When Light Breaks

by Patti Callahan Henry

  Conversation flowed about jobs and weather and other burned meals. Brian glanced at Peyton. “When is your next tournament?”

  He looked across the table at me. “We leave tomorrow, noon, I think.”

  “Yes,” I said, “you do.” I touched Brian’s arm. “It’s in Dallas.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Peyton said. “What do you mean, you do.”

  “Well, Caroline is taking this tournament. I need to wrap up a lot of things with the Palmetto Pointe Open, and management wants her to take this one. I’m swamped.”

  “You won’t be there?” Peyton set his fork down, lifted his napkin to wipe his mouth, although he hadn’t eaten a bite.

  I shook my head. “Sorry . . . I meant to tell you this morning . . . and I couldn’t get ahold of you.”

  He glanced around the table. “Well, I better get home to pack. It was great seeing all of you.”

  “Can’t you wait until after dinner?” I asked, then stood to walk over to his side of the table.

  He shook his head, and I followed him out to the front porch, where he swung his keys in a circle around his forefinger. “So,” he said and pouted his lips out, “you decided to wait and tell me you weren’t coming in front of your family?”

  “No. I tried to call you this morning, but I couldn’t find you.”

  “And you didn’t bother to try again.”

  “I’m sorry, Peyton.”

  He shook his head. “If you’re just not into this marriage anymore, tell me.”

  “Marriage?”

  “Yes . . . we’re getting married, Kara.”

  “But we’re not married yet.” I stepped toward him, took his hand. “I’m sorry I’m not going to this tournament. Frieda wants me to stay and make sure every detail is done for the Pointe tournament. You won before you met me and you’ll win without me there. And, yes, I do want to get married, please don’t suggest that I don’t, just because I’m not going to a tournament.”

  “You do want to get married?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I stepped back, jerking my hand away from his.

  “You haven’t talked about the wedding at all lately.”

  “You want me to keep you updated on wedding plans? I thought you hated them. Okay then—I’ve had my dress altered for a final fitting, the flowers will have Swarovski crystals that look like rain, the invitations have been mailed, the bridesmaids’ dresses are cream, and each bridesmaid has a different-colored satin ribbon around the waist with a crystal jewel—”

  Peyton laughed, held up his hand, “Okay, enough. I get it.”

  “See? I knew you didn’t want to hear it.”

  He pulled me close and kissed me. “Will you please stop by later tonight? I’m gonna go home and pack, get ready for this tournament, but will you come over later?”

  I nodded, then kissed him again. “Yes, as soon as I clean up.”

  He walked to the car, and I watched him and smiled. It felt good, even right when he smiled at me, when I made him smile . . . when he loved me.

  The night carried the scent of jasmine, floating in off the neighbor’s yard. The dishes were done; Deirdre and Brian had gone home. I sat on the porch swing; I needed to drive to Peyton’s and see him as I’d promised, but something kept me still and quiet . . . waiting. The hum of a motor cut through the silence. I lifted my eyes to see Charlotte’s car pull into the driveway.

  “Hey, girlfriend.” She climbed the porch steps. “I’ve come to take you out tonight.” She held up her palm. “No arguments; follow me now.”

  I shook my finger at her. “I am not in the mood to go out.”

  “You, my dear, need some good old-fashioned fun, and I just told Tom I only wanted to be friends. So there you go—another one of Charlotte’s broken relationships. We’re going to Danny’s Pub.”

  “I haven’t been there in years.”

  “And it’s high time we changed that.”

  “You scare me,” I said, then followed her down the steps toward her car.

  The pub was dark, but Charlotte and I had been sitting at the bar long enough for our eyes to become accustomed. I picked up my pink martini, took a long swallow. “When was the last time we were here?” I twirled my glass on the bar.

  “Six years ago for your twenty-first birthday. You danced with the bartender behind the bar.”

  I groaned. “I did, didn’t I? Why do you always remember my most embarrassing moments?”

