The Light We See

by J. Lynn Bailey

  Luke looks between Al and Gene and August, and their eyes dart across the table, anywhere but at Luke.

  Luke says, “I need to say a few things.”

  The room is still, so silent. Even the horseflies who managed a way in settle on the light that hangs over the rectangular dining room table, covered by a tablecloth with red checkers. Not the vinyl ones you find for cheaper, the ones that are easy to clean.

  The room grows heavy with lack of words, and I peek over at Luke, who’s staring down at his chicken, trying to find the right words.

  I reach my hand underneath the table and take his because whatever he’s got to say, he needs some help.

  Luke doesn’t look over at me; he doesn’t need to. Instead, he squeezes my hand. Opens his mouth to speak but stops. Leans forward and takes out an envelope from his back pocket. Slides it over to Al, across the red-checkered tablecloth.

  “What’s this about?” Al curiously eyes the envelope but leaves it untouched. Then, he stares at his nephew.

  Al is giving Luke a look that speaks compassion, empathy, and sadness. A shared love.

  “Please, Chicken Legs, you don’t need to be doin’ this. Because whatever is in that envelope won’t bring our Nathan back,” August says in a brave voice, one that hides her heart.

  I know what that feels like.

  Luke looks at August. “It won’t. No, but it will help with the fence and the car and the barn that needs to be fixed.”

  Al lets air escape from his mouth and leans back. Taps his fingers on the tablecloth.

  Gene rubs her thumb with her finger, afraid to look up.

  “I hope y’all plan to stay for a few days,” Gene says through her watery eyes because, now, she’s looking right through her nephew.

  “All we want is just some time with you, son,” Al says.

  Luke squeezes my hand. “Yeah, I’d like that. If it’s okay with Catherine.” Luke looks over at me.

  “As long as Gene and August teach me how to make this sweet tea and fried chicken, I’ll stay for as long as you’ll have us.” I try to relieve some heaviness.

  They laugh among the heaviness that sits in the room like a layer of smoke in a 1990s dance joint.

  “You,” Al says quietly, “are the only thing we got left that reminds us of Nathan. We will keep y’all for as long as y’all will stay.”

  This should give Luke relief, right?

  It should show on his face, but it doesn’t. There’s no relief and no smile, only remnants of fortitude.

  I’m reminded of the beauty in the process of life. Why? I don’t know. I’m reminded of my sentencing to thirteen years in prison. I’m reminded of what it felt like when the honesty of what I’d done breathed life back into me. I didn’t harbor secrets, and I was free. I’d paid for what I’d done, but I was free of all the secrets that kept me from the truth.

  And for whatever reason, I see this trip, this travel we’re doing, as Luke’s reckoning of truth.

  It’s late into the evening, about nine o’clock or so.

  The white envelope still sits on the dining room table.

  Nobody has touched it since dinner.

  The front door is open, and there’s a slight warm breeze that kicks up every few minutes and blows through the tiny notches in the screen.

  We’re in the living room, the night settling into our bones.

  Gene is knitting an afghan for the Pauls, who just had a baby. They live up the road about two miles, is my understanding. Al is reading the paper, and August says it’s time for her to go.

  “You can sleep here, Aug,” Gene says, setting down her yarn, her needle.

  “Nah, Mama. I got stuff to do in the mornin’,” August says as she stands.

  I stand as well, and we embrace.

  “You stay put for as long as Luke will let you, you hear me?” August whispers.

  I nod, unsure of what to say.

  Luke and August hug.

  “Chicken Legs, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  August kisses Gene and Al and leaves out the front door.

  “I have your old bedroom set up, Luke and Catherine.”

  Your bedroom.

  Our bedroom.

  One bed.

  Gene thinks we’re dating, that this is normal to sleep in the same bed. One couple. Sheets, a blanket. Soft pajamas.

  “Left towels out in the bathroom, too, in case y’all wanna shower or anything. Come on, I’ll show y’all.”

