move beyond this part of his life if I just keep talking him through it.

  “We put two and two together pretty quick, and then one of the customers mentions a fire broke out.” He shrugs. “She turns on this TV and then comes up with a plan just like that. Tells me the fire won’t be any real danger. Man, that girl can talk… and flirt.” He shakes his head and grins crookedly. “I could have probably taken her out back and had my way with her—she’s that kind of girl—but I was afraid of catching something, and—” He stops mid-sentence, not adding to the lurid nature of what he might or might not have done with Camille. “Sorry,” he tags on.

  Michael has his deficits, but he’d always at least tried to create an aura of respectability and decorum when he was with me. Whatever he did with the women he cheated with or however many times they’d pop up when he and I were out together, I never got the sense he was purposely trying to flaunt the affairs. If anything, I think he actually imagined he was doing his best to hide them.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him, just wanting to put all of this behind us.

  For a moment, he looks ashamed of himself, the shame disgraced men show when the lives they live behind the backs of their wives or girlfriends come to light. “It’s why you left me, so it does matter.”

  I shake my head. “What’s past is past, Michael. There’s no going back. But maybe it will matter for the next woman you profess to love.”

  “But I did… I do—”

  “Stop it.” I’m gentle, but it’s an order. “We can’t turn back time. You’re here because Camille hates my guts and tricked me into coming. I’m not sure I’d have wanted to meet with you on my own if I’d had a choice, but we have, and I hope you’re really hearing me, Michael. You did say you thought I had a point.”

  He grabs hold of his neck. “I am hearing you, but I’m just having a hard time believing this is it, that the stuff you wrote in that letter can’t be changed if we try.”

  “Maybe two years ago we could have changed it, but I’m here now, and I’m staying. I’ll tell you, just as I’ll be happy to tell my parents, that I’m not coming back. I love Jack, and he’s my future.” I find myself breathless after my pronouncement and only realize I’ve brought my hand to my stomach—holding it the way a woman does when she thinks of the life growing inside of her—when Michael narrows his eyes at me.

  “You’re pregnant?” The smallest of gestures, and he noticed.

  I straighten in the chair, surprised nobody had told him. “Yes. I am.”

  Disgust flashes across his eyes as he stands. “You’re wasting your life, you know? I wouldn’t have let this happen to you. I’d have waited until we both had careers. What the hell kind of guy is he to let you ruin your fucking life?”

  I rise too. I’m not going to let Michael talk down to me. “I’d rather have a child now with someone I love then wait and bring them into a loveless marriage. You can think whatever you want about me and my choices, but I’m perfectly fine with them.” I take a few steps toward the door, feeling as though things will only grow more destructive the longer we spend together. “I’d rather we part as friends, without any further animosity between us.”

  His expression is unyielding. For a few seconds, I’m unsure of what he might do. But when he moves toward me, his eyes lose some of their hardness.

  “I wish you would have told me how you really felt a long time ago,” he says, “years ago. I thought you were okay with it all. It could have saved both of us a lot of misery.”

  “Better late than never,” I say, opening the door and giving him a wide berth to walk out of it.

  He appears to be thinking about this before he agrees, saying, “True.” He slips past me, making no move at physical intimacy. “My car is up the road a ways.” He points his thumb east. “I didn’t want you to see it and bolt. Anyway, Natalie.”

  “Goodbye, Michael.”

  I’m slightly taken off guard when he steps toward me once more and draws me into him, pulling me close to his body, breathing in and then releasing me just as quickly.

  “I just wanted that one last moment,” he says, then turns and walks away.

  I’m left speechless, but I don’t waste even a second in stepping back into the cabin, closing the door, locking it and then leaning my back against it. Letting out a deep breath, a final wave of relief washes over me. I’ve just faced one of my biggest fears and survived it. And I think Michael got what he needed, actually understood what a mistake he and I would have been. Now we can both move on with our lives.

  I want to call Jack and tell him everything that just happened, tell him I’m free and clear of Michael. But then I wonder how in the world I’ll explain it all to him without mentioning what was basically a trap that Michael, my mother and Camille all had a role in. He’d want to chase Michael down and kick his ass.

  No, I won’t tell Jack right away. And besides, the medical emergency in Seattle seems a legitimate one, and I don’t want to take his focus away from that. I return to the reason I’d come here in the first place and begin a search through the house looking for him.

  “Blue!” I call out, looking upstairs and downstairs, under beds and furniture, in every nook and cranny I can think of. I even put out a fresh bowl of sardines in case the smell or sound of the can opening might tempt him into showing himself.

  But nothing.

  I decide he must be outside, maybe even hiding. Animals are supposed to have a sixth sense when it comes to natural disasters, so it’s possible he’s already bolted. But I have to look for him nonetheless. I go through the mud room, then out onto the back porch that still smells like new before jogging down the back steps.

  “Bl
ue!” I call out, looking around, everything so quiet, not even the sound of a single bird chirping in the trees. “Blue! Blue, where are—”

  The hand comes out of nowhere, and my heartbeat thrashes in my ears as a moist cloth goes over my mouth. My senses go into a complete and total tailspin as another hand wraps around my waist, both gripping me so hard that, even with the strength of every muscle in my body, I’m unable to fight them off.

  For just a second, he pulls his hand from my mouth, and I scream, then form the words, “Let me go, Michael!” begging for release and thinking I could reason with him if only I could see his face.

  But the way he’s got me, I can’t catch sight of him.

  I struggle and lift my foot and try to bring it down on his, but he stops me at every turn, holding me tighter, my back to him, me unable to see the anger in his eyes.

  He hasn’t forgiven me, and the cloth comes back down tight over my mouth and nose before I can scream again and plead for him to rethink this. I’m trying to figure a way out as he drags me from the house, me kicking with every step.

  I want to keep fighting, but I’m woozy.

  And I can’t keep my eyelids open.

  He’s going to make me pay after all, and as my fog turns to blackness, there’s no way for me to stop him.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  JACK

  I hadn’t known what to expect when I walked into Enrique Alonzo’s room, but I certainly hadn’t anticipated the warmth with which his parents would embrace me.

  “You are the doctor,” his father said in broken English. “The one who helps our son go to school.”

  “Angel,” his mother called me, walking right up to me and embracing me. “Thank you for… for being here.”

  Somehow, they made me feel like a part of their family, that I was welcome here. It was a feeling I quickly embraced. It made me want to help them in whatever way I could.

  They brought me to their son who was indeed comatose, lying in a bed next to the window with tubes entering and leaving his body. One of the nurses came in and gave me a full rundown, saying he was hit while riding his bike, that the driver had thankfully stopped and called the police, and that his chances for a full recovery were getting better with each passing hour.