We Are the Light(46)

“That salary number I quoted you before,” Sandra said, “what if I double it? I hear you haven’t been able to set foot inside the high school since the tragedy. You’re surely too young to live off whatever retirement they’re giving teachers these days.”

It was true. According to Jill, I didn’t have enough money to last two years, let alone the rest of my life. But I hadn’t come to Sandra’s to discuss money. So I said, “Is there any sort of compromise we could make? Any other ask you might have? I think you’d really like being in our movie.”

Sandra stared at me coldly. It was like she was analyzing me—trying to figure something out before she made her next move. But then her eyes narrowed and a heaviness began to suck all the oxygen out of the room.

“After what happened in December,” she finally said, “I don’t ever want to think about the movies again. I don’t even want to smell popcorn.”

Her gaze cut through me. And I could feel the hate in her heart when she said, “That Hansen boy is going to disappoint you. Mark my words. Apples don’t fall very far from apple trees.”

I wish I could say I delivered a snappy comeback or at least stood up for Eli, but I just showed myself out of Sandra’s house as she yelled, “Think about my offer, Lucas! It expires in forty-eight hours!”

As I strode home I knew I didn’t need another second to decide anything. I would never align myself with a politician who could label a teenaged boy—with whom she’d never exchanged a word—a psychopath. My answer was a unanimous no. A billion times no.

When I arrived home, Eli wasn’t in his tent, nor was he in our house. I found a note from him on the kitchen table explaining that he was spending the day with Tony, who had agreed to teach Eli how to use the digital camera and also give the boy a crash course on film composition, blocking—which, apparently, is where all the people stand in a shot—and various other camera techniques. Tony had called it “Film Class 101” the night before, which had made me smile. It sure seemed now like many adults were eager and ready to mentor Eli toward a brighter future. I’m not really sure how Jill and I had made that happen, but I felt relieved nonetheless, because it took a lot of pressure off me, as I was no longer solely responsible for Eli.

Since I hadn’t slept the night before, I was feeling pretty tired, so I went up to our bedroom, lay down, and passed out.

When I woke up it was pitch-black, but I could feel a steady pulse of wind fluttering against my face, which is when I realized Darcy had returned for a visit and was flapping her wings to keep me cool as I slept. I couldn’t see anything, so I tried to turn on the light, but nothing happened when I flicked the switch. So I called Darcy’s name. She didn’t answer. But the pulses of wind kept hitting me. I followed them to the corner of the room, where something grabbed me, and then all the air was slowly being crushed out of my lungs. And I could feel the soft tickle of feathers everywhere on my body.

“Darcy?” I said with the last breath I had left in me, but the feathers only squeezed me tighter, until I lost consciousness, which, ironically, is when I woke up.

The sun was streaming through my bedroom windows in a way that suggested it was late afternoon. I lay there for a long time trying to catch my breath, while the day’s dust motes danced in the sunbeams. Then I began to wonder where Darce could be. The separation anxiety was more intense than anything I had ever experienced before. It fluttered heavily in my gut—like I’d somehow swallowed a crow and it was flapping its wings and trying to peck and rip its way out. Its trauma pumped poison through every vein in my body until I couldn’t lift my arms or legs or head up off the mattress. I couldn’t command a single muscle in my body until somewhere around sunset, when the antidote arrived in the form of Eli bursting through the front door down below and screaming with joy, “Mr. Goodgame! I have so much to tell you!”

With the dark magic broken, I sat straight up and yelled back, “Can’t wait to hear! Coming!”

And then we were on the living room couch and Eli was showing me how Tony and he had sketched out every single scene of our movie in an oversized notepad. It was like looking at a massive cartoon strip, seeing the story unfold one frame at a time. Eli was talking a mile a minute and waving his hands and occasionally karate chopping the throw pillow that lives in the corner of the couch. And as he went on and on, I thought, How could anyone not love this boy?

“Mr. Goodgame, are you okay?” he said, which was when I realized that I had zoned out a little bit, so I smiled and nodded.

The boy smiled back and then resumed his monologue, which he repeated in its entirety when Jill arrived home with chicken parmesan over linguini for dinner. After washing and drying the dishes, the three of us threw the Frisbee around in the backyard before Eli decided to “chill out” in his tent while Jill and I swung side by side in Darcy’s hammock, where I told Jill she’d officially be playing Sara.

“So Sandra turned you down?” she asked, which is when I told Jill that I had felt compelled as a human being to try to give Sandra the medicine our film was offering. But as an artist, I was relieved to now have such a smart, talented, and beautiful woman as Jill playing the mayor of Majestic. I could tell my friend was pleased because she immediately began scissor kicking the bottom halves of her legs over the side of the hammock.

When Jill started to yawn a half hour or so later, I told her I was also tired, which was when I retired to my bedroom and wrote you this letter.