The Light We Lost

Lucy Carter is in a Shakespeare seminar at Columbia University during her senior year when Gabriel Samson sits beside her. In a discussion of Julius Caesar, the class debates Brutus’ assertion that life is ruled by fate. A teaching assistant rushes in to announce that a plane has hit one of the twin towers.

After class, there is chaos on campus. Both towers have collapsed. Lucy goes home with Gabe and meets his roommates. They watch the news on television in a dorm only seven miles from the towers. Their cellphones are no longer working, so they use a landline to call their parents. Lucy’s parents want her to come home, but she insists on staying in the city. Gabe touches her hair but pulls away when he realizes what he has done.

Lucy and Gabe go up on the roof and are shocked by the sight of the missing towers. They kiss in an intense moment. Lucy feels guilty because of the tragedy unfolding, but later she learns that many people found comfort in others that day.

Lucy and Gabe go back to his dorm. He shows her some of his photographs, and she is amazed by them. Lucy is particularly drawn to a photograph of a nest. She asks if he wants to be a photographer. He says his mother is an artist, but this is just a hobby. When Lucy asks about Gabe’s father, he shuts down. They hear on the television about the plane that hit the Pentagon and the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Lucy tells Gabe she likes to write stories about a pig named Hamilton for her friends. Gabe asks if she plans to be a writer, but she says she is thinking of going into advertising.

Gabe and Lucy share another kiss. Suddenly, Gabe’s roommate comes to tell him Gabe’s ex-girlfriend, Stephanie, is on the phone. Gabe explains that he was with Stephanie for a year and only just broke up, so he feels he should make sure she is okay. Lucy goes back to her dorm and gets a call from Gabe explaining that he and Stephanie are going to get back together. Gabe and Lucy do not speak again the rest of the semester. Nevertheless, Lucy finds herself watching Gabe in their Shakespeare seminar. She realizes that anything she did on September 11, 2001 would have been memorable, but meeting Gabe that day makes him “a part of my personal history forever” (24).

Lucy runs into Gabe while celebrating her graduation in the spring of 2002 at Le Monde with her family. She tells him she got a job at a television production company producing children’s shows. He congratulates her. When she walks away, she hears his companion, a young woman, ask who Lucy is. He calls the woman Stephanie and tells her Lucy is just a girl he knew from class. This description hurts Lucy’s feelings.

A year later, Lucy is living on the Upper East Side with her friend, Kate. On Lucy’s 23rd birthday, she goes out for drinks with a couple coworkers. They have several drinks. Someone sends over more drinks, and Lucy realizes it is Gabe. She goes over to say hello. Gabe tells her he has broken up with Stephanie again. Furthermore, he hates his job and is disturbed by the United States’ invasion of Iraq. Gabe says he runs into Lucy every time the world is falling apart; she is like his Pegasus, because Pegasus made the Greek hero Bellerophon stronger, allowing him to defeat the Chimera. He then wonders what might have happened had he not gone back to Stephanie. Gabe asks Lucy to come home with him, and she agrees.

At Gabe’s apartment, he talks about his desire to do more with his photography, expressing his wish to quit his current job and do something meaningful with his life as they discussed on September 11, 2001.

Lucy and Gabe begin seeing each other regularly. Gabe has quit his job and is taking photography classes with Lucy’s support. One night, Lucy asks about Gabe’s father, and he describes his father as unpredictable and volatile. Gabe says his father was an unhappy artist who once took a knife to Gabe’s mother’s painting out of jealousy. Gabe promises never to be like his father. Lucy recognizes that Gabe’s father “was fighting demons, and that I’m sorry his demons became yours” (36). They exchange I-love-yous for the first time.

One hot summer afternoon, Lucy and Gabe spend the day at Kate and Lucy’s apartment while Kate is out of town. They engage in mutual self-pleasure.

Lucy visits Gabe’s apartment shortly before his mother’s birthday and finds him creating a kaleidoscope-style collage of pictures of him and his mom. He felt this gift would remind his mother of a time when they had recently moved and it was his birthday, so she turned their house into a kaleidoscope with colored glass. Gabe was ten, but he recognized that his mother was finally herself again a year after splitting with her husband.

Lucy struggles with Gabe’s popularity at parties. During a birthday party for a friend Gideon, Lucy slips away from him to discuss advertising with Gideon’s girlfriend. When she realizes Gabe is missing, Gideon’s girlfriend comments that he is very charming and people are drawn to him. Lucy goes in search of Gabe and finds him alone in the library with a young woman who works as a hostess in a restaurant. Their conversation feels intimate, but Lucy cannot say why. When the woman leaves, Gabe convinces Lucy to be sexually intimate in the private room.

Lucy often reviews scripts and ideas for the show she works on, It Takes a Galaxy. Gabe helps Lucy make changes to a script about a child who dislikes a sport her father loves. As they talk, Gabe expresses a concern of turning into his father. When Lucy asks Gabe about his dreams, he shows her a photograph on the cover of National Geographic and says this is what he wants to do with his career. He wants to travel and take pictures that matter. Lucy worries about being left behind, even though she supports Gabe’s dream.

Lucy moves in with Gabe despite Kate’s concern that Gabe will leave her to become a traveling photojournalist. Lucy insists that it is okay because she wants to spend as much time with Gabe as possible before he potentially leaves. Kate worries Lucy will get her heart broken.

Gabe takes a class in which he is assigned different emotions to capture on film. When Gabe is assigned pain, he decides to go to Ground Zero. Gabe wants Lucy to go with him, but she refuses. They argue, and Gabe takes a picture of Lucy as she cries. He goes to Ground Zero alone and takes lots of pictures, but ends up using the one of Lucy for his assignment.

Gabe likes to make big gestures for celebrations. On Lucy’s birthday, he sends her flowers at work, and at home she finds a new outfit waiting for her on the bed. She tries it on, and they make love. Lucy describes their relationship as a binary star constantly orbiting around each other. Gabe asks if she believes in karma. He fears that it is impossible for all parts of life to be good.

Gabe takes a class with someone named Pete. Pete acts as Gabe’s agent, arranging for one of his photographs to be printed in the New York Times. They celebrate with dinner and wine, then Lucy focuses on generating ideas for her show. Gabe suggests doing a show about dreams. This idea will lead to the first episode of the new season and a promotion for Lucy. However, Gabe will not be there to see it happen.