She looked across the field of lights. It should have been a neighborhood by now.

“Guys look,” Jake pointed to the east as the sky lit up like dawn. A molten saffron dart shot up into the night.

A FIELD OF LIGHTS BY JOSHUA DULL 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35

Sarah Mansfield drove into the heart of what was supposed to be a subdivision called Gatsby Villages. Lanterns lined the asphalt, casting sequential pools of white light along the black roads, curving through expansive fields of grass. When she was younger she remembered riding by this place on her way to Path of Light Lutheran Church with her parents and feeling sad because backhoes and bulldozers had ravaged the forest of pines that once stood in its place. Sarah drove to the west end of the street, turned left and parked. She opened the trunk and pulled out a garden spade and the first of ten violet chrysanthemums. Sarah walked each of the ten plants into the middle of the field, between the street and a tan wall about 200 yards away, arranging them in a circle. She looked across the expanse, streetlamps glowing among the surrounding shadows—a field of lights. It should have been a neighborhood by now. Stars glittered between thin clouds.

Before her mom was diagnosed, her parents had even talked about moving here once it was developed. Her mom had gotten a raise at the School Board and the new gated community seemed like a promising upgrade from their two-bedroom home in Rockledge. Then people started losing their jobs. Banks started foreclosing on homes. Places like this were abandoned. She remembered saying goodbye to her friend Lavender whose mom had been laid off from Lockheed Martin. They had to move in with her grandma in Cocoa Beach.

Having planted the flowers, Sarah tossed the garden spade into the trunk and brushed dirt off her leather pants. She sat on the grass against the car, taking in the emptiness. She’d seen her mom at the hospital that day, but she’d been too weak to smile. Her father was drying tears when she came to him in the waiting room. Sarah hoped her mom would make it long enough for her to graduate High School next year, but seeing her today that wish evaporated. Sarah knew she was tired of holding on.