  Al looks up from his newspaper. In some ways, he reminds me of Father. Not in his looks or his demeanor or the way Al actually expresses emotion because that was not Father, but in the way he reads the newspaper, the look on his face as he reads, I suppose.

  “Night, y’all,” Al says, looking up through the top of his glasses at us.

  “See you in the morning,” Luke says as he reaches back for my hand.

  Knots twist and turn in my belly as I put my hand in his, remembering that we’re supposed to be a couple and this is supposed to be normal. And that I’m supposed to feel butterflies and knots and nerves and warmth.

  We walk to the end of the hallway, and Luke opens the door to a dimly lit room. Our bags are already in here, probably something Luke did when he and Al went outside to look at the fence that needs mending.

  Luke drops my hand when we walk through the door. Runs his hand through his hair, exposing his lower abdominal area.

  Look away, Cat.

  “I realize that this is probably awkward for you, Catherine. And I’m really sorry I asked you to do this. I didn’t think about sleeping arrangements.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, I do. It’s just that Al and Gene are real private people, and to have a beautiful woman who’s doing a story on me in their house … I don’t know. I just didn’t want them to treat you any different than you deserve. I wanted them to see you for who you are, not what you do. And I wanted you to see Al and Gene for who they are.” Luke sits down on the rose-colored bedspread.

  “Not why did you ask me. Why are you sorry?”

  Luke smirks. “I’m not sure this is real comfortable for you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I sit down next to Luke, cross my legs, look up at the tiled ceiling. “In my life, I’ve done my share of things I’m not proud of, Luke. This isn’t one of them.” I pause and look down at my shoes and then to Luke. “But I do have one question for you.”

  His lips are dangerously close to mine.

  “I could have been anything. Why your girlfriend?”

  “I wanted to see what it felt like,” he whispers to me.

  My heart begins to pound. My stomach swirls. My head feels heavy and fuzzy, and I think I need some space to breathe. “And?” I will the question back into my mouth, down my throat, and away from making another awful debut.

  He smiles.

  And my heart wants to see more of this.

  Luke thinks. “Like listening to Led Zeppelin’s live guitar solo in ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ You feel it. You feel the words, every single one of them. You take in each note, each rift. And somehow, you come out of it more infatuated than you were before.”

  I need to wash him from my skin. Wash his words away. Wash the remnants of his scent, his touch. “I need to take a shower,” I say as I stare back.

  Luke nods.

  I stand, walk to the bathroom, lock the door, and turn the water on hot.

  I undress, laying my clothes on the sink.

  I climb in and cleanse Luke from me.

  The hot water hits my back, and I feel it in my chest.

  Wash him away, Cat. Wash him away, my head says.

  But my heart is asking for just another moment with him.

  I’ve never felt anything like this. Not with Michael, not with Peter, and definitely not the nine men I was with before. But my body aches to be touched. It’s been a long time since I experienced a man’s touch.

  I stretch my arms out and place my ha
nds on the shower wall in front of me, allowing the hot water to run down the length of my body.

  I envision Luke unlocking the door, undressing in front of the shower door, and I can make out pieces of his body, like a mosaic. I imagine him sliding open the shower door, not saying a word, and pulling my naked body to his, where I feel every inch of him, every broken piece of him, every piece well fought for, every piece put back together, built with steadiness that holds water to fire and oil to water.

  It’s the coughing I hear through the walls that brings me out of where I went with Luke in my head.

  Is that Luke coughing?

  I stand up straight and hold my ear against the fabricated shower wall.

  It’s Luke.

  Quickly, I wash my body and my hair and turn off the water and listen quietly for more coughing. The water is only the residual leftovers that drip from my hair, from the showerhead. I grab my towel and dry off, only to realize I left my clothes and hairbrush in the bedroom we share.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  With the towel wrapped around me tightly, I quietly open the bathroom door and tiptoe to our room. I take a deep breath and step inside, shutting the door behind me.

