The Lucky Lamp

I tip-toed between the assortment of boxes scattered around the sparse bedroom, careful not to disturb the jenga-like structure that towered in the corner. The movers would be here in under an hour. I huffed a breath of air in frustration, reaching for the clothes-strewn mess that occupied my closet. Before I could pluck the first shirt off the floor, I caught a glimmer out of the corner of my eye. A dim shimmer, as the bleak light from the rising sun trickled in and reflected off something in one of the boxes, its contents peeking out from a small exposed space beneath the cardboard mass.

A green-tinted lightbulb.

The same lightbulb that made its home in the shared living room of his old dorm, so many ways ago. I closed my eyes, recalling the way it shined beneath a yellow lampshade nestled beside a peeling leather couch. The sun was setting on our campus back then, and the only light illuminating the low ceiling of the room was mixed with hues of emerald, bathing everything in its artificial glow.

I remember sneering at the thing. Tacky. Juvenile. Like the rest of that place. His grin was wide and beaming as he guided me through each room and introduced me as “my girlfriend” to his roommates. I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to the odd light fixture.

Again, that proud smile.

“Well it’s my lucky lamp, of course,” he responded, matter-of-fact.

“It better work, because you need all the luck you can get with the looks of this place,” I teased.

“It got me you, didn’t it?” he said, raising one brow at me with a playful smile.

The next home for that lightbulb would be ours, despite my protests. Two years later, it would light up the living room of our first apartment. We were freshly minted adults then, still blurry-eyed and bushy-tailed and dreaming of the future that lay ahead of us: untouched and bursting with possibility. After a grueling day of moving, we curled up on our sofa with a bottle of wine and a heaping plate of chocolate chip cookies to christen our new home.

“To a place we can finally call our own,” I declared, clinking my glass against his.

“To my new job,” he chimed in, red wine sloshing up to the rim of his glass.

“Wait, what?” I asked with disbelief. We had only graduated a few weeks ago, and the last couple of months had been a whirlwind of interviews and job applications. He had just finished the last round of interviews for a position at The Chicago Tribune, but the move had consumed our day and we hadn't talked about it since.

“I got it! I got the job!” he exclaimed, jumping up suddenly, the swift movement ruffling his sandy blond hair.

I jumped up off the couch too and pulled him into a hug, giddy laughter escaping my lungs. “That’s amazing, babe! I’m so happy for you!”

As an aspiring journalist, he was hopeful for the position, but not expectant. It was a highly-coveted job, one that we considered an ambitious dream—until now. My stomach swarmed with butterflies. We could do this. Together. We could make our way in this life.

He pulled me in tighter, before breaking away, a look of comprehension sweeping over his face. “You know what this means…”

I knitted my brows, skeptical. He dashed over to one of the moving boxes hidden behind the sofa, fishing something out with a triumphant look.

A green-tinted lightbulb.

I rolled my eyes with a groan. “I thought we agreed to let the lucky lamp die. Did you really need to get a replacement bulb for that thing?”

“Oh, c’mon. You know I couldn’t let it go. Not when it got me through so much,” he whined. He grabbed the lightbulb, screwing it into the lamp propped beside our new cream-colored couch. He glanced back at me over his shoulder, smiling sheepishly. “Besides, you need luck now. Then we can both get our dream jobs.”

But he was wrong. I wasn’t the one who needed luck.

Not when the headaches became too much to bear, and we went to see a neurologist. Not when his hair began thinning, falling out in tufts around our apartment. Not when his cheeks hollowed out, and his skin grew pale. Not when the medical bills piled up, and the jobs weren’t enough.

Not when the sickness finally won.

It took me three years to get rid of his things. The leather-bound notebooks, tattered and worn from the nights he stayed up writing, lit up with a feverish passion. His softest University of Chicago t-shirts, tucked away in my pajama drawer for nights that were especially cold. The glasses he used to wear, reminding me of when those bright hazel eyes interrupted our Psych 101 lecture to meet mine.

It took me even longer to move out of our first home together. Five years after those eyes closed forever, I finally gave away his belongings. I cleaned each nook and corner of the apartment; a feeble attempt to wash away memories of a life stolen from me. It took five years of those empty days and long nights before I mustered up the courage to move on to a new place—a new beginning.

But there was one thing I couldn’t let go of. Out of all the memorabilia, it was this item that felt the most like him.

The sun had fully risen now, and beaming rays of light leaked through the blinds. When I opened my eyes again, I could almost see the pale green hue from that lamp, cloaking the room in its luster. I could almost hear the quiet whisper of his voice, warm and soothing.

“Good luck, Annabelle.”