The Light We Lost

“You like it out here,” Darren said later, as Violet bobbed and splashed and the two of us sat on the steps in the shallow end of the pool with cold glasses of Chardonnay.

“You like it out here, too,” I answered, leaning my head on his shoulder.

“I do,” he said. “We should buy a place.”

“Maybe one day,” I told him. “But for now, renting for a week or two each summer sounds pretty ideal to me.”

He nodded. “One day. It’s on my bucket list, remember?”

I hadn’t. “Of course,” I said. “We’ve been bucket-list remiss as of late, I’m afraid.”

He shook his head. “No, we haven’t,” he said. “This year we became parents. That was on our lists.”

I laughed. “That’s right,” I said. “I take it back. We are awesome at bucket lists.”

“We are,” he said, kissing me, while Violet splashed us both.

That’s what I was thinking about that morning on the subway—the week in Westhampton, the pool, how relaxing it was. And then I looked up. The man across from me was holding a copy of the New York Times. The article facing me said: More Bodies Pulled from Hotel Rubble in Pakistan. My mind went straight to you. Were you in Pakistan? Last I’d seen you were in Baghdad, but could you have moved? Or been covering something in Islamabad? Could you have been staying at that hotel?

I couldn’t breathe properly until I’d gotten to work, logged into Facebook and seen the Associated Press article you posted about the hotel. You knew people who had been killed in the explosion, but you hadn’t been. You were still in Iraq.

“Oh, thank God,” I whispered. Then I scrolled down your page, curious to see what you’d been up to. A little broken heart icon jumped out at me. You and Alina had broken up. I wondered what had happened, and truly, I felt bad. I wanted you to be happy. I thought for a moment about reaching out to you, but I didn’t.

My day went on, my week, my month, but you were in my thoughts more than you had been since Violet was born. I kept my eye out for your photographs. I wondered if you were going to make it back to New York any time soon, and if you did, if you’d let me know.

lv

Ordinary days sometimes turn into extraordinary days when you least expect them to. It was a Friday in January. I was working from home, listening to Violet chatter to the nanny while answering e-mails from the office. Violet was fourteen months old at that point and could say only a handful of words, but that didn’t stop her from attempting to explain the secrets of the universe to us. At least that’s what Darren and I imagined she was doing as she monologued with nonsense sounds for minutes on end.

Maria, our nanny, was responding in Spanish—courtesy of Darren’s idea to try to get Violet to grow up bilingual. I figured trying to get her to speak one language was enough, but he felt strongly, and I said fine. I asked Maria to read her books in English, though, and bring her to music classes and play groups and story time at the local library. It felt like a fair compromise. And by the way, Violet never learned much more than hola, adiós, por favor, and gracias, until she started watching Dora the Explorer. The power of television! Other kids had limits on what they could watch, but Violet watched all my shows, and some of the competition besides. She was my own little focus group of one, and it was interesting to see what caught her attention, which shows she latched on to. I was secretly thrilled when Rocket Through Time kept her transfixed. And also when she walked out of the room when Guillaume came on. I detest that show. Kate swears it taught Victoria how to whine. She’s probably right.

While I was in the middle of typing a response about next season’s budget for It Takes a Galaxy, my Gmail pinged, and there was a message from you:

Hi Luce,

I know it’s been a while. More than a while. An eon, it feels like. But I’ll be in New York tomorrow, swinging through en route to the inauguration in D.C. Couldn’t miss a moment like that. Can you believe, our first African-American president? Everyone over here is ecstatic. I think Obama’s election is going to mean great things for our country—a new, better, kinder direction. Anyway, I’d love to see you. Any chance you’re free for coffee tomorrow afternoon?

-Gabe

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t respond right away. In fact, I didn’t respond until that night, after I’d casually mentioned your visit to Darren.

“You’re still in touch with that guy?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

I shook my head. “I haven’t seen or spoken to him since my Columbia reunion. He e-mailed me out of the blue.”

Darren unbuttoned his collar. “Would you do me a favor?” he asked.

