Keeper of the Light

by Diane Chamberlain

  “No, I won’t.” Could he keep that promise? He would have to. He tried to picture sultry little Jessica Dillard in bed with someone and could not come up with a clear image. “Is she…being careful?”

  “I guess.” Lacey sounded irritated by the question and he decided not to push her further.

  They caught a second and third bluefish before the rocking of the boat took the pleasure out of fishing. Alec was relieved when the captain turned the boat around and headed back to shore. Most of the other fishermen had reeled in their lines and were sitting down. A few of them moved inside the cabin as the wind whipped up.

  “You’re supposed to watch the horizon if you don’t feel well, right?” Lacey asked.

  “You’re not feeling well, Lace?” He did not feel that well himself.

  She drew her windbreaker tighter around her and shook her head. A rain was starting. He could see droplets of it fill her hair and sparkle in the light from the cabin.

  Lacey suddenly moaned and stood up, grabbing for the railing. He stood next to her, lifting her thick hair away from her face as she got sick, and he remembered doing the same for Annie when she was carrying Lacey. A horrendous pregnancy, although she had always told Lacey it had been a delight-filled nine months, as though she was trying to change the memory of it in her own mind.

  Alec took his handkerchief from his jeans pocket and wiped Lacey’s eyes and mouth. “Let’s move over here,” he said. They sat down on the deck, leaning against the cabin to give them some protection from the wind and rain. Her teeth were chattering and he put his arm around her, pleased that she didn’t protest.

  One of the fishermen was getting sick somewhere on the other side of the cabin. Lacey whimpered at the sound of his retching, and leaned against Alec.

  “Daddy,” she said, “I feel so bad.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” He looked out at the horizon. Through the haze he could make out the string of lights along the shore and, to the north, the pulsing beacon of the Kiss River Lighthouse. “Look, Lace,” he said, “we’re almost home.”

  She raised her head, but lowered it to his shoulder again, moaning, and he hugged her tighter. He was cold and wet and running the risk of Lacey getting sick down the front of his jacket, yet he had not felt this completely content in a very long time.

  Lacey staggered to the car when they reached the inlet, while he carried the cooler of fish. He set it in the back of the Bronco and climbed into the driver’s seat. He looked over at his daughter. “Still a little green around the gills,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Mmm.” She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes.

  She was quiet during the drive home. She did not even bother with the headset, and the radio rested silently in her lap.

  Once in the house, Alec set the cooler on the kitchen table and took a good look at his daughter as she pulled off her soppy windbreaker. Her face was white, the skin around her eyes puffy. “I guess fishing wasn’t the best idea,” he said.

  She set her crumpled jacket on one of the chairs and opened the top of the cooler. “Well,” she said, lifting out the smallest bluefish, “Noler will be happy.”

  He smiled. “I’ll take care of the fish, Annie. You go on up to…”

  Lacey spun around to face him. “I am not Annie!” She threw the fish at him and it caught him on the cheek, cold and wet, before falling to the floor with a thud.

  “I’m sorry, Lace,” he said.

  “You make me sick!” She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, her red hair flashing in the kitchen light.

  She was already gone by the time he got up in the morning, and the house felt empty. He carried the fish over to Nola’s. She was out, but the house was unlocked and he put the fish in her refrigerator and left a note on the kitchen table. Blues in the fridge, he wrote, and imagined adding a second line—By the way, your daughter is having sex. How would he feel if Nola knew something like that about Lacey and didn’t tell him?

  He was putting together some information on the lighthouse for Olivia when Lacey came home that afternoon. He heard the back door slam shut and the thumping of her footsteps on the stairs as she ran up to her room. He’d been rehearsing what he would say to her all afternoon, what Olivia had coached him to say during their phone call the night before: He’d enjoyed her company last night, he would tell her. Please don’t let his one mistake ruin it.

  The door to Lacey’s room was open, and at first he thought there was a stranger in the room—a young girl with jet black hair, sorting through the top drawer of Lacey’s dresser.

  “Lacey?”

  She turned around to face him and he gasped. She had dyed her hair and cut it short, nearly to her scalp. In some places it looked practically shaved, the whiteness of her scalp clearly visible against the stark blackness of her hair.

  “What did you to do yourself?” he asked.

  She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t look a thing like her now, do I?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “She cut off her hair and dyed it black,” Alec said.

  Olivia rolled onto her side, moving Sylvie out of her way. She knew when the phone rang at ten-thirty each night who it was, and she was sure to be in bed by then. He was the one who said it first—that he liked talking to her from his bed, that his bed was the loneliest place in his house since Annie died. Yes, she agreed, she knew exactly what he meant. She felt close to him, talking to him in the darkness. His lights were off as well; she had asked him that the first night. She’d stopped short of asking him what he slept in, not certain she wanted to know.

  “She’s tired of existing in Annie’s shadow,” Olivia said. She understood all too well how Lacey felt.

  “It makes her look cheap,” Alec said. “I keep thinking of those men on the boat. She was enjoying their attention a little too much. She told me her best friend is having sex. Maybe she’s not as naive as I’d like to think. Annie was only fifteen her first time.”

