The Light We Lost

There are certain questions that change the world. Not the big-picture world, but the small, personal world. Will you marry me, I think, tops that list.

The last week in May, not long after I saw you, Darren told me to pack a bag, that he was planning an early anniversary trip for us Memorial Day weekend. A surprise four-day weekend away to celebrate the fact that we moved in together, that we’d soon be dating for two years. He still hadn’t caught on that big surprises like that weren’t my favorite, but I was still trying to be a good sport about it. He clearly liked planning things and surprising me, so I decided to try to let my own feelings about it go and just appreciate how much it meant to him. Even so, I couldn’t stop trying to figure out where we were headed. I’d been assuming Cape Cod or someplace on the coast of Maine, since it was just four days, we both liked the beach, and we’d never been to either place as a couple. But when Darren gave me a list of what to put in my bag, I noticed there was no bathing suit on the list.

“Did you forget anything?” I asked as I was packing.

Darren had been getting ready for bed, and came over in a T-shirt and boxer briefs, smelling like face soap and toothpaste. He looked at his list in my hand, reading each item. “Nope,” he said. “Not one thing. It’s all there.”

“No bathing suit?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said again. “Everything you need is right there.”

I revamped my thoughts for the weekend. Maybe we were going to the Berkshires. Or that spa his oldest sister always talked about in Connecticut. Either of those would be fun.

“You can get out of work tomorrow night right at five?” he said.

I nodded. “I told Phil, he said fine.”

Darren had moved over to his own suitcase and was packing too. “I’ll pick you up outside the office,” he said, “and we’ll head off.”

“I can meet you at the rental car place,” I told him.

“Nah.” He folded a pair of pants so the creases stayed creased and placed them in his suitcase. “I think it makes more sense for me to come get you.”

I paused in my packing to watch him ball his socks and then tuck them into his shoes—he fit three pairs in each sneaker, his neck curving forward to make sure they were pushed all the way inside.

Sometimes I looked at him, and all I could think was: Mine. That’s my boyfriend, my body to cuddle, my hand to hold. I never felt you were mine in the same sense that Darren was—is. It always seemed like you belonged to you and lent yourself out to me when you felt like it; I never had complete ownership. With Darren, I did. And the fact that he was so wholly mine made me ignore things that perhaps I shouldn’t have.

I snuck up behind him that night, wrapped my arms around his chest, and kissed the back of his neck. “Okay, I get it, it’s your surprise trip. I’ll stop trying to change your plans.”

He turned around and kissed me back and I felt him hard against me.

“Hey,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“Hey,” he said back, softly.

I lifted up his shirt and kissed my way down his torso to the elastic of his underwear, and then slipped it off, knelt down and kissed lower.

“Oh, Lucy.” He pulled me up off my knees and onto the bed with him.

We didn’t go to sleep until far too late that night.

I was groggy the whole next day at work, and was ten minutes late heading out to meet Darren for our trip.

“Where have you been?” he asked, when I finally made it outside.

He was pacing on the sidewalk in front of a limo.

“That’s not a rental car,” I said.

He laughed and snapped out of whatever funk he’d been in. “It’s not. We’re going to the airport.”

“The airport?” I repeated.

“I’m taking you to Paris!” he said. “Like on your bucket list: Go to Paris for a long weekend just because.”

I felt my eyes go wide. “Are you serious?” I asked, completely dumbfounded. A surprise vacation to Paris! This was the sort of thing that happened in movies, not in the real world. But it was happening in the real world. And it was happening to me!

It was an incredibly grand and romantic gesture. The kind of thing tons of women dream about. But after the initial shock wore off, it felt odd to me, like when Darren bought us Annie. I wanted to have had a say. What if I wanted to stay in a particular arrondissement? Or visit Biarritz while we were there? Or Giverny?

“Serious as global warming,” he said. “Come on, we have to get to the airport!” He opened the car door for me.

“But my passport!” I said, as I got in the car.

“Right here,” he answered, sliding in next to me and patting his laptop case.

• • •

WHEN WE GOT TO JFK, I found out that he’d booked us seats in business class.

“Are you crazy?” I asked him, as we waited in the American Airlines lounge.

“Miles,” he said. “Credit card points. Didn’t cost a thing.”

I squinted at him suspiciously and he laughed.

“Even if I did pay for it,” he said, “it’s absolutely worth it for your first trip to Paris.”

• • •

WE HAD THE MOST DELICIOUS MEAL I’d ever eaten on an airplane, and each had our own tiny bottle of wine. Darren poured mine, narrating in a terrible French accent that made me laugh so hard I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. Along with them, I wiped away the last vestiges of my annoyance that he’d planned this trip without me. We fell asleep holding hands and woke up to the flight attendant bringing us breakfast.

Once we’d gotten out of the airport, Darren led me to the train, which we took into the city, and then we switched to another train underground.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Still a surprise,” he said.

When we popped out of the metro, we were standing right near Notre Dame Cathedral. “Oh my God!” I said.

“Beautiful, right?” he asked. “But that’s not the surprise. Our apartment is close by. I hope it looks as good in real life as it did in the pictures.”

Darren had found a place online and rented it for us for three nights, which in the days before Airbnb was incredible. When we got there it wasn’t quite like the pictures, but it was still lovely. It had a balcony overlooking the Seine and was decorated exactly like you’d imagine a Parisian apartment would be, all ornate molding and bold colors and quirky accents. It also had a round bed.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Darren said, when he stepped into the bedroom. “This was definitely not in the pictures.”

I stood next to him staring at it. “I didn’t know they made round sheets. And round blankets. Maybe it’s a French thing?”

Darren scratched his head. “I think maybe it’s just a whoever-owns-this-apartment thing.”

I laughed.

“I hope it’s okay,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“Of course it’s okay,” I told him. “It’ll be a sleeping adventure.”

• • •

WE HAD TO SLEEP closer to each other that night than we usually did so neither one of us had our feet hanging off the circle. It was kind of nice, sleeping tangled together, like how you and I used to. Is that how you slept with Raina? Or Alina? Or the women I’m sure were in between, even though you never told me about them?

• • •

THE NEXT DAY was a whirlwind of sightseeing—Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Sainte-Chapelle. We sat outside for dinner and could see the Eiffel Tower shimmer with lights every hour on the hour, as if it were shaking fairy dust down on the whole city.

“Are you happy?” Darren asked me, over a dessert of crème brûlée and Vin Santo.

“Incredibly so,” I told him. “Thank you for this trip.” I looked at the starry night sky, the Parisian buildings, and the cobblestone street. I looked at Darren, smiling at me. And my heart felt full. But then that tiny part of me, the one that would’ve liked to plan this trip together, wondered how much he was doing this for me, and how much he was doing it because he wanted to be the kind of guy who planned surprise trips to Paris for his girlfriend. Darren does these things, makes these grand gestures, all the time, and so many years later I’m still not sure how much of it is for me and how much is for him.

Right before we went to Paris, after he’d told me about the mystery anniversary trip he was planning, I’d bought him a bracelet. The kind with a metal bar that can get engraved. On one side it said his name, and on the other, the side that sat against his wrist, it said, “I love you. XO, Lucy.”

When the last scoop of crème brûlée was eaten, I went to pull the box out of my bag. “I have something for you,” I told him. “An anniversary present.”

“I have something for you, too,” he said.

“I thought this trip was my present,” I told him, playing with the wrapped box in my lap.

“It’s just part of it,” he said. “But I know of a better place to exchange gifts than right here.” He checked his watch. “Do you mind running a little?”