When Light Breaks (17 page)

“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. Wow, that’s great, Kara. When’s the wedding?”

“It’s coming up so fast, end of May. But surely you don’t want to hear about it—my life is boring compared to this.” I swept my hand back toward the coliseum.

“You, old friend, don’t know how to be boring. Okay, when did you last know where I was?”

“It was 1992—September. You wrote from Chicago. That was the last I heard from you. You told me that you’d moved there from Arizona . . . that your mom was doing well, that you . . . missed me.” I spoke too fast. Knowing exactly, to the month, when I’d last heard from him . . . I turned away to hide my rising blush.

“I’m sorry, Kara.”

“For what?”

“Losing touch.”

I waved my hand in the air. “Ah, don’t be. Life moves on, you know? I’m sure you were very busy and so was I. Life moves on....”

“Yeah, you said that.” He grinned and pulled me next to him. “Very philosophical—life moving on and all that.”

“Don’t you dare make fun of me.”

“Well, it wasn’t because I didn’t wonder how you were. I just got sucked up into the band and moving around and . . . some bad stuff happened with the family.”

“What bad stuff?” My hand automatically lifted, touched my own cheek as though I still felt the slap from his father. “Your dad never found you, did he?”

“No, nothing like that.” He looked up to the sky. “We moved a lot, Kara. Mom just couldn’t find her peace in one place. When we ended up in Chicago, slowly easing our way across the country, she got involved with some . . . bad people, started getting a little more into the drugs until she got arrested one night, and Jimmy and I ended up in foster care for a brief time.”

I instinctually threw my arms around Jack. “No.”

He hugged back and didn’t let go. It felt good, and I stayed against his chest as he finished the story. He was shorter than Peyton, and my head fit right onto the cleft of his chest, comfortable as the words vibrated below my head and filled my ears. I had the thought that this was what babies must feel like when they lay against their parents, the words felt as much as heard. I didn’t even try and move as he told me where he’d been.

“It wasn’t that long in foster care.” He ran his fingers through my hair, pulling apart the rain-induced tangles. “We were there for a month—it’s where we met Isabelle. When Mom finally had her hearing and was released, and we vowed to all pull it together, she took Isabelle also. We packed—again—and headed as far south as we could before we ran out of money. When we hit Houston, Mom got a job at a diner and we finished high school. She was really happy there. She found this group of artists and began to paint again. It was like painting kept her out of trouble. It was when she wasn’t doing her art that life disintegrated. So, although we lived in a crappy apartment over someone’s garage—Jimmy and I in one room, Isabelle in the living room with cardboard doors, and Mom in a cramped room meant to be a walk-in closet—those were some of the better years. And, just like Mom had, Jimmy and I found our outlet—music. I’m sorry you and I lost touch—surviving took all our effort at that time.”

He was silent for a few moments and I thought maybe he wanted me to say something, lift my head from his chest, but then he placed his hand on top of my head and kept it there.

“We started playing for the school and local parties, until there was this large fund-raiser for foster kids. We knew we had to play it, so we did. Isabelle sang backup. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

Now he lifted my chin. “See? Boring.”

I shook my head. “No, beautiful. You made something of . . . nothing. It’s beautiful. Where did you get the name of the band?”

“Well, we didn’t mean for it to stick. We called that first concert Unknown Souls for the kids who had been forgotten, like Isabelle, and then it just stuck.”

“Now it’s scrawled across your very own tour bus. Overnight success.”

“Yeah, five years until overnight success.”

I smiled, settled into the current again. Now was probably a very good time to escape, to swim parallel to shore.

I touched the side of Jack’s face. “I’m so sorry you went through so much bad stuff. I just figured you’d moved on with your life and totally forgotten about . . .”

“I never forgot.” His voice came hoarse.

I thought of the Claddagh ring at home. I wished I could raise my hand and show it to him, and we’d laugh about it. “How about a girlfriend, wife, fiancée?”

“It’s hard when all I do is . . . leave. We don’t stay in one place for very long—like that country song, ‘Lot of Leaving Left to Do.’ ”

“Leave,” I said, and tasted the word, its meaning. “Isabelle?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve tried.” He leaned over the railing, tossed a rock into the water. “It’s easier, and it’s also harder than it used to be. But . . . really, you don’t want to hear about it.”

“I guess you need to get back to the concert. . . . Doesn’t it start”—I looked at my watch—“in less than an hour?”

“Yes . . . but I need to hear about you. Where have you been? What’s shaped your life until now? And how in the hell did you end up in a café in Savannah?” He leaned toward me. “And did you find me or did I find you?”

“Neither . . . just coincidence. Well, sort of.” I felt an inner quiver, as if I’d had too much caffeine. “Part of my job at the PGA TOUR is to plan a benefit event after the tournament.”

“You work for the tour?”

I nodded. “Yes, and I thought that maybe, just maybe I could talk you and your band into playing at the benefit. So I did come to Savannah to hear your concert . . . and I’ve just had a lot of weird things happen that pointed to you.” I said it, then turned away, shook my head. “We’ve got to get you back to work, right?”

He placed his hands on my shoulders, twirled me around.

“Nice blow-off there. Okay, let’s go.”

There was so much about him that was familiar: the same grin and tilt of his head, the golden specks in his eyes in the exact same pattern—like small internal bursts of light. His shoulders had remained broad: a restful place. He still had his walk, a relaxed gait with long strides that reminded me of a Southern drawl . . . easy, slow, and yet you get there in the same amount of time.

Yet there was also unfamiliarity now: his long wavy hair, his partial beard, muscles that had only been hinted at back then. His voice was deeper now, fuller, as if it hid secrets.

