We Are the Light(69)

When I didn’t say anything back, Jill grabbed my face and pulled my lips to hers and then we were taking off each other’s clothes and rolling around on the bed and then—before I had time to think about what was happening—I was inside Jill and we were making love, only it didn’t feel transgressive this time, but okay and even amazing and beautiful and like exactly what was supposed to happen on this December morning in Florida.

When it was over, we were on our backs with our arms touching, catching our breath.

“I can’t spend any more time with your mother,” Jill said. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

“What if we got in the truck and just started driving south until we found another place to spend Christmas?”

We turned and faced each other, which is when I noticed that Jill’s hair had gone gray. I knew it couldn’t have turned gray all at once, but I simply hadn’t noticed before. She was just as beautiful as ever, only she looked more like a queen now—wise, powerful, and self-aware.

“I really hope you made me a coffee mug for Christmas, Lucas.”

“David Fleming helped.”

She kissed me three times on the lips and then we were in her truck driving south. We found a place on the beach somewhat south of Sarasota and I turned off my phone so I didn’t have to deal with Mom’s guilt texts and threats and general ugliness.

The day before Christmas, Jill and I made a sandcastle, on which we wrote the names of all eighteen people who had been murdered at the Majestic Theater, including our Darcy. We wrote with the quills of laughing gull feathers. I carved your name into the sand too, right next to Leandra’s, of course. And then Jill and I sat there watching. The tide deployed a million gentle waves to tenderly lick the sand back into the Gulf of Mexico, slowly taking all of your names. The long process put me into a meditative trance that really seemed to help, especially since we hadn’t done anything official to mark the anniversary of the shooting weeks before, back when we were in Brevard.

I remember video chatting with Phineas on Christmas Day and talking about all of the above, which he said was exactly what I needed to be doing and that I had been listening to psyche. Leaving my mother hadn’t been avoidance or a regression, but a conscious choice to protect the most important relationship I had, which was with Jill. And so I spent the rest of the holiday walking hand in hand with Jill on the beach and through town and once in a while I thought I could feel Darcy smiling down on her two favorite people in the world taking care of each other now that she was gone.

When we returned to Majestic, Jill moved into my bedroom and we started sleeping under the same comforter, but everything else continued the way it was before we took our trip. I had three sessions a week with Phineas, who methodically pieced my psyche back together. I spent time with my adult-sitters. Jill worked at the Cup Of Spoons and continued to plan relaxing Saturday adventures for us. And time passed.

Maybe two months ago, before I began writing this last letter, Aliza finally returned to Pennsylvania with her daughter, who shares our town’s name. I think little Maj is three now. It seemed like we spent every night of those two weeks either hosting Isaiah’s family or being hosted by them. Maj seemed to take a quick liking to her uncle Lucas and aunt Jill and we even babysat one night when Bess and Isaiah took Aliza into Philadelphia to have dinner at 215 on Jill’s recommendation. It was easy to fall in love with Maj as her eyes sparkled with delight whenever you merely smiled and said her name.

I remember blowing off a bunch of my adult-sitters and our weekly activities so that I could spend time with Aliza and Maj, while Isaiah and Bess were working. One morning, Aliza and I decided to take a walk in the Kent Woods Preserve. I remember I was pushing Maj in her stroller and Aliza was talking about being a teenager at Majestic High School, back when her father was a young principal and I was a young educator recently tapped to be what they were calling a “natural listener” at the time. In the shade of a gigantic budding oak tree, standing near a babbling brook, Aliza said, “I don’t think you realize how much of an impact you had on me.”

“I just listened,” I said. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Listening.”

“I’m listening to you right now.”

Aliza raised her eyebrows and lowered her chin. “You know what I mean,” she said.

I looked away because I didn’t want to talk about what I had done to Jacob and how I had gone on to fail his brother, Eli. I remember my skin burning.

“I think you should start listening again, Mr. Goodgame,” Aliza said. When I didn’t answer, she said, “I’m pretty sure I know a guy who’d give you a job.”

I talked it over with Phineas, saying I understood what Aliza was saying and that I appreciated the kindness. I also had been feeling pretty terrible about draining Jill’s house-sale money and relying on the other Survivors to keep me busy. Laxman had long ago begun to overpay me for the filing I did on Wednesdays for his law firm and had many times generously offered to hire me full-time, but the truth was that, while I loved being around Laxman, I didn’t much like working at his law firm. Robin Withers had also offered me paid employment at the library, but I refused to take any money from her for the work I’d do on Mondays because, as everyone knows, public libraries are criminally underfunded.