I steeled myself. Was he going to ask me not to see you? “What is it?” I asked back.

“Will you bring Violet with you?”

I sat for a moment, a bit stunned. “You don’t trust me?” I asked.

Darren took a deep breath. “I trust you,” he said. “But I don’t trust him. I don’t know why he wants to see you. And I think you should bring Violet.”

I nodded. I knew that saying no would send Darren a message I didn’t want to send. “Of course,” I said. “I’ll bring Violet. But I think he’s just an old friend who wants to catch up.”

I wrote you back that night:

Great to hear from you. How about 3 p.m. tomorrow in Brooklyn Heights? There’s a Starbucks on Montague.

I didn’t mention Violet.

You shot back: Sounds good.

We had a plan.

• • •

THE NEXT DAY I dressed Violet up in baby jeans, baby Uggs, and a gray sweater with a pink appliqué heart. I put a pink bow in her hair. I was actually wearing something similar, though my sweater was brown without an appliqué, and I didn’t have a bow.

Darren was at the gym when I zipped us both into our winter coats and we left.

I peered through the Starbucks’s glass door, and saw you sitting at a table, your head down, reading something on your BlackBerry. Darren and I had just made the switch to iPhones, but it made sense somehow, you still on a BlackBerry. I parked the stroller outside, adjusted Violet on my hip, and opened the door. You looked up.

“Hi, Lucy,” you said. “And hi . . .”

“Violet,” I supplied. “Violet, this is Mommy’s friend Gabe. Gabe, this is my daughter.”

“Hihi,” Violet said. It was one of her words, always doubled, though Darren and I couldn’t figure out why.

“She looks just like you,” you said, standing up. “Wow.”

What were you thinking just then? I’ve always wondered. Did the fact that she looked like me and not Darren make Violet more . . . exciting? Tolerable? Lovable?

Violet must’ve sensed something she liked, because she held out her arms, and you took her. “Hihi,” she said, and patted your cheeks.

“Hihi,” you said back to her.

Then you used your free arm to hug me. “It’s been so long; I’m glad you came.”

I took Violet back, and we sat down across from each other. I put some board books and a few blocks on the table, and Violet started playing with them.

“I saw you were engaged,” I said, “on Facebook.”

I didn’t know how much time we had, and I wanted to know what was going on. Because Darren was right, there was no obvious motive for this meeting, after so long.

You laughed. “Getting right to it.”

I shrugged and retrieved the book Violet had knocked to the floor.

“You want to know what happened,” you said.

“Only if you want to tell me,” I answered.

So you told me about Alina and the job she was offered in D.C. and how you both realized that your careers were more important than your relationship. She wanted to go to D.C., you wanted to stay abroad, and neither one of you was willing to compromise to stay together. I couldn’t help thinking about us, about how you left me for the same reason.

“It was a case of two very nice people not meant for each other,” you said.

I wondered if you said that about me.

“I’m sorry,” I answered.

“Sorr-eee,” Violet echoed, looking up. Another of her words.

You laughed. “Did you clone yourself?” you asked. “Make a Xerox? She’s fantastic.”

“Are you fantastic?” I asked Violet.

She smiled and clapped.

Then I laughed too.

“You’re happy,” you said to me. “With Darren, with Violet, you’re happy.”

“I am,” I said. And it was true.

“I’m glad one of us is.” It wasn’t sarcastic or malicious, the way you said it. Just kind of wistful.

“You’re the one who left,” I reminded you.

“I know,” you said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the choices I made. Why I made them. What life would have been like if I hadn’t.”

You seemed so contemplative, as if you were taking stock of your life, judging it.

“Do you think you would have been happier?” I ventured. “If you’d stayed?”

You sighed. “I don’t know,” you said. “On some days I think I would have been happier if I’d never tried photography at all. I think I was proud of my pursuit, proud of doing something important. But it’s been really hard. It’s taken a lot out of me. But . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m not the kind of person who will ever be happy. Maybe I’m not the man I hoped I was.”