We Are the Light(22)

All agreed to be there except Sandra Coyle, whose assistant—a young woman named Willow—said her boss had a conflict that most likely could not be pushed. So I said, “Please tell Sandra that Lucas Goodgame specifically extended a personal invitation and specifically requested that she attend because there are no hard feelings and I’d like to unite all who survived the Majestic Theater tragedy.”

The assistant read back the full message, just to make sure she had gotten every word correct, which she absolutely did, and then I breathed a sigh of relief, because there was no way Sandra Coyle could say I had snubbed her or tried to cut her out of our film. And she was absolutely the type of person who would say such a thing, just to poison the whole ordeal. I know because she is very much like my mother and maybe even Eli’s mother, although I have never met Mrs. Hansen face-to-face.

Although for the next week Jill was enthusiastic around Eli, she desperately tried—during every private Eli-free moment we shared—to convince me to cancel the meeting at the library.

“But everyone from my original Survivors’ Group except Sandra Coyle has already agreed to attend,” I’d protest.

“Yes,” Jill would reply, “because you didn’t say you wanted them to star in a monster movie about the shooting that killed all of their loved ones.”

“It’s a metaphor that’s designed to heal!” I’d roar.

“Grieving people don’t care about metaphors!” Jill would retort, matching my volume.

“Have you not seen the monster suit?” I’d say, and then stare at her like I was resting my case, because the winning quality of the costume was entirely self-evident.

“You really have gone mad, Lucas,” she’d say, and then storm out of the room.

We had the same argument over and over again, and I thought we were deadlocked until Tuesday afternoon—just hours before our big meeting—when Jill came home early from the Cup Of Spoons with Isaiah. Eli was out in his orange tent resting up for the big night when my two best friends walked into my living room and asked me to sit down.

“Why didn’t you say anything about the monster movie aspect of tonight’s meeting?” Isaiah said in a way that let me know Jill had definitely betrayed my confidence, yet hadn’t quite managed to pitch our film properly, which was understandable as she wasn’t really privy to all of Eli’s and my in-depth and ever-evolving creative discussions.

I tried to explain that it was a metaphor, but Isaiah wasn’t interested in the artistic merits of what we were trying to accomplish, which was unfortunate, being that he is a well-respected educator and role model.

Then Jill and Isaiah took turns trying to convince me to postpone the meeting and maybe write up a proposal that they could vet for me and Eli before we shared anything with the other Survivors, saying that maybe we weren’t thinking clearly, but had gotten lost in a tangent, which was fine for Eli’s senior project, but maybe not the best when it came to handling the hearts and minds of Survivors who were still grieving and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I was kind of surprised that my two best friends couldn’t see the genius of what Eli and I had mapped out, but then I remembered that almost all creative geniuses were misunderstood at first, so maybe this was just a universal part of the artist’s journey—our first psychological hurdle.

If I couldn’t win them over with the artistic merits of our film project, I thought, well, then maybe I could sell them on the healing aspects. So I described how Eli had come alive as we worked on the script and I told them that I had never seen a young person so committed and enthusiastic.

I reminded them that the kid had literally dropped out of school. But he’d been working on his senior project ten to twelve hours a day and with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. Yeah, maybe his brother did a monstrous thing, but Jacob was still a human being. And Eli loved Jacob. He really loved him. And we adults have a responsibility to make sure the sickness that took Jacob doesn’t spread, because it can really easily and I should know. Then I couldn’t stop repeating the same question, without giving anyone enough time to reply—Do you understand what I’m saying? I began talking faster and faster, as if speed would force them to finally comprehend me. I told them it really wasn’t that hard to get what I was saying. But the looks on their faces suggested otherwise. The more I spoke, the more they seemed afraid of me, until I began to worry I was turning into a monster right in front of the people I loved most in the world.

When I realized I was screaming at a deafening volume, I shut my mouth and closed my eyes and then the room was silent for a long time.

“What’s going on in here?” Eli said.

I opened my eyes and there he was standing at the edge of my living room, searching Isaiah and Jill for answers with a tentative boyish look in his eyes that seemed to be prematurely saying, I’m sorry.

No one answered Eli’s question.

He tried to make it okay by saying, “Mr. Henderson, you’re coming tonight, right? And you too, Jill, right?”

There was so much earnest enthusiasm in his voice, so much hope, that I thought I might have to strangle both Jill and Isaiah dead with my bare hands if they gave the wrong answer. Happily, they both said, “Yep,” and then stared at their feet.

“Perfect,” Eli said. “I’m going to graduate high school for sure, but we’re aiming to do much more than that. We’re going to heal the town. We’re going to do something positive. Mr. Goodgame’s been superb. I’m learning so much. More than I deserve probably, so thank you, Mr. Henderson, for this opportunity. You won’t regret it. I’m going to make the school look good, don’t worry.”