  “Because they’re my favorites.” She clinked her martini glass against mine, but I couldn’t hear it over Hank Williams’s voice coming out of the jukebox, the roar of the growing crowd.

  I leaned toward her. “What in the hell does ‘follow your heart’ mean?”

  She shrugged. “Like I know. Look at me—I break up with everyone who likes me. You, on the other hand, are engaged. Maybe you can tell me.”

  “I can tell you it’s a bunch of crap. Seriously. Mama said, ‘Listen to the hints of your heart.’ People say it all the time—‘follow your heart.’ What are we supposed to do—take our heart out and walk around behind it—follow it down the sidewalk to the mall?” I slung back the martini. “Your feet will lead you to your heart. Ha!”

  Charlotte picked the lemon rind off the side of her glass, twisted it like one of her curls between her fingers. “Maybe it just means you should know your heart, because if you know it, you might do what it says to do. I don’t think it means you do whatever you damn well please. I don’t think the heart speaks very loudly either—just tosses you hints and whispers. Or maybe I have no idea whatsoever.”

  “You have more idea than me, that’s for sure. When I try and listen all I hear is what everyone else says to do, what I’m supposed to do: I can hear that loud and clear. Maybe it’s the same thing. Maybe what I’m hearing is what I want.”

  “Maybe it is, Kara. But maybe it’s not and maybe you need to find out before you’re standing in the middle of the laundry room folding his underwear and wondering, ‘How’d I get here?’ Then again—you can’t drop your life to run after someone who makes you feel twelve years old and adorable, either.”

  I groaned, motioned for the bartender. He came up. “Is that you, Kara Larson?”

  I nodded. “Hey, Frank, haven’t seen you in years.”

  “Yeah, you must not get out much.”

  “I do too,” I said.

  Charlotte shook her head back and forth. “She’s way too busy to have fun.”

  “Thanks, pal.” I hit Charlotte.

  Frank laughed. “You want another martini?”

  “Nope,” I said. “A Guinness, please.”

  “Okay.” He nodded at Charlotte. “You?”

  “The same. If Kara is going down, I’m going down with her.”

  “Now there’s a true friend,” Frank said, and slung two glasses off the back bar, filled them at the Guinness tap.

  As the music got louder, as the crowd thickened, Charlotte and I laughed and remembered. It seemed that talking about what was ahead was too hard, so we talked about what used to be, until Frank’s face wavered before me and he swung me into a repeat performance of my twenty-first birthday. When he dipped me for the finale of our dance, I remembered something—I was supposed to stop by Peyton’s and say good-bye before he left for his tournament.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The empty ballroom possessed the faintest odor of mildew, which I was acutely aware of in any room in which I was planning an event. No one wants to walk into a party and smell dampness, the kind that pervaded every dwelling here. I pulled out my notebook, jotted a note to spread real gardenia bushes down the sides of the room.

  I glanced at my watch, paced the room in circles. Jack was late to meet me to go over the plans for the benefit concert. My heart did somersaults in my chest. I pulled out my phone to call Peyton.

  “Hey, babe.” The sound of his voice mixed with static came through the phone.

  “Hey . . . I can’t hear you very well.”

/>   “Sorry. I’m in the airport, not getting very good reception. Hey, Mom called—did you remember to invite the Miller family to the wedding? She says she forgot to ask you.”

  “I didn’t invite them. Do I need to?”

  “Yes, Mom says it would hurt their feelings—”

  “Peyton, I swear, if I invited everyone whose feelings would be hurt, we’d be broke. I can only invite the families that—”

  The connection severed; I stared at the phone. I clicked it shut and shoved it in my purse, then looked up at Jack standing in the doorway. A sphere of light from a wrought iron chandelier lit the edges of his curls.

  I waved at him.

  “Sorry to interrupt your conversation,” he said, walking toward me. “I’m late. I couldn’t find the damn place—didn’t this used to be a park or something?”

