What Light

CHAPTER TWELVE

It’s the busiest day at the lot so far. I barely have time to go to the bathroom, let alone eat lunch. So I pick at a bowl of mac and cheese at the counter in the rare moments between ringing up customers. Monsieur Cappeau sent an email this morning asking me to call him over the next day or so pour pratiquer, but that’s way down on my need-to-do list.

Today’s tree delivery came early again, not only before we opened but before any of the workers even arrived. Dad called a few of the more dependable ballplayers to come in early, so at least there were a handful of us to tiredly unload the shipment.

As exhausted as I am from unloading so many trees before breakfast, I’m grateful for the extra business. It feels like things may be picking up, and keeping the lot open another year could be a possibility.

I stand beside Mom at the register and point toward Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay outside. I attempt some tree lot commentary, like Caleb and his friends at the parade.

“Folks, it looks like the Ramsays are arguing over whether or not to pay extra for this stunning white pine,” I say.

Mom looks at me as if questioning my sanity, but I continue.

“We’ve seen this before,” I say, “and I don’t think I’m spoiling it to tell you Mrs. Ramsay will get her way. She’s never been a fan of the blue spruce, no matter what Mr. Ramsay says.”

Mom laughs, motioning for me to keep my voice down.

“A decision looks imminent!” I say.

Now we’re both glued to the scene playing out within our trees.

“Mrs. Ramsay is flapping her arms,” I say, “calling for her husband to just make up his mind if he wants to bring home anything at all. Mr. Ramsay compares the needles on both trees. What’s it going to be, folks? What’s it going to be? And… it’s… the… white pine!”

Mom and I throw our hands in the air and then I give her a high five.

“Mrs. Ramsay wins again,” I say.

The couple enters the Bigtop and Mom, biting her cheeks, ducks out. When Mr. Ramsay sets the final twenty-dollar bill on the counter, Mrs. Ramsay and I exchange knowing smiles. I hate to see anyone leave even slightly discouraged, so I tell Mr. Ramsay they made a great choice. White pines hold their needles better than some trees. They won’t need to vacuum them up before their grandkids arrive.

Before he can put away his wallet, Mrs. Ramsay takes it from him and slides me a ten-dollar tip for my help. They both leave happy, although she good-naturedly swats him and tells him he’s too cheap for his own good.

I stare at the ten-dollar bill, a hazy idea taking shape. I rarely receive tips since most people tip the guys who load their trees.

I send a text to Heather: Can we do some cookie making at your house tonight? Our trailer is a good home away from home, but it’s not built for a baking frenzy.

Heather texts back right away: Of course!

I immediately text Caleb: If you do a delivery tomorrow, I want to go. I’ll even have something to contribute besides my beguiling personality. I bet you never used that in a sentence!

A few minutes later, Caleb responds: I have not. And yes you may.

I tuck my phone away, smiling to myself. For the rest of the afternoon and evening the anticipation of spending more time with Caleb keeps me going. But as I count out the register at closing, I’m aware that this time needs to be about more than trees and cookies. If he makes me feel this happy now, and I can easily see things growing more intense, I need to know what happened with his sister. He did admit something happened, but knowing all that I do about him and all that I’ve seen, I can’t imagine it’s as bad as what some people believe.

At least, I hope it’s not.

Time drags at half-speed the next day. Heather and I were up late talking and baking Christmas cookies at her house. Devon stopped by in time to add frosting and sprinkles and help us sample about a dozen of them. With firsthand experience now, I agree that his stories are mind-numbing. His skills at cookie design almost made up for it, though.

I finish showing a customer how to price our trees based on the colored ribbons tied to them. Once he gets it and moves on, I hold on to one of the trees and close my heavy eyes for a moment. Upon opening them, I see Caleb’s truck pull in and feel suddenly fully awake.

Dad notices the truck, too. When I head to the Bigtop, he meets me at the register, a few tree needles stuck to his hair.

“Still spending time with this boy?” he asks. The tone is embarrassingly obvious.

I flick a few needles from his shoulder. “The boy’s name is Caleb,” I say, “and he doesn’t work here, so you can’t scare him out of talking to me. Plus, you have to admit, he is our best customer.”

“Sierra…” He doesn’t finish, but I want him to know that I’m not blind to our circumstance.

“We’re only here a few more weeks. I know. You don’t need to say it.”

“I just don’t want you getting your hopes up,” he says. “Or his, for that matter. Remember, we don’t even know if we’re coming back next year.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Maybe it doesn’t make sense,” I say. “And I’m fully aware that I’m not usually like this, but… I like him.”

The way he winces, anyone watching would think I told him I was pregnant. Dad shakes his head. “Sierra, be—”

“Careful? Is that the cliché you’re looking for?”