  Luke is lying on the bed, his guitar in hand when we make eye contact.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, awkwardly standing in my towel. “I heard you coughing.”

  But he doesn’t say a word. He just stares back at me. His eyes rake my body.

  I stare back and allow the towel to fall only a little, exposing part of my breast.

  The ache between my legs grows, and I try my best not to show this. Try not to let my eyes give off what he’s doing to me, so I try to break this up by bending and grabbing my clothes from my bag, though my mind is not focused on what I’m doing.

  What are you getting from your bag, Cat?

  What do I look like through his eyes right now?

  Brush.

  Panties.

  Pajamas.

  “Catherine?” he says hoarsely.

  “Yeah?” I say, pushing my unbrushed hair behind my ears. I stand, clothes and brush in hand, and look at him.

  His eyes, his look, tell me there’s more to this moment than something just physical.

  Luke sets his guitar to the side, stands, walks to me. “You can change in here. I’ll go.”

  And when he turns to go, I grab his arm and tell him it’s okay, that he doesn’t need to go. That I’m sure he’s seen a woman’s body before.

  “Yeah, but not yours. I need to go, Catherine.”

  I’ve never had to convince a man to stay. I’ve never had to beg for anything in my life. But right now, my need for his hands on my body is outweighing any logic that tries to grab hold of my good, rational thought.

  “Please, stay. It’s fine.” Irrational.

  Luke, with a storm raging in his eyes, drops his head and then looks back up at me. Cautiously, he takes a corner of the towel and pulls it back, exposing my breast, and then the other as the towel falls to the floor.

  Again, his eyes rake over my body while I see his thoughts spin uncontrollably.

  Confusion.

  Attraction.

  Need.

  He takes a big breath in as I secretly beg him to touch me with his hands.

  “If I touch you, Catherine, I won’t be able to stop myself,” he whispers against my neck.

  I know this because I feel the same way. Clarity comes, though slowly, and I realize I’m standing naked in front of a man who somehow has fallen into my heart.

  Clarity. I step back and grab my panties from the stack of clothes in my hand. “Hold these, please.” I hand him my clothes and slide my panties on.

  I grab my pajama top and slide it over my head as I feel Luke’s breath against my chest.

  I do the same with my pajama bottoms, and when I go to grab for the brush, he says, “I’ll do it.”

  Awkwardly, I nod and walk to the bed. I sit down, folding my left leg into itself.

  Luke sits behind me and starts at the ends.

  This tells me he’s brushed a woman’s hair before.

  “Do you do this often?”

  “I want to tell you about Nathan,” Luke says.

  “I’m listening.”

  Luke brushes. “We were best friends. We did everything together. So much so that when we were sixteen, we had Bud, the town drunk, buy us a twelve pack of beer.”

  He brushes. “After one, I’d had my share. Didn’t like the taste. But with Nathan, something happened with him. It did something for him—not to him, but for him. It was as if he walked taller, talked larger, louder, and the beer turned a shy, well-cared for boy into a nightmare.”

  Luke stops brushing, and we listen to the silence between us.

  “It wasn’t that night. It was the days, weeks, months, and years that followed. Somehow, alcohol owned him.”

  Luke gently pulls at the ends of my hair. “When I came back the following summer, Nathan was gone. Gene and Al had thrown him out. And not by choice. Said he started stealing from them—money, Aunt Gene’s jewelry that had been in the family for ages.”

  He starts to brush again, this time starting higher, but I turn and stop him. Hold my hands over his.

  “I asked where he’d been seen last, and with a few hints from the family, sightings, and other friends in the community, I went to him. Found him in a bad part of town. An old, abandoned house. He’d gone from bad to worse. A needle hung from his arm when I opened the last door of the last room of that place. We were seventeen. He should have been thinking about the next home football game where he played as the quarterback—but that seems so long ago. He should have been thinking about his next deer hunt or fishing trip. But instead, he was thinking about where he’d get his next high or where to put the needle.”