  I nodded. “Yep, owned by the infamous Darby family. He deeded it to the country club when he died. What an uproar.” I grinned. “Sorry you missed it.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “Okay, let’s do this really quickly. I have a two o’clock appointment.”

  “Busy girl.” He walked toward the stage, stepped up.

  “That’s where the band will play.” I took the steps two at a time to keep up with him.

  “I figured that part out.” He turned to me, wrapped one arm around my shoulder. “Stage, band—they usually go together.”

  I pushed him away. “Smart ass.”

  His laugh echoed in the empty room, washed over me like an unexpected wave—just when I thought it was safe to go swimming again, a monster wall of water knocked me down. I turned away, knowing that the desire to have him pull me toward him, touch me, would show all over my face.

  Old want; old story—only the ache of remembering when I had been adored, adorable and adored.

  I pointed to the far side of the room. “The soundboard will be set up over there; the tables will be eight-person rounds arranged in an oval pattern.” I pulled the papers from my folder, held them out.

  “I don’t need to see the table configuration. I just need to see the room, the acoustics. Will there be anything besides tables?”

  “Yes,” I said, felt my heart go back to its regular, businesslike rhythm. “Palm trees, gardenia bushes at the edges, centerpieces . . .” I stopped as he walked across the space, ran his hand over the cedar posts in the center of the room.

  “Great acoustics in here. This will work out perfect. That’s all I needed to see.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he said. He walked toward me and pointed to the grandfather clock in the far corner. “You have half an hour. Would you do me a huge favor?”

  I nodded.

  “Will you show me around town? I hate to admit I don’t know how to get around anymore . . . but I’d love to see it.”

  “It’s not that complicated.” I pulled my file close to my chest. “Palmetto Pointe hasn’t changed all that much. Main Street down the middle, numbered streets off to the sides. Bay Street running along the water. Come on, Jack, you can’t be that confused.” I suppressed a grin.

  “Okay, now who’s the smart ass?” He tapped my nose. “Come on, I just want to see it again—with you. Please.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes,” with a rising spirit of laughter hiding just below my chest.

  Words poured out of my mouth faster than the engine beneath Jack’s truck hood as we drove down every street in town. I told him who lived where now, who’d married, who’d divorced. I explained which buildings had been torn down and which ones had been renovated.

  “So,” he said, turning a corner onto Bay Street. “How is the family taking it that the youngest is getting married?”

  “Everyone loves Peyton . . . they’re thrilled. They think it’s the perfect . . .” I paused. “They’re happy about it.”

  He nodded, stared straight ahead through the windshield. “What do you think?”

  “The same, of course.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  We drove past the elementary school, then he stopped in the parking lot of Palmetto Pointe Middle School, got out of the car.

  I followed him to the playground. “What are you doing?”

  “I remember,” he said.

  “Remember what?”

  He looked at me, and the old pain I last saw that summer morning he left returned to his face; he was fourteen, broken in spirit. “That morning.”

  “You’d forgotten?” I touched his cheek, jerked my hand away.

  “Yes. At first on purpose, then even when I tried to remember, I couldn’t. All I could see was the truck, and then you on the ground. Now I remember it all: Dad hitting you, Mom waking us and telling us to take anything we loved, throwing things in boxes, filling what we could into the back of a truck in the middle of the night, knowing we’d never see the house or our other stuff or your family again—ever.”

  My tears rose, but words did not. I wrapped my arms around Jack, buried my face against his chest and listened to his torn breath.

  He released me, sat on a swing. “I don’t need sympathy, Kara. I just remembered, that’s all.”

  I swallowed hard and wiped furiously at my face. “I wasn’t giving sympathy, just empathy. It was terrible for everyone.”

  “No, it wasn’t. No one gave a shit that we were gone. One less problem in Palmetto Pointe.”

  “I gave a shit,” I said, and sat on the swing next to him. “Doesn’t that count?”

  He pushed his feet against the ground to lift his swing into the air. He pushed higher and higher until he was flying so high I thought the swing would wrap itself around the pole and flip him over.