He looks away. The unspoken irony is that he and Mom met this exact way. On this lot.

I brush another needle from his hair and kiss him on the cheek. “I hope you think I usually am.”

Caleb approaches the counter and sets down a tag from his next tree. “Tonight’s family is getting a beauty,” he says. “I noticed it the last time I was here.”

Dad smiles at him and politely claps him on the shoulder and then walks away without muttering a word.

“That means you’re winning him over,” I explain. I grab a sleigh-shaped cookie tin from below the register and Caleb raises his eyebrows. “Stop salivating. These are staying wherever we take the tree.”

“Wait, you made those for them?” I swear, it’s like his smile lights up the entire Bigtop.

After we deliver the tree and cookies to tonight’s family, Caleb asks if I would like to taste the best pancake in town. I agree, and he drives us to a twenty-four-hour diner that was probably last remodeled in the mid-1970s. A long stretch of windows lit by orange-hued lights frame a dozen booths. There are only two people seated inside, at opposite ends of the diner.

“Do we need to get tetanus shots to eat here?” I ask.

“This is the only place in town you can get a pancake as big as your head,” he says. “And do not tell me that hasn’t been a dream of yours.”

Inside the diner, a handwritten sign duct-taped to the register says Please seat yourself. I follow Caleb to a window booth, walking beneath red Christmas ornaments hung by fishing line to the ceiling tiles. We slide into a booth whose green vinyl covering has seen better days, but more than likely not in this century. After we each order the “world famous” pancake I fold my hands on the table and look at him. He thumbs the top of a large syrup pourer beside the napkins, sliding the lid open and shut.

“There’s no marching band,” I prompt. “If we talk, I should be able to hear you just fine.”

He stops playing with the syrup and leans back against the booth. “You really want to hear this?”

I honestly don’t know. He knows I’ve heard the rumors. Maybe I haven’t heard the truth. If the truth is better, he should jump at the chance to tell me.

He picks at the cuticle on his thumb.

“You can start by explaining why you haven’t used your new comb,” I say. The joke falls flat, but I hope he knows I’m trying.

“I used it this morning,” he says. He scrubs his fingers through his hair. “Maybe the one you got was defective.”

“I doubt it,” I say.

He takes a sip of water. After several more moments of silence, he asks, “Can we start by you telling me what you’ve heard?”

I bite my lower lip, considering how to say this. “Exact words?” I say. “Well, I heard you attacked your sister with a knife.”

He closes his eyes. His body, almost undetectably, rocks back and forth. “What else?”

“That she doesn’t live here anymore.” It feels wrong that I even notice the butter knife on the napkin beside his hands.

“She lives in Nevada,” he says, “with our dad. She’s a freshman this year.”

He looks toward the kitchen, maybe hoping the waitress will interrupt our conversation. Or maybe he wants to get through it without interruption.

“And you live with your mom,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “Obviously that’s not how things started.”

The waitress sets down two empty mugs and then fills them both with coffee. We each grab creamers and packets of sugar.

He’s still stirring his drink when he continues. “When my parents split, my mom took it really hard. She lost so much weight and cried a lot, which is normal, I guess. Abby and I both stayed with her while they figured things out.”

He takes a sip of his drink. I pick up mine and blow away the steam.

“Abby and I were given our own lawyer, which happens in some cases.” He takes another sip and then holds his mug in both hands, staring into it. “That’s when it all started. I was the one who said we should stay with our mom. I convinced Abby it’s what we needed to do. I told her she needed us and that Dad would be fine.”

I take a sip of my coffee while he still stares into his.

“But he wasn’t fine,” Caleb says. “I think I knew that for a while but I kept hoping he would pull it together. I think if I actually saw him every day, looking as hurt and broken down as my mom, I might have chosen him.”

“Why do you think he wasn’t fine?” I ask.

The waitress sets down our plates. The pancakes really are the size of our heads, but it does nothing to bring about the easy conversation Caleb probably hoped for when he chose this place. Still, they offer a distraction for both of us as the talk continues. I pour syrup over mine and, with a butter knife and fork, start cutting up half of it.

“Before they split, our whole family used to go nuts this time of year,” he says. “We went hardcore, from decorating to all these things we did with our church. Sometimes even Pastor Tom would go caroling with us. But when Dad moved to Nevada, I found out everything did stop for him. His house was this dark and depressing place to visit. Not only were there no Christmas lights, half the regular lights in his house were burned out. He didn’t even unpack most of his boxes after being there for months.”

He takes a couple of bites of his pancake, looking down at his plate the whole time. I consider telling him he doesn’t need to tell me more. Whatever happened, I like the Caleb sitting in front of me now.