  Olivia frowned. “Fifteen?”

  “Yes, but there were extenuating circumstances.”

  “Like what?”

  Alec sighed. “Well, she was raised with a lot of money but not much love,” he said. “I guess she tried to find it the only way she knew how. She was pretty promiscuous as a teenager—she loathed that word, but I don’t know what else you’d call it.”

  Olivia said nothing. She wondered if Annie had still been looking for love the night she slept with Paul.

  “So how old were you?” Alec asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He laughed. “I guess that was pretty blunt. You sounded so appalled when I said Annie was fifteen, it made me wonder about you. You don’t have to answer.”

  Olivia wrapped the telephone cord around her fingers. “I was fourteen the first time,” she said, “and twenty-seven the second.”

  It was a few seconds before Alec spoke again. “I’ve opened a can of worms.”

  “Well, I don’t talk about this much.”

  “And you don’t have to now if you don’t want to.”

  She rolled onto her back again and closed her eyes. “I was raped when I was fourteen by an older boy in my neighborhood.”

  “God, Olivia, I’m sorry.”

  “It left scars. It made me…apprehensive about sex, and I didn’t make love until I was twenty-seven. That’s when I met Paul.”

  “There was no one in all those years you felt safe enough with?”

  She laughed. “I didn’t exactly have to fight men off with a stick. I was a very nerdy adolescent, and not much better as an adult. I avoided the whole issue of men and dating by focusing on my studies or my work.”

  “I can’t picture you nerdy. You’re so attractive and self-confident.”

  “In the ER, maybe, but it’s not that easy for me to feel good about myself in the real world. Confidence is something I’ve always had to work at, and being dumped by my husband for a
woman who is practically a figment of his imagination hasn’t helped.”

  “I’m sorry I dredged up bad memories for you.”

  “You didn’t. They’re always there in one form or another.”

  “What did you parents do about the rape? Did you prosecute the guy?”

  Olivia stared up at the dark ceiling. “My father was dead, and my mother was very sick—an alcoholic, actually—and she wasn’t capable of much by then. I didn’t tell anyone about it until I met Paul. You’re only the second person I’ve told.” She pulled Sylvie closer, until the cat’s soft head was against her cheek. “Anyhow, I left home after it happened and moved in with one of my teachers.”

  “I had no idea you had such a difficult past.”

  “Well, I owe a lot to Paul.” She had been able to tell Paul the entire story of her past, of the rape. She’d dated him for several months before she dared let him know the truth about her background, and during that time she’d seen him cry at sad movies and listened to him read poetry he’d written about her. She knew she could tell him anything.

  He’d responded to her story with the compassion she’d expected. He was the gentlest of lovers, his patience infinite. He did as much as any man could to heal the scars of that day so long ago. In the process, he awakened something in her. Your lascivious side, he called it, and she knew he was right. She felt a wild need to make up for the time she’d lost, and Paul obliged her most willingly, nurturing that newly discovered part of herself.

  But now he’d told her that he’d made love to Annie, a woman with twenty-five years’ worth of lovemaking experience behind her. She was so free-spirited, he’d said. So full of life.

  “Alec,” Olivia said, “I need to get off.”

  “I’ve upset you.”

  “No, it just makes me remember what a caring husband I used to have.”

  “I don’t understand his problem, Olivia. I feel like calling him up and telling him he has a beautiful wife who loves him and needs him and…”

  She sat up. “Alec, you wouldn’t.”

  “I think he’s out of his mind. He doesn’t know what he’s got and how quickly he could lose it.”

  “Alec, listen to me. You only know my side of the story. You don’t know what our marriage was like from Paul’s perspective. It wasn’t right for him or enough for him or—I’m not sure what. But, please, please, don’t try to interfere.”

  “Relax. I’m not going to do anything.” Alec was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “When Paul finally gets his wits about him and comes back to you, do you think he’d mind if you talked to me from your bed every once in a while?”

  Olivia lay back on her pillow again, smiling. “I hope I have that problem to worry about one of these days.”

  “I hope you do, too.”

  “I’d better get off.”

  “Olivia?”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing. I just like saying your name.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  He hung up the phone after talking with Olivia, knowing he would not be able to sleep. He got out of bed and pulled on the blue shorts he’d worn that day, zipping them up as he walked from the bedroom out to the second-story deck. He sat down on the glider, pumping gently with his bare feet, making the glider coast a little. The sound was dark. The water lapped gently against the beach in his back yard, and a damp breeze brushed over his chest and arms.

  He needed to get Olivia and Paul back together again, quickly, before he told her anything more loaded than he liked the sound of her name. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was doing something wrong, something inappropriate, just by talking to her from his bed. But he knew the reason for his guilt.

  The call had come on a Sunday morning, a couple of years ago. He’d been sitting out here on the glider, reading the paper and drinking coffee from a mug when he heard Annie answer the telephone in the bedroom. She spoke quietly into the phone, her voice unusually subdued, which made him turn his lead to listen, but he couldn’t make out her words and he returned his concentration to the paper. After a few minutes she came out onto the deck and sat down next to him on the glider.

