The Light We Lost

Darren’s parents had rented a huge place in Vail and his mom promised a big Christmas tree in the chalet. His family had shipped out two big boxes of gifts to arrive in advance. We’d been a little late with ours, so we’d gotten small ones—things we could pack in our suitcases. We contemplated bringing Annie, but my brother had offered to watch her and take her with him to my parents’ place, and somehow having her there felt a little bit like being there myself, so I said fine.

“This is big, Lulu,” Jay had said to me, when I told him my plan to spend Christmas with Darren’s family instead of ours. “Is he your clock reaction, for real?”

I remembered that conversation he and I had more than a year and a half before, when I told him I didn’t want to love anyone but you. My feelings had clearly changed.

“I think he might be,” I told Jay.

I could hear the smile in my brother’s voice when he said, “I’m happy for you, even if I’ll miss you at Christmas.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” I said. “A lot. But I’ll see you when I get back. How about a New Year’s Day brunch? You, Vanessa, me, and Darren?”

“Sounds good,” my brother said. “Already looking forward to it.”

We’d gone to my parents’ house the week before so I could grab the ski pants, helmet, and goggles I’d stored in their basement.

“Darren’s a good man,” my father had said to me, as he helped me hunt for my helmet. “I’m sorry we won’t see you both for Christmas, but maybe we’ll get you next year. And for Easter.”

I smiled. “That sounds good to me,” I said. My family liked Darren, and he and I spent a lot more time with them than you and I ever did. I’m not sure exactly why. Perhaps it was that when you and I were together we didn’t need anyone else, didn’t really think of anyone else. Darren’s and my world encompassed everyone we both knew—he was more the social secretary than I was, making sure we made time in our calendars to fit everyone in.

And he was so excited about this holiday trip. He made list upon list to be sure we wouldn’t forget anything, and after he checked and double-checked our suitcases, he declared us all set to leave the day before Christmas. Then he got the flu.

Darren’s nose had been running and he’d had a bit of a cough on the twenty-third, so he went to bed early that night, hoping that would help shake it. The plan was for both of us to stay at his apartment and then head to the airport together, so I ended up watching It’s a Wonderful Life myself in his living room and slipping into bed a little after midnight, about three hours after he did.

I cuddled up next to him, and let his body heat warm me until I realized that he was really warm. Even warmer than usual. I turned over and pressed my lips against his forehead, the way my mom always did when my brother or I was sick. His head felt hot against my lips.

His eyes fluttered open, and I could see how glassy they were in the semidarkness.

“Darren?” I whispered. “You’re burning up. Do you feel okay?”

He coughed a long racking cough. “Not really,” he said. “My head hurts. Do you think I have a fever?”

I went and got the thermometer I knew he kept in his medicine cabinet, and he took his temperature. 102.4.

“Maybe it’s broken,” he said.

I cleaned it with alcohol and took my temperature. 98.6.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” I said. “And I think you might have the flu.”

I got him some Tylenol, and we both fell asleep.

He woke up early the next morning with the same high fever, the same body-racking cough, and a headache and runny nose that had intensified.

“I’m really sick,” he said, when his coughing woke me up.

“Yeah,” I said. “You are.”

And then his eyes filled with tears. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry. “Our plane’s taking off in four hours. I don’t think I can go to Colorado today. I don’t even know if I can get out of bed.”

Even though Darren was the one who usually handled logistics—and still is—I quickly called the airline and, with some pleas and explanations, got our tickets moved to a flight two days later. Then I called his mom and explained the situation. And then threw on some boots and a coat and went to the drugstore to get him whatever I could find—cough suppressants and fever reducers and cold-and-flu medications.

“I’m sorry for ruining your Christmas,” he said when I got back.

I kissed his feverish forehead and said, “As long as I get to spend it with you, it’s not ruined.”