“After our first visit to his place, Abby bugged me about him all the time. She was so mad at me for how he was dealing with things, for making us choose Mom. And she wouldn’t let up about it. She’d say, ‘Look what you did to him.’”

I want to tell Caleb his dad isn’t his responsibility, but he must know that. I’m sure his mom told him that a thousand times. At least, I hope she has. “How old were you?” I ask.

“I was in eighth grade. Abby was in sixth.”

“I can remember sixth grade,” I say. “She was probably trying to figure how everything fit together in this new life you all had.”

“But she blamed me for how they weren’t fitting together. And I blamed me, because some of it was true. But I was in eighth grade. How could I know what was best for everyone?”

“Maybe there was no best,” I say.

For the first time in minutes, Caleb looks up. He attempts a smile, and while it barely registers, I think he now believes that I do want to understand.

He takes a sip of his coffee, leaning forward more than lifting his hands. This is the most fragile I’ve seen him. “Jeremiah had been my friend for years—my best friend—and he knew how much Abby was on me about this. He called her the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“That’s a good friend,” I say. I cut up more of my pancake.

“He’d say it in front of her, too, which of course made her even madder.” He laughs a little, but when he stops, he looks out the window. His reflection against the dark glass feels cold. “One day, I snapped. I couldn’t take the accusations anymore. I just snapped.”

With my fork, I lift a piece of pancake dripping with syrup, but I don’t bring it to my mouth. “What does that mean?”

He looks at me. His entire body echoes hurt and grief more than any remaining anger. “I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I don’t know how else to describe it. One day she screamed at me, the same thing she always screamed: that I’d ruined our dad’s life, and hers, and Mom’s. And some switch in me… flipped.” His voice quivers. “I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife.”

My fork remains frozen over my plate, my eyes locked with his.

“When she heard this, she ran to her room so fast,” he says. “And I ran after her.”

He holds on to his mug with one hand. With his other hand, he numbly folds his napkin until it conceals the butter knife. I can’t tell if he’s aware he did this. If he is, I don’t know if it was for my sake or his.

“She got to her room and slammed the door and…” He leans back, closes his eyes, and puts his hands in his lap. The napkin rolls open. “I stabbed her door with the knife over and over. I didn’t want to hurt her. I would never hurt her. But I could not stop stabbing the door. I heard her screaming and crying to our mom on the phone. Finally, I dropped the knife and just slumped onto the floor.”

It comes out as a whisper, or it could be all in my head: “Oh my God.”

He looks up at me. His eyes beg for understanding now.

“So you did it,” I say.

“Sierra, I swear to you, I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before or since. And I promise, I would never have hurt her. I didn’t even check if she locked the door, because that wasn’t what it was about. I think I just needed to show how much everything was hurting me, too. I’ve never physically hurt anyone in my life.”

“I still don’t understand why,” I say.

“I think I wanted to scare her,” he says. “But that’s all. And it did. It scared me. It scared my mom.”

Neither of us says anything. My hands are folded tight between my knees. My entire body clenches.

“So Abby went to live with my dad, and I’m here living with the fallout and all the rumors.”

All the breath has escaped me. I don’t know how to reconcile the Caleb I’ve known and adored hanging out with and this broken person in front of me. “Do you still see her? Your sister?”

“When I visit my dad, or when she visits us here.” He looks at my plate, and he must see that I haven’t taken a bite in several minutes. “For almost two years, whenever she came home, we went to a family counselor. She says she understands and has forgiven me, and I think she’s being honest. She’s a great person. You’d love her.”

Finally, I take a bite. I’m not hungry anymore, but I also don’t know what to say.

“Part of me keeps hoping she’ll change her mind and move back, but I could never ask for that,” he says. “That has to be something she wants. And she likes Nevada. She has a new life there now and new friends. I suppose if there is a silver lining, I’m glad my dad has her around.”

“You don’t always need to find a silver lining,” I say, “but I’m glad you found one.”

“Still, it’s had a huge impact on my mom. Because of me—without a doubt this time—one of her kids moved away,” he says. “My mom’s missed years of watching her daughter grow up, and that is my fault. I’ll live with that forever.”

The way his jaw tenses, I know he’s cried over this many times. I consider everything he’s told me. How hard all of this has been for his mom and sister, as well as for him. I know this should scare me a little, but somehow it doesn’t, because I do believe he wouldn’t hurt anyone. Everything about him makes me believe that.

“Why did your parents split?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’m sure there’s plenty I don’t know, but my mom once told me she always held her breath around him, waiting for him to tell her what she was doing wrong. When they were together, I think she spent a lot of time feeling bad about herself.”

“What about your sister?” I ask. “Does your dad treat her the same way?”

