Chapter 27
How the Light Gets In
I wake still carrying the sound of Gavin’s voice.
Not the clipped tone he uses when he’s exasperated or hiding behind sarcasm. This was something else: the low, steady ache when he sang at Doe Bay.
I dreamt about his hands, not on me, but on the guitar. The effect was the same.
I need air. I need clarity. Which is maybe why I text Jared. He’s spending the summer working on his first solo photography exhibit—black and white portraits of people and their found families—for a show at Perry & Carlson gallery in nearby Mount Vernon.
We plan to meet at Orcas Island Winery, a barn and vineyard tucked against the base of Turtleback Mountain. He used to say the light was different, more honest, in the Pacific Northwest, and that’s why he loved shooting here. Now, I know what he means.
He ferried from the mainland, ostensibly to deliver hard-to-find peonies for his mom, but really, I think, because he knew I needed this. Us. One last untangling.
Arthur, the tiny winery dog, greets me at the path and trots beside me like a loyal usher. Inside, Tera Andaya, the co-owner, waves from the tasting bar, her mesmerizing hazel-green eyes catching mine with their usual warmth.
The barn smells like grapes and cork and hay. Swallows flit in and out of the walls like they’re part of the design, and the Orcas Project wine bottles are lined up along the shelves, whimsical animal labels winking at me like I’m in on the jokes. Tera pours two glasses that I carry out to one of the wooden picnic tables under the Hemlocks, just as the clouds begin to break.
Jared is already seated, sketching in his notebook with that look he gets when he’s half in this world, half in his own.
He looks up and smiles, familiar, fond.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey. You look... islanded.”
I glance down at my soft sweater, the streak of dirt still on my wrist. Probably from the lavender I transplanted this morning.
“That obvious?”
He shrugs. “Only in the best way.”
We clink glasses. The wine is clean and quiet, like stone fruit and slow mornings, like it doesn’t need to prove anything.
We sit in the stillness a moment too long. Then I ask, “Do you think we mistook being safe for being in love?”
He doesn’t rush to fill the silence.
“I think we loved each other the best way we knew how,” he says. “But maybe we confused comfort for a full yes.”
He pauses, before asking, “Why didn’t you ever push for more? For marriage?”
I stare out at the vineyard, its vines lush in the summer light.
“Because,” I say quietly, “something in me never fully agreed. There was always a sliver of silence inside me when I pictured our future. Not dread. Just... absence.”
Jared nods like he already knew the answer but needed to hear it out loud.
“I’ll miss watching you cook,” he says. “It was like watching someone sculpt a meal in the middle of a windstorm. Total chaos. But damn if it didn’t always taste incredible.”
I smile. “I’ll miss calling you when I hear a song I love. Or watching you transform dumpster dives into gallery art.”
He chuckles. “We really were magic.”
I reach into my tote and slide out a small item wrapped in cardboard, opening it to reveal one of Patricia’s Sanskrit cards bearing the word Maitri.
I lay it between us on the table.
“Have you heard there are ninety-six words in Sanskrit for love?”
He glances down, recognizing the ink. “The cards mom collected.”
I nod. “Do you think it would be weird if we let go of one kind and chose another?”
“You mean like platonic love?”
“Exactly.”
He’s quiet. Thoughtful. Not uncomfortable, just measuring.
“Okay, it’s weird,” he says. Then shrugs. “But since when have we been afraid of weird? Maybe the spectrum of love is as wide as the spectrum of sexuality.”
I exhale. I didn’t know how much I needed him to say that. To say that choosing differently doesn’t mean we failed. It just means we evolved.
“Absolutely. It’s like the first law of thermodynamics.”
He glances over. “Remind me—that’s the energy one, right?”
“Yeah. Energy can’t be created or destroyed. Only transformed.”
I pause, watching the light bend over the hills.
“My mom used to say something similar in her very Buddhist, very poetic way. That nothing truly disappears. It just transforms. Becomes something else.”
He nods slowly. “So we don’t lose things. They just change form.”
“Exactly.” I look at him, and this time, I don’t look away. “Even us.”
I smile. And this time, it’s clean. Untangled from grief. Grateful, even. For the version of us that could hold steady when everything else fell apart.
The wind lifts through the vineyards and brushes against my arm like a benediction.
“Can I still call you when I hear a great song?” I ask.
“Only if you promise to cook for me when you’re in town.”
We laugh, but there’s a reverent kind of ache beneath it, the kind you feel only when you’re brave enough to let go without bitterness.
As we rise to leave, Jared reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a white envelope.
“One more thing,” he says, handing it to me. “You and I were supposed to go, but you shouldn’t miss it. Gavin agreed to take you.”
I open it. Two tickets to see Leonard Cohen in Vancouver.
My heart tugs.
“Does Gavin even like Leonard Cohen?”
Jared shrugs. “He said yes. That’s something.”
A long silence stretches between us as I picture Gavin next to me in a dark concert hall. His shoulder near mine. His silence saying more than lyrics ever could. I think about the space I would need to keep. The boundaries I’m not sure I trust myself to uphold.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Jared doesn’t answer right away.
He just watches me. And smiles.
“Ava,” he says, “Gavin has been showing up for you in ways I never could. Maybe he deserves this more than I do.”
Jared stands and presses a quick kiss to the top of my head—like a brother, or the very best kind of friend.
“Text me photos,” he says, already heading toward his car, Arthur padding along beside him, tail swishing in the golden grass.
I stay longer to watch the light shift across Turtleback Mountain, the last swirl of wine catching the sun in my glass.
I wasn’t wrong to keep loving Jared.
Just wrong to stop at one kind of love.