“What are you talking about? We have baby Thomas to consider, and where on earth would we get the money to travel overseas?”
“I inherited a great deal of money from my grandparents’ estate when I turned twenty-five. Enough to go anywhere in the world. And Mother said she would look after Thomas for us, until he is old enough. Then the three of us will travel together. He can grow up to be an explorer,” Heath said with such enthusiasm and excitement it was easy to become caught up into the fantasy and romance of the idea. As much as I loved the lighthouse, more than anything I wanted to see the world. And to have Heath by my side was absolutely too good to be true.
“So let’s throw that letter away and never look back,” Heath implored. He took the letter from me and ripped it into pieces, then fervently tossed it into a sudden gust of cold wind.
Our day ended up being next to perfect, and I excitedly returned to the island. I missed Thomas and was anxious to hold him and feed him. Heath rowed as fast as he could, realizing I had been away from my baby just a little too long.
The sun was on its way down, painting the twilight sky with long streaks of orange and purple behind a striking canvas of sapphire blue - the same color as my son’s eyes. We reached the island just in time for Otto to light the flame in the tower. He was just stepping out of the house when we approached.
“Thomas, how is he?” I nervously asked.
“Sleeping soundly in his cradle,” Otto reassured me. “What a fine baby,” he added. Tilting his head up, and pensively gazing at the brilliant early night sky, he observed, “Got eyes that same color eyes, hauntingly familiar,” then cordially tipped his hat and headed for the door of the tower.
What Otto said sent chills down my spine. I didn’t waste another moment and instinctively rushed inside. With an abrupt sense of urgency and unexplainable fear, I ran up the stairs, yelling for Thomas.
“Lillian, what is it?” Heath called behind me. “What’s wrong?”
The ghostly figure hovered over my son’s cradle, about to lift my baby up when I bolted into the room. It was only when he lifted his dark, sapphire blue eyes onto me that I stopped in my tracks and gasped. It was neither ghost nor a stranger near to steal my baby. It was Ayden! In the flesh and blood, alive before me - not swallowed up and drowned in the perilous sea!
“Ayden!” Heath sucked in his breath behind me.
I was furious . . . livid, and rushed over to Ayden. He stood frozen as I beat my fists against his strong chest and he could only wince as I lashed out with anger and rage. “HOW COULD YOU?” I screamed. “Do you realize what you have done? Do you have any idea what you put me through?”
Heath ran to me and seized my arms, stopping me from slapping Ayden’s face again.
“All I can say is I am sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I love you, Lillian. You belong with me. You are the mother of my son. I am overcome with regret,” he said with sorrowful eyes.
“You can’t just waltz in here back from the dead and claim her! Have you any idea how we have suffered?” Heath shouted.
“You stay out of this, Heath. This is between my wife and me!” Ayden ordered, his eyes ablaze.
Heath carefully moved me aside and stepped boldly before his younger brother with a burning fire that consumed his face. Ayden held his head high. His defiant eyes locked onto Heath’s, refusing to back down.
“You have no right to be here any longer. Go back to wherever you came from. You made your choice, now live with it! Lillian is my wife now, she belongs with me!”
Without warning, Ayden lunged forward into Heath, violently smashing him up against the wall. They beat angry fists into one another, pounding with all their might, one blow after another. Tables crashed to the floor, the white lace curtains that adorned the window were torn down as the two crashed into the window, shattering glass everywhere. Thomas began to cry, instantly snapping me out of my traumatized trance. “Stop it, both of you. STOP IT!” I ordered, while frantically hushing my innocent baby. Ayden dropped his clenched fist to his side. Heath spun around and stepped out from Ayden’s line of fire, quickly wiping the dripping blood from his lip, then turned to me.
Inevitably, the past, present, and future mercilessly clashed together all at once, as Heath looked through me and straight into my soul. He held his anguished stare until my distressed choice to abandon my own happiness for the sake of baby Thomas became absolutely evident, then in an instant, Heath lowered his tear-filled, defeated eyes, and turned away, ultimately surrendering his love for me.
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Two
Dying rose
In the years following Heath’s departure from Jasper Island, after a long day of contently doing chores and tending to all of Thomas’s needs, reading him a book and putting him to sleep in the room that had once been mine while Ayden was up in the tower faithfully working the light, I climbed into bed and wept for all I had left of Heath. I kept the dried rose petals of the last rose Heath gave to me pressed into Momma’s journal. Not one night went by that I didn’t open the book, touch the rose, then fall apart and weep for the man I was born to love, yet had to let go. As tormenting as it was to be away from Heath’s love, to no longer have him to protect me, love me, and complete me, our destiny to live out our lives together, at the very best, remained suspended. I promised Thomas, I promised myself, with all the strength I had in my soul that I would stay true to Ayden, the father of my baby boy, and be the good mother and wife I was obligated to me - for their sake. I wasn’t going to repeat the terrible mistakes of my parents. Thomas would grow up with his real father, living a wholesome, healthy childhood on Jasper Island. He would have the childhood I had always wished for. And on the nights Ayden came to bed with me, I cried silently so he wouldn’t hear. I didn’t want Ayden to know how I lived with a broken heart.