  “You know you aren’t responsible for what he did, right, Luke?”

  “Yeah, I know. But I was the one who left him there in that house with the needle in his arm. Never told a soul what I’d found. Figured it was better that way for everyone. That’s the guilt I harbor. If I’d just gone back in and carried his ass out of there, if I’d just said one thing, that might have made a difference.”

  I don’t ask how he died even though I want to.

  “At seventeen he went from being a college-bound star quarterback with full-ride offers from Texas A&M, The University of Alabama, and University of Notre Dame to losing it all within a year.”

  “Some people don’t want to be found, Luke.”

  “I agree that’s true, but I also think if Nathan had had a single moment of clarity—knowing that he’d lose his family, that his addiction would take his life, leaving his parents and brothers and sisters heartbroken—he wouldn’t have taken the first drink.”

  “I didn’t know Nathan, but if he was anything like you, you’re right.”

  I reach over and turn off the bedside light. “Luke, lie next to me.”

  In the darkness of the bedroom, I hear him stand, setting the brush on the nightstand, and slide off his jeans, his T-shirt. He crawls in bed next to me, and we listen to each other breathe in the warm night air.

  Two people.

  Two paths.

  Meant to meet.

  Meant to survive.

  The morning light pours in through the curtains.

  I turn in bed to face Luke and realize I’m alone, and the idea of me being alone, for the first time ever, doesn’t sit well with me. I sit up, pulling the covers up to my breasts. This is both uncomfortable and electrifying at the same time. I’ve never relied on anyone to take me places emotionally, and I’ve never had to. And maybe that’s the thing about love. You don’t get to pick when love comes along; it just does, whether you’re prepared for it or not. You don’t get a choice when your heart falls for the right person.

  Fear starts to fester in my belly as my thoughts start to spin.

  What if he leaves?

  What if I lose him?

  What if it
doesn’t work?

  What if he’s got this annoying habit that I can’t stand?

  What I have this annoying habit he can’t stand?

  I begin to bite my thumbnail and search the well-kept room with my eyes.

  But what if it does work?

  When I throw back the covers, I notice a note on the nightstand:

  Went to build fence with Uncle Al.

  See you soon.

  Love,

  Luke

  I smile inwardly at his chicken scratch. It makes me think about how his autograph might look on a headshot of his. It makes me wonder how many women—and men for that matter—have a picture of Luke hanging in their bedroom. I wonder how many women fantasize about him. I suppose I’ve always treated Luke like a human because he is one. I’ve never looked at him like many people do. Maybe that’s what he appreciates.

  I get dressed. Take my toothbrush to the bathroom and brush. Throw a little mascara on, some lip gloss, brush my hair, and I remember Luke’s strokes. They were soft, almost tender, like he was treading lightly.

  I remember the story about Nathan and how heartbreaking that must have been for Al and Gene to watch their son fall from grace.

  Do we all have freedom of choice?

  But what if the choice no longer becomes a choice? When you have a need, a necessity, a desire so deep for that feel-good moment, that’s when the choice no longer becomes a choice.

  This makes me think about Father.

  He made choices every day. Big choices. Huge choices. What film rights to buy. What directors to hire. Who to have over for dinner. Who to loan money to. Whether to engage with his children, Ingrid and me. Whether to browbeat his wife on a nightly basis. Whether or not to put his hands on her in the end, to hurt her so badly that she had to go to the hospital on multiple occasions.

  But in the end, I’m almost certain, it was no longer a choice for Father. It became a sick need. A feeling of inferiority from his childhood. A feeling of control. A feeling of reaching a high and then coming down after the deed was done. And then the guilt in the hours that passed. I think, secretly, Mother, Ingrid, and I, knew there was no cure for Father. It was the last time he sent Mother to the hospital. We never talked about it, the three of us. Never discussed it. I think, maybe, if we did, the truth we all felt deep down, would become our reality.