“No way,” Caleb says, and finally he laughs. “Abby would give it right back. If he says anything about how she’s dressed, she’ll go on and on about double standards and he’ll end up taking it all back and apologizing.”

Now I laugh. “That’s my kind of girl.”

The waitress comes by to refill our coffee, and I see the worried creases return to Caleb’s forehead.

He looks up at the waitress. “Thanks.”

When she leaves, I ask, “How does Jeremiah fit into this?”

“He had the bad luck of being at my house when it happened,” he says. He stares out the window again. “And he was just as freaked out as we were. He ended up going home and telling his family about it, which was fine. But that’s when his mom said we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

“And she still won’t let you see each other?”

His fingertips barely touch the lip of the table. “I’d be wrong to blame her,” he says. “I know I’m not dangerous, but she’s just protecting her son.”

“She thinks she’s protecting him,” I say. “There’s a difference.”

He shifts his gaze from the window to the table between us, his eyes narrowed. “I do blame her for how she told other parents about it,” he says. “She made me into this thing to avoid. You’re only hearing about it years later because of his family. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t hurt… a lot.”

“It should never have ever gotten to me,” I say.

“And she exaggerated, too,” he says. “Probably to make sure other parents didn’t think she was overreacting. That’s why I’m still a knife-wielding maniac to people like Andrew.”

For the first time, I can see the anger he still holds over this.

Caleb closes his eyes and holds up a hand. “I need to take that back. I don’t want you judging Jeremiah’s family. I don’t know for sure that she exaggerated anything. It could have changed as the story moved around.”

I think about Heather’s warning, and how Rachel and Elizabeth dropped their mouths in disbelief when I told them. Everyone reacted so fast. Everyone had an opinion without ever hearing from Caleb.

“Even if it was her, it doesn’t matter,” Caleb says. “She had a reason for saying what she did. Everyone had a reason. That doesn’t change what I did to cause it.”

“But it’s still not fair,” I say.

“For so long, whenever I walk through the halls or I walk downtown, and anyone I know looks at me but doesn’t say anything—even if their look means nothing—I’ve wondered what they’ve heard or what they’re thinking.”

I shake my head. “I am so sorry, Caleb.”

“The stupid thing is, I know Jeremiah and I could’ve stayed friends. He was there. He saw everything. I’m sure he was scared, but he knew me well enough to know I would never hurt Abby,” he says. “It’s just gone on too long. I was younger than she is now when it happened.”

“His mom can’t still be worried about her grown son hanging out with you,” I say. “No offense, but he’s got a few inches on you.”

He laughs once. “But she is. And so is his sister. Cassandra’s almost like his shadow. Even when he has been friendly, she’s right there to pull him away.”

“And you’re okay letting this continue?”

He looks at me, his eyes numb. “People think what they want. That’s what I’ve had to accept,” he says. “I can fight it, but that’s exhausting. I can feel hurt about it, but that’s torture. Or I can decide it’s their loss.”

No matter how he chooses to think about it, it’s clear that it does still exhaust and torture him.

“It is their loss,” I say. I reach out and place my fingers over his. “And I’m sure you would expect more impressive words from me, but you’re a pretty cool guy, Caleb.”

He smiles. “You’re pretty cool, too, Sierra. Not that many girls would be this understanding.”

I try to lighten things up. “How many girls do you need?”

“That’s the other problem.” His smile is lost again. “Not only would I have to explain to a girl about my past—if she hasn’t already heard—I’d have to explain it to her parents. If they live here, eventually they’re going to hear the rumors.”

“Have you had to explain a lot?”

“No,” he says, “because I haven’t been with anyone long enough to find out if they’re worth it.”

My breath escapes me. Am I worth it? Is that what he’s admitting?

I pull back my hands. “Is that why you’re interested in me? Because I’m leaving?”

His shoulders fall and he leans back. “You want the truth?”

“I believe that’s what tonight’s about.”

“Yes, at first, I thought maybe we could sidestep the drama and just hang out.”

“But I heard the rumors,” I say. “You knew that, yet you kept coming around anyway.”

I can see he’s holding back a smile. “Maybe it was the way you used peruse in a sentence.” He puts his hands in the middle of the table, palms up.

“I’m sure that was it,” I say. I place my hands into his. A weight has lifted for both of us tonight.

“Don’t forget,” he says with a childlike grin, “you also give great discounts on trees.”

“Oh, that’s why you come around,” I say. “And if I decide you need to start paying full price?”

He sits back, and I know he’s debating how much to keep teasing. “I guess I’d have to start paying full price.”

I lift an eyebrow at him. “Then I guess it really is just me.”

He runs his thumbs along my knuckles. “It’s just you.”