  Then he stopped, planted his feet firmly on the ground. “That you cared was all that counted.”

  He stood and walked toward the parking lot, then stopped, looked at me, and waved his hand toward the middle school. “You know, this is probably as far as we’d have gone—even if I stayed. This is as far as we’d have gone.”

  I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You mean you wouldn’t have gone to high school? Damn, Jack, you were the best athlete in the school. You would’ve been the star in everything by tenth grade.”

  “No, I mean us. We wouldn’t have made it past middle school. Too different, you know? All the things you would’ve wanted, the life I couldn’t have given you.”

  My shoulders slumped. “Why am I taking this as an insult?”

  “Don’t. I’m a different kind of man than the kind you’ve chosen to spend your life with.”

  “And what kind of man are you, Jack?”

  “A wandering soul who doesn’t care how old the house is, who used to live in it, where the family silver came from, whether the wedding guests are from the right families. That kind of man.”

  “And you think I’m that kind of woman? You don’t think I’m anything like the girl you knew?”

  “That’s not bad, Kara. It’s not an insult, I swear to God, it’s not. We all change with time. You are still beautiful and kind and—”

  I held up my hand. “Stop.”

  “Just the facts,” he said.

  Damn. He didn’t believe in who I was anymore—at all. I wasn’t even sure I knew who I was anymore. And suddenly it seemed infinitely important that we both believed in this young Kara, beyond the facts of my wedding, my job, my pressed linen suit.

  “Okay,” I said, “I don’t blame you for thinking that I’ve changed so dramatically that I’m nothing like the girl you gave the Claddagh ring to. So, now take us up Bay Street to Fifth, take a left to the dead end.”

  “What?”

  “Just listen to me.”

  “Okay, boss. Whatever you say. But aren’t you late for an appointment?”

  “The wedding shoes . . . they’ll wait.”

  Jack drove us to the end of Fifth Street in less than five minutes. I jumped out of the car, pointed to the small, slanted house behind the bluff. “Brian’s house,”
I said.

  “Man, how is he?”

  “Good. I’m sure he’s at work right now. We’re not here to see him, just his kayaks.”

  Jack squinted at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You don’t believe I’m still that girl, that I can’t beat you in a kayak race along Silver Creek?”

  Jack pointed to my suit. “You aren’t exactly dressed for it.”

  “More than you are,” I said and pulled off my heels and jacket and threw them in the open back of Jack’s truck. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  I ran into my brother’s house and put on a pair of tattered shorts and a T-shirt I had left there the last time I’d come to kayak.

  I came out onto the porch, motioned toward the water. “Come on.”

  “You asked for it,” he said.

  We yanked two single-man kayaks out from under Brian’s house, then pulled them over the boardwalk to the mud bank. I rolled my pants up and zipped a life jacket over my T-shirt.

  “You’re insane,” Jack said. He pushed us both off into the creek. We settled into our kayaks and he came alongside me. “Okay, same rules. From here to Broad River, then back.”

  “You got it.”

  We began the back-and-forth paddling of our double-bladed oars, synchronizing our actions to the movement of the kayaks. Jack pushed two lengths ahead of me and I strained to catch up, but couldn’t. When we rounded the bend to return, my kayak came next to his and we pulled into the bank simultaneously.

  I collapsed backward on the bow. “You let me catch up.”

  “But I didn’t let you win,” he said, jumped out of the boat and pulled mine up on the bank.

  I swung my legs around, stepped out of the kayak and let the mud squish beneath my toes. Sweat dripped down my chest; my shirt clung and my hair stuck to my face. I tasted the salt air and my own sweat in an intoxicating mixture.

  “Come on,” I said, “we’ll steal some of Brian’s Coronas and cool off on his porch.”

  In silence, Jack and I sat in the rocking chairs, cold beers in our hands at four o’clock on a workday. Guilt prodded at me; I glanced at him. “I wanted to beat you,” I said.