He took some medication and went back to sleep, and I snuck out of the apartment again. I bought a three-foot-tall tree—the biggest I could carry on my own—and lights and tinsel and glitter snowflakes that had already been marked twenty percent off at Duane Reade. I got a box of red and gold ornaments, too, and a ballerina for the top of the tree, because everything else had been sold out. Then, while Darren slept, I turned his living room into Christmas. I even unpacked our gifts for his whole family and put them under the tree, which I’d balanced on the coffee table, to make it look taller. It felt like I was giving him back some of the happiness that he’d given to me over the past year.

“Lucy?” Darren called from the bedroom, just as I was sticking the last sparkly snowflake to the wall behind the couch. “Are you moving furniture?”

I heard him padding slowly to the door, coughing as he walked, and then the bedroom door opened, and he was there, leaning against the door frame, pale and rumpled, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked at the living room and didn’t say a word.

“Darren? Is this okay? I wanted to make sure that being sick didn’t mean you missed Christmas.”

I took a step closer to him and saw tears in his eyes. “Lucy,” he said, and started to cough. “Sometimes I love you so much that I don’t even know how my heart can stand it.”

I walked over to him and hugged him, harder than I ever had, as if I somehow needed to show him how much I loved him with the strength of that hug.

Darren was my Old Nassau experiment. The longer we were together, the more I loved him, and the better it got.

xli

There are certain events in a person’s life that feel like turning points, even as they’re happening. September 11th was a turning point in my life. Your moving away was another. And Christmas with Darren was a third. We’d been together not quite a year and a half at that point, but I knew then that we would get married. Not necessarily right away, but I knew it would happen—unless something unexpected happened instead. Unless you happened, actually. I always imagined you were the only person, the only thing that could stop me from marrying Darren. I wondered if that meant I shouldn’t marry him, but I also knew then that I couldn’t have you, and I couldn’t imagine my life without him. And I loved him—I love him—really and truly. Just not the same way I loved—love—you.

I still dream about you—I’ve told you this—I have ever since you left. You and I are in Central Park having a picnic, or in a hotel room, or apple picking. Sometimes the dream is about something we actually did together, and sometimes it isn’t. But it always ends with you pulling me toward you, our bodies pressed together, our lips meeting—and then I wake up, my heart racing, feeling so guilty for thinking about someone else when I’m in bed with Darren, even all these years later. I’ve tried so hard to stop them, but they still come.

Do you dream about me? Are you dreaming about me right now?

• • •

ONE MORNING, right around my twenty-sixth birthday, I saw a picture you took in the New York Times. Pakistanis protesting civilian casualties from a drone strike. Pakistanis, not Iraqis. You had moved. You’d moved to a brand-new country and you hadn’t told me.

I dreamed about you that night, but that dream was different. We were walking through Times Square, and a rush of tourists came. My hand was torn out of yours; we got separated and I was looking for you all over. I was panicked in the dream, and I must’ve called out to you, because the next thing I knew, Darren was shaking my shoulders and saying, “You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, Lucy.”

I woke up sweaty, the panicked feeling still there.

“What was it?” Darren asked. “You were saying ‘gave.’ What did you give?”

I shook my head. “I . . . I don’t know,” I stammered. But, of course, I knew I wasn’t saying “gave” at all.

Darren got me a glass of water, then climbed back into bed and held me close to him. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here. I’ll keep the bad dreams away.”

I wrapped my arms around him but knew that no one could keep that kind of bad dream away. I stayed up a long time after that and finally fell back to sleep as the sun was coming up.

That day at work I e-mailed you. Haven’t heard from you in a while, but saw that you’re in Pakistan. Loved the photograph. Are you there for a while?

The response came quickly. Hey Luce! So nice to hear from you. Hope you’re doing well. Have been in Pakistan for a few months, but they asked if I’d transfer here officially. I’m thinking about saying yes. I’ll probably be in the States again this summer. Hope we can get together then. I keep an eye out for It Takes a Galaxy whenever I travel. Your team has been doing great work. Still love that Galacto.