The Light We Keep

The bull of a man called Miller cornered me in the breakroom again. His breath smelled like stale coffee and unspoken regrets. 'You're not thinking about leaving, are you?' His voice carried that familiar corporate threat wrapped in concern.

I watched lightning split the sky through the window behind him, illuminating the fluorescent hum of our shared purgatory. At forty-three, I'd mastered the art of running toward the things that scared me, and away from the ones that didn't. This job terrified me—not the work, but what I was becoming in its absence.

'My mother died yesterday,' I said. The truth slipped out like a secret I'd forgotten I was keeping.

Miller's face shifted. The bull softened. 'I didn't know.'

'Neither did I. Not until the hospice called.' I'd been running from that conversation for twenty years. She'd been the lightning strike that never came—the storm I kept waiting to arrive, until it finally did, quietly, in a room I never visited.

'Maybe you should go home,' he said, and for once, the bull wasn't posturing. 'We'll still be here tomorrow.'

I walked out into the rain. The city blurred through tears I hadn't realized I was holding. I wasn't running anymore. I was finally standing still in the life I'd chosen, watching lightning trace its beautiful, terrible path across the sky, wondering who I'd be when the storm finally cleared.