Ayden and I never spoke of the night he took himself out to sea, where I believed he had died. I realized he had probably crawled up onto the island and stayed hidden for months on end, watching and waiting as a ghost-like spirit to see if the baby I carried was his. When Thomas was born in May, Ayden was able to count all the months back and conclude that Thomas was indeed his son.
I never regretted Ayden’s return when I watched Thomas follow his daddy around the island like a shadow. Ayden was more than grateful to me for giving him a son and agreeing to stay and be his wife, though it took a very long time to allow myself to become like a wife to him.
It wasn’t until I received Heath’s first letter, three years later, that my tears dried for good and a permanent smile came to my consistently glum face. All that worry that Heath had found someone to replace me in his heart was at once put to rest, as he wrote me an intimate love letter and described in detail his time on the sea.
Heath was a doctor aboard the Oceanic - the same liner on which he and I had planned to take our honeymoon. Heath admitted not one moment in time passed by without him thinking of me, longing for me, dreaming of me, and knowing we would be together again, one day after Thomas was grown, when I would be free to love him again - this time for good
I know the choice you had to make left you with the same permanent ache in your heart as it has mine. It took me all this time to put away my anguish over what I have lost, over things that cannot be changed, and look with joyfulness toward the future you and I will someday share together. I will wait until beyond forever and eternity for you. You and only you are my true love.
After Heath’s declaration of everlasting love and our plans to meet again someday, I was able to give Ayden all that I had left. I became a wife, who while I was with him was completely devoted, caring, warm, and loving. Ayden was beyond happy when I shared myself with him and whispered I loved him, although he couldn’t know it was his own brother who in my dreams was making love to me.
With each intimate love letter I received, Heath revealed he was crossing off the days until we could be together again. With each passing year, as he sai
led all over the world visiting exotic places he was going to bring me back to one day. I stayed faithful to Ayden, our only child, and the lighthouse.
As each of Thomas’s birthdays came and went, I wrote to Heath, sending him my long distance love from the heart. Included in the letters were photographs of Thomas and myself.
Heath wrote,
You are just as breathtaking as ever. I cannot wait to hold you and tell you that in person. I love you with all my heart,
and
The years aren’t passing quickly enough. I dream about you, Lillian, and about us reuniting again.
The autumn after Thomas’s fourteenth birthday, we received the tragic news from Elizabeth that Opal and Edward had perished in a fire. Elizabeth had grown into a beautiful young woman and became a teacher at the same school where she had been taught.
“Father ran in to save a child locked in one of the rooms, and Mother went into the inferno after him,” Elizabeth explained with sign language, her face grief-stricken. “They weren’t able to get out.”
The cemetery was covered with hundreds of leaves in bold beautiful shades of red, yellow, and purple; the sky was clear and crisp. None of us knew if we should expect Heath at the funeral. We all stood not far from where our good friend Otto had been buried the previous year, looking about to see if he had arrived. Elizabeth leaned on her fiancé, Charles Bradcliff, for support, scanning the distance for Heath and looking worried as Ayden frowned, tense, stiff, and uncomfortable, and I wrung my hands together nervously, anxious to finally see him again.
The minister waited as long as he could, then cleared his throat and began the moving sermon before the graves of Opal and Edward Dalton.
Heath didn’t come for his parent’s funeral and explained why in his next letter not long after.
I feared seeing you again. I would not be able to contain my sorrow - for my parents’ death and for losing you to Ayden years ago. Out on the sea, I privately mourned my mother and father’s passing. Please ask Elizabeth to forgive me. I miss you terribly, Lillian. My heart aches without you.
Elizabeth wasn’t so forgiving when Heath did not come for her wedding to Charles. He wrote and explained he wasn’t able to take leave, but she didn’t believe him and was devastated. And two years later, when her son was born and Heath again didn’t arrive for the christening, Elizabeth refused to communicate with her brother again.
I wanted to explain to her that it was my fault Heath stayed away, but then I would have had to expose my long distance love affair with Heath and risk losing both men.
While I was elated as the years sped by, bringing me closer and closer to seeing Heath again, it was also sad to watch Thomas turn into a man and prepare to leave home. He was as handsome as both his father and uncle. Thomas was as tall as Heath, but had Ayden’s facial features (with the exception of the cleft in his square chin). All I could see of myself in my son was his full, rosy lips.
To Ayden’s dismay, Thomas decided to go off to Harvard and pursue a degree in the medical field. Although Thomas had a natural passion for the sea - inherited from both Ayden and me - he had Heath’s superior intellect. It was difficult for Ayden to see such a similarity between his brother and son, and he was dejected for a long time.
Thomas knew very little about his Uncle Heath. He had seen photographs of him as a child; however, neither Ayden nor I could speak of him without me looking melancholy, or Ayden’s eyes burning with jealousy.
Shortly after Thomas left for the university, I spent months struggling with how to tell Ayden I was leaving the lighthouse station and ending our nineteen-year marriage. Heath’s letters arrived weekly, pleading with me to finally come and be with him.
The world is waiting for you and me. Let me love you again, as I dream with every breath I take. Come be with me, Lillian.