  “That was the bone marrow registry,” she said. “I’m a perfect match for a little girl in Chicago.”

  She had registered as a donor several years earlier and Alec had thought little of it at the time. Just another one of Annie’s good deeds. He had never expected it to amount to anything. From what he’d heard, it was extremely rare to find a match for bone marrow outside of one’s own family. Apparently, though, it was not impossible.

  He set down the newspaper and took her hand, drawing it onto his thigh. “So what does that mean exactly?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to go to Chicago. The surgery’s scheduled for Tuesday.” She wrinkled her nose, and when she spoke again her voice was small, hesitant. “Do you think you could go with me?”

  “Of course.” He let go of her hand and smoothed her hair over her shoulder. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  “You bet.” She stood up and bent over to kiss him. “I’ll start breakfast.”

  She was quiet for the rest of the day, and he didn’t press her to talk. He sensed she was grappling with something that she needed to work out on her own. At dinner that night, she told the children as much as she knew about the little girl who would surely die without her help. Lacey and Clay were eleven and fifteen, and they listened carefully, with serious faces. They would stay at Nola’s, Annie told them, and she and Alec would be home Wednesday night.

  “How do they get the bone marrow out of you and into the girl?” Lacey asked.

  “Well,” said Annie, her face animated, “first they’ll put us both to sleep so we don’t feel any pain. Then they’ll make a little incision in my back and take the marrow out with a needle and that’s that. The doctor said I’ll have a stiff back for a few days, but that will be the worst part. And I’ll be saving the little girl’s life.”

  That night she could not sleep. She tossed and turned, finally working her way into Alec’s arms. “Please hold me,” she said.

  She trembled as he pulled her close to him, and when she rested her head on his bare shoulder, he could feel the warm dampness of her cheek and knew she’d been crying.

  He held her tighter. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m so scared,” she whispered. “I’m so scared I’m going to die during the surgery.”

  He was alarmed. It was so unlike Annie to give a thought to herself. He leaned away from her, trying to see her eyes in the darkness. “Then don’t do it,” he said. “You don’t have to do it.”

  “I do.” She sat up, facing him, her hand on his chest. “It’s a child’s only chance.”

  “Maybe there were other matches.”

  “They said I was the only one.”

  “Christ. Nothing like a little guilt trip.”

  “The feeling is so strong.” She shivered. “As though I’m definitely going to die. It would be punishment for all the bad things I’ve done.”

  He laughed and lifted her hand from his chest to his lips. “You’ve never done a bad thing in your life.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of not getting to watch Lacey and Clay grow up.” She began crying in earnest, and he knew her imagination was taking over as it so often did, tormenting her with the worst possible fantasy. “I’d never get to hold my grandchildren. I want to grow old with you, Alec.” She was pleading, as though there was something he could do to assure her of a perfect future.

  “I want you to back out of this, Annie.” He sat up too, holding her hands, squeezing them between his palms. “Blame it on me. Tell them…”

  “I can’t. The little girl needs…”

  “I don’t give a damn about the little girl.”

  She snapped her hands away from his. “Alec! How can you say that?”

  “She’s anonymous. I don’t know her and I never will. You, on the other hand, I know very well, and you’r
e too frightened. It’s not good for you to go into surgery feeling this way.”

  “I have to do it. I’ll be all right. I’m just…” She shook her head. “You know how nuts you can get in the middle of the night.” She lay down again and snuggled next to him, and it was another minute before she spoke again.

  “Let me just ask you something, though,” she said. “Hypothetically.”

  “Mmm?”

  “If I died, how long would you wait before you started going out with someone?”

  “Annie. Cancel the damn surgery.”

  “No. I mean it, Alec. Tell me. How long?”

  He was quiet for a moment, aware of how quickly he could lose her. She could, in a perfectly voluntary surgery, leave him forever. He pulled her closer. “I can’t imagine ever wanting to be with anyone else,” he said.

  “You mean, sexually?”

  “I mean period.”

  “Well, God, I wouldn’t want you to be alone forever. But if I did die, would you wait a year please? I mean, that’s not too long to grieve for someone you completely and thoroughly adore, is it? That’s all I ask. Then you can do whatever you like, although it would be nice if you could think of me from time to time, and find your new woman lacking in almost every way.”

  “Why not in every way?” he asked, smiling. “Go for broke, Annie.” He raised himself up on his elbow and kissed her. “Maybe we’d better make love one last time since you already seem to have a foot out the door.” He slipped his hand to her breast, but she caught his fingers.

  “You didn’t promise yet, Alec,” she said. “Just one year. Please?”

  “I’ll give you two,” he said, certain then that it was a promise he would have no trouble at all keeping.

  She felt better in the morning, a cheery optimism replacing her maudlin mood. Alec, however, felt worse, as though she had transferred her fear to him. By the time they boarded the plane for Chicago on Tuesday, he was sick with nervousness. He sat with his head flat against the seatback, trying to ignore the nausea pressing in on him, while Annie held his hand and rested her head on his shoulder. She read him the article she’d torn from the Beach Gazette that morning, the article describing her trip to Chicago, yet another one of Annie O’Neill’s saintly deeds.