We were walking toward the auditorium when I stopped, touched his elbow. “I do need a band for my event. . . . I know you guys are way too big now. I guess it was an excuse to see how you were doing.”

“As if you need an excuse. You did promise that you’d find me. Remember?”

“I think you promised to find me,” I said, and then in an instinct I thought long gone, I reached up and touched his hair, ran my fingers through it.

“I remember all of it,” he said.

“Me too.” I nodded toward the coliseum. “Let’s get you back to work.”

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s. But, Kara, if you need a band—give me the date, I’ll do the best I can to work it in.”

“You’d do that?”

He nodded.

“You’d be a lifesaver.”

“I do believe I’ve been that before. Why stop now?”

I took a quick breath; my eyebrows shot up. “Oh, my God, the day the boat tipped and hit me on the head . . . you pulled me out.”

“Oh, how easily you forget the things I’ve done for you.”

“Oh, please. . . .” I tilted my head back and rolled my eyes. “Must we now talk of all you’ve ever done for me?”

“No, we don’t have that much time.” He walked ahead of me and waved toward the coliseum. “The show must go on.”

I caught up to him, and we strode in silence, and I understood that seeing Jack was nothing more than a nice reunion, visiting an old acquaintance. Leaving was inevitable; it loomed before us as it had that summer morning thirteen years ago. Life, like the river, had moved on, and so would we.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
he concert exceeded my expectations in every way. I’d believed that true beauty resided only within the tumul tuous natural world outside my door, or within classical music and the human form, but this concert took me away on wings of something far beyond my experience.

Jack had dropped me off to the side where I could see half the stage. Isabelle came to me, grabbed a water bottle and drank it, narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re not messing with Jack, are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s different, better than anyone you know.”

I nodded. “I know . . . I knew him—”

“Before me, I know that. But you haven’t known him after me.” Isabelle’s lip curled up on the left side.

“I wasn’t going to say that. . . . I was going to say I knew him a long time ago. That’s all. I’m not messing with anyone.”

She nodded and returned to the stage, where her voice—rough and melodic—came through the echoing speakers as she backed up a song with Jimmy. I attempted to hear the words, but found I could only take them in a visceral manner, not understanding the exact meaning.

I lost myself in the music until we returned to their hotel. I curled up in the corner of the couch and watched, listened as the group talked about how the concert had gone, where they needed to make changes and how to switch the song list around.

I closed my eyes and allowed the conversation to soothe me like a lullaby, laughter punctuating each sentence. When quiet followed, I opened my eyes to see Jack staring at me. We were the only ones remaining in the room.

“Where did everyone go?” I stretched.

“It’s two a.m.—they’ve gone to bed.”

“It’s two in the morning?” I shot to my feet, glanced around the room for my purse with a frantic twist of my head.

“You can have the bed, Kara. I’ll sleep on the couch.” Jack pointed to the rumpled all-white bed.

I shook my head. “I’ve got to go home.”

He laughed, but with a sweet sound behind it—like a best friend laughs at your bad joke. “And exactly how do you plan to do that?”

I groaned. “There’s no way I could drive an hour and a half right now. I don’t even know where my car is. . . .” I plopped back down on the couch.

Jack sat down beside me and draped his arm around my shoulder. “Go—you take the bed.”

“I couldn’t do that to you,” I said, and yawned. “Jack?”

“Yes?” He pulled me closer.

“Did you write all those songs?” I closed my eyes again, the smooth current pulling me under.

“Yes.” His voice came soft, like cashmere thrown over my shoulders.

“Hmmm,” I think I said, then slid into the warm, plush place of his words, his shoulder.

 

The stars above me flared bright, exploding outward like large magnolia blossoms reaching toward earth. I lay on my back, reaching for them, laughing, calling out, “I saw them first.”

Jack lay next to me, and the sand wrapped us together in a blanket as warm as seawater. He reached up, grabbed a starflower and rolled over, handed one to me.

I took it from him and touched his face. “I love you, Jack Sullivan. I just completely love you.”

I glanced down to see the star he’d handed me, to hold it tight, but instead found a golden ring—a Claddagh ring with a diamond center flaring outward.

I gasped and reached for him, but found a handful of sand, grating, cold. I tried to sit up but couldn’t; the earth held me flat. I cried out, “Jack,” and my voice came hoarse, scraped raw.

Hands wrapped around my middle and the stars disappeared behind a fog so thick I believed it was made of wool—pure dark surrounded me and I was alone. I fought against the force around me, pulled away.

“Kara.” Jack’s voice came through the fog rolling over the stars.

“Jack.” I reached up for him.

His hand grasped my shoulders; I jolted awake in the hotel room, holding on to Jack as though I were drowning. I released him, rubbed my face. “Oh . . . oh.”

“Bad dream?” He touched my cheek.

I stared at him, almost expecting a star, a diamond star set in the middle of a gold ring of hands, heart, and crown. I shook my head, but was unable to shake off the emotion, the truth of the dream. I believed he was there still, with me, on the beach, with my confession.

I closed my eyes, certain he’d heard me. He pulled me toward him and I fell against him, and into sleep once again.

 

The morning came stark and bright as someone touched my face: Jack. The words I’d uttered in my dream hung above me like a flare, luminous in their import. I closed my eyes to avoid the open-heart emotions inside me.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” he said, sleep in his own voice.

It was a dream, only a dream, I reminded myself. This was a hotel room and a couch. I smiled, sat up, and opened both eyes. “I’m so sorry I fell asleep here. I’ll help pay for the room.”