Ayden had been a good husband to me. He’d learned over the years to balance his duties as a keeper and his responsibilities as a husband. Ayden was attentive and loving, and always passionate in bed. He frequently surprised me with fancy bottles of French perfume or fresh picked wildflowers. On our fifth wedding anniversary, he placed a two-karat diamond ring on my finger and said, “I’m sorry you had to wait so long.” Ayden had been waiting for his share of his grandparent’s inheritance to buy me that ring.
By late winter, I had found enough emotional courage and physical strength within myself to go to Ayden and tell him I was leaving at first sign of spring. He had been dutifully up all night in the tower, though sick with a terrible lingering cold he couldn’t seem to shake. He appeared tired and worn as he came to hug me. I gently pushed him back, rapidly blinking away my tears.
Ayden peered closely at me. I went to speak, and as if he knew exactly what I was about to say, he said in a tight, wretched voice, “Please don’t leave me. I am sick and want to spend my last days on the island with you before I die.”
Please wait just a little longer for me, Heath. I must stay beside Ayden in his time of need.
Of course, my darling Lillian. Although it pains me to have you far from my loving arms, I will wait forever for you.
Year after year melted into one long, drawn out day, keeping Heath and me apart and our much-anticipated reunion on hold. Ayden grew sicker as time passed, but clung to life with a vengeance. For the last few months, Ayden was bedridden. I maintained his position as primary keeper, while still devotedly tending to his needs. Thomas occasionally took leave from his job as a pharmacist and traveled to the island all the way from California as often as he could, but he had his own life. He was recently married to a beautiful girl named Audrey, and they were trying for a baby.
On a cold day, just before spring of 1912, as the blustery, freezing wind blew off the sea and across the island, Ayden called for me.
“I’m right here,” I said, choking back my tears. He struggled to reach for my hand. I took hold of his frail, weak hand and held it close against my heart, while his worn-out eyes fell on me for the last time.
“Lillian,” he began in a soft, weary voice. “All these years I know why you stayed with me. I was selfish to keep you here, but I have no regrets.”
“Ayden, please don’t…” I sobbed.
“Let me have my say,” he implored.
I held my tongue and allowed him to finish. It was so difficult to watch him struggle to breathe and speak at the same time, but I saw how he needed to have me hear his final words. “Thank you for being a good, faithful wife to me, for giving me such a fine son. I want you to go be happy, Lillian; I want you to fix your broken heart. I heard you crying all those nights after you chose me over Heath, I know about all the love letters.”
I began to cry uncontrollably, clinging to him, yet Ayden insisted I cry no more.
“You have given me more than I could have ever hoped for. Please don’t cry anymore. After a lifetime of sadness, promise me you will let Heath chase away all your sorrow. Promise me!” Ayden begged.
During all our years together, I had always longed to know the truth - why he didn’t deny fathering Sylvia’s baby, but couldn’t find the courage to ask now.
“I‘ve been a lucky woman to have you as my friend, as my husband all these years. You believed I loved you, don’t you Ayden?” I cried in dismay, as he sucked in his last breath and lowered his heavy lids.
Ayden gently squeezed my hand one last time and nodded knowingly, then quietly passed away.
I wanted to tell Heath about Ayden’s death in person. I wrote to him, agreeing to reunite after twenty-nine years apart.
I’ve waited what seems like a lifetime to have you hold me again. I love you so dearly, Heath. I’ve missed you so! I will be awaiting your return to me.
Heath quickly wrote back.
With great fortune, I have acquired a position as assistant surgeon aboard the new White Star liner christened Titanic. The ship, which they boast is unsinkable, shall end her maiden voyage in New York. Be there waiting for me, Lillian. Look for the man with a ful
l head of silvery blond hair and eyes that shine brilliantly when falling upon you.
The day couldn’t come fast enough for me. I had long since forgotten about Richard, New York City, and my days of yore. Those troubled, dark days seemed an entire lifetime ago.
I will be there waiting, holding my breath for you, Heath. Look for the woman with long blonde hair, who wears her heart on her sleeve . . . for the man she was born to love.
Epilogue
I waited forty years before returning to Jasper Island. Over all those years I traveled the world with Heath’s love letters in hand, retracing his steps, feeling his loving spirit guiding me since the day he died tragically aboard the Titanic.
One letter, which I read time after time, was Heath’s urgent last letter to me. It was delivered by a kind, elderly woman the night the Carpathia arrived in New York. She found me soon after the crowd dispersed and the spotlights dimmed, standing alone in the rain, shivering, not from the bone-chilling dampness, but from my fear as my desperate hopes of finding Heath somewhere on the pier, safe and alive, faded away.
“Your husband, the doctor, asked me with great urgency to find you and give you this letter. He described you in detail . . . said you would stand out amongst a crowd, that your beauty was unmistakable,” she began with tear-filled eyes and slowly handed me the envelope. I instantly recognized Heath’s handwriting. “He did all he could to save each and every passenger. For the last hours, he helped load the boats. It was pure mayhem. I was one of the passengers fortunate enough to board the last lifeboat. There was little hope we would be rescued before the great ship sank into the dark, frigid sea.”
Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy Page 92
