When Light Breaks - By Patti Callahan Henry Page 0,47
Palmetto Pointe?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah, but just for the day before we headed to Beaufort—great show. You see it?”
“No, I didn’t know. . . .” Trembles ran through my heart, like I’d just been slammed to the floor of the sea after trusting the current. Jack had been in Palmetto Pointe and not called me. Now here I was looking like I’d chased him down in Savannah. I wanted to groan. I didn’t.
“You know,” I said to Luke, “I’m really glad to see you. I was starting to believe you were an angel of some sort.”
“Not an angel.” He lifted his arms. “No wings.”
“No wings.” I smiled.
He tapped my shoulder. “But you look like you could have some buried somewhere. If anyone looks like an angel, it’s you.”
“With a broken wing,” I said and tried to laugh.
“Listen,” Luke said, “I have to get back to set up. Let me know if you need anything at all.”
I nodded, but Luke didn’t see me as he walked off.
Jack gestured toward the back door. “Let’s get out of here for an hour or so before I have to help Jimmy warm up.”
I glanced around. “They won’t be looking for you?”
“Nope, I always sneak off by myself—to get my head together before the show.”
“Well, then surely you don’t need me messing up your quiet time.”
“Do you want to go for a walk or not?” He squeezed my elbow.
I looked over my shoulder, shrugged. If he hadn’t even said hello to me in Palmetto Pointe, would I follow him now?
“Come on.” He lifted his palms up, and then slapped them together in a prayer pose. “Please?”
I fiddled with the latch on my purse, gazed at the floor, then up at him. “All right.”
We strolled in silence along the river, moist air surrounding us after the rain. I slowed down, fell behind him for a minute. “You walk the same,” I said.
“Oh, yeah?” He looked over his shoulder. “Does my arse look the same?”
I threw my head back and laughed. “No, it is much, much larger.”
He reached behind and grabbed me, picked me up, squeezed me with a tickle under my ribs.
“In a good way, in a good way.” I attempted to twist away, laughing.
“I’m sure.” He set me down on the ground.
I stood still for a moment and watched him walk. He turned. “You coming?”
I nodded, wanting to tell him to pick me up again, laugh again . . . kiss me. But of course I didn’t say any of those things. I twisted my diamond ring and smiled.
We reached a bridge over the river and leaned against the rail without speaking, gazing at the water below. The river moved in its furious and unending surge toward the ocean. It didn’t matter who stood and watched this water, who swam in it or fished in it or dumped trash in it, it just kept moving—like time. I could do and do some more, make my to-do list the most important and organized list ever, and time would just flow past me, over me, through me, just like this river. And if I needed any proof of this theory, Jack Sullivan stood next to me as a grown man.
In all my memories of him he had remained the same: just like my photographs always would. But this was no memory, he was flesh and bone. I couldn’t make him into who he was, who we were, any more than I could force the river to flow in the opposite direction.
“I did try and see you in Palmetto Pointe,” he said in a low voice.
“Oh?” I looked up at him.
“Yep, I drove past our old houses.”
“That’s looking for me?” I poked his side.
“Yes, it is. You stood on the front porch with some guy—I’m assuming your fiancé—and I didn’t want to . . . interrupt. I called the next day, after the concert, but whoever answered said you were sick in bed and couldn’t come to the phone. And I just kinda let it go at that. It didn’t seem like the right time to . . . track you down or anything.”
“I got sick the same day I hit Luke. Not in my list of top-ten days.”
Then the silence, which had been comfortable, became awkward and full of unsaid words, until we spoke over each other.
“So, tell me about your fiancé.”
“So, where have you been living—tell me . . .”
I smiled. “Fiancé? His name is Peyton Ellers—he’s a—”
Jack’s laugh interrupted my words. “I know who he is.