by Amanda Dykes
“S-s . . .” His tongue sticks to his teeth, and he can’t even get the word out. If there’s a storm coming, he’s got to make sure William is safe. That’s all he’s ever wanted. William. Storm.
“Mister Robert?” There’s bustling, a flurry of activity, and a familiar voice. Another voice enters, deeper. Papers rustle, some infernal beeping sounds, and he tries to pull in air. He needs sea air. Not this stuffy old terrarium air.
Everything grows louder, clearer, twisting together into a rope, pulling him out of these dark waters.
He tries again, and a hoarse old whisper comes out. “Storm.”
Someone whispers something about a verbal response. “Make the call,” they say.
Annie grips the pipe handrail, climbing the steps that skirt the cliff. The wind is picking up, but they’d checked all the forecasts and watched the radars as they’d traveled south, almost to Portland, back home to Casco Bay. There was nothing on the radar, nothing over the VHF radio. The wind was par for the coastal course, and with the whole afternoon ahead, they’d have plenty of time to get back to the hospital before sundown . . . with one very important addition on board. She hopes.
She knows these steps like a favorite song, so often she’d skipped up and down them as a child. Never a trace of fear that she might fall off, that the sea below might swallow her right up. The first voice of welcome when her parents first brought her as a squinty-eyed baby home from the hospital, the sea had been a part of her.
Until it wasn’t. Until it became the thing that took her parents away for months at a time, that nearly took Mom’s life.
A glance down reveals an azure blue, alive with its shifting tones and waves disappearing one into another. And there upon them, the Glad Tidings, and its faithful captain—the man who brought back that connection.
Jeremiah is looking up at her. Hand to forehead shielding his eyes from the high sun, but it gives the impression of a salute. He stands stock-still, gripping the rail of the boat. When she’d left him there, there was an energy buzzing from his very frame, a passion that had driven them here and wanted, she knew, to climb the cliff with her. But he understood that this was something she needed to do on her own. He’d given her a hand-squeeze that infused her with the courage to make this climb, to bridge this gap.
He waves, and a peace bolsters her, sends her climbing the rest of the steps, running her hands through the waving lupines at cliff’s edge, crossing the groomed lawn.
This place is built from stone, and she loves the story of it. How her father built it from the ground up for his bride, not a penny to their name after they’d purchased the land. How it looks like an extension of the cliff itself, rising like a peaked crown, humble and glorious. It had no name, not like most homes around these parts. They just called it the cottage, but it felt like a crowning title.
Even so, she hasn’t been back since the Christmas before last. And when she has come, it’s never been the same as before Alpenzell. It felt too good and pure for her. Square peg, round hole—that’s what it was.
“Annie?” The voice washes over her, the disbelief in it kind. Mom, beaming. She’s beautiful. Like always. Paintbrush in hand, she’s standing in the doorway of the shed-turned-studio to the right of the lawn. It’s nearly overgrown with walls of blooming hollyhocks and clumps of lupine. A streak of violet paint marks Mom’s cheek. She rushes forward and wraps Annie in an embrace, smelling of oil paint and cinnamon.
She grips Annie’s hand, smearing it with paint and too joyful to care. She laughs, pulling Annie into the studio and over to the old farm sink. “Leave it to me to stain you with paint. Some homecoming, eh?”
Annie laughs, washing her hands and taking in the treasures Mom has on the windowsill. A starfish. A crayon drawing of a boat, colored by Annie when she was six. And something that sends shivers of nostalgia and wonder through her—the old picture of her grandparents. Colors faded on the print from the sixties, smiles vibrant nonetheless. Grandpa Luka and Grandma Liesl. She’d always loved their against-all-odds story of reunion after so many years of brutal separation. One for the ages.
Once their three children were well grown, the couple had gathered up their rugged courage and moved back to Germany. “To redeem the yesterday with the someday,” Grandpa Luka had said.
Their story reminds her the impossible does happen, that there’s hope for Bob and her father.
Her mother hands her a towel to dry her hands, her face falling somber. “How is he?” She’s talking of Bob, and they both know it.
Annie fills her in.
Her mother’s eyes are wide. “I wish you’d phoned that he is waking,” she says breathlessly. “We’d have come . . .” She sounds more hopeful than convinced.
“I did phone,” Annie says. “No one answered.”
Her mother’s hand flies to her own forehead. “That phone. Never sits in the cradle right. You remember.”
Annie does remember. Her social life in high school had suffered from their defective phone.
Her eyes drift through the studio window, toward the house, where Dad would be.
“Is Dad here? I just thought maybe if I could talk with him”—she admits her pie-in-the-sky dream—“maybe he would come.”
Mom is serious as she leads her onto the lawn, and Annie knows she, too, wants this reconciliation. “You can try.” She blows a strand of dark hair streaked with vibrant silver from her face. “Those two. They’re each more stubborn than the other, and that’s a riddle I fear they’ll never solve.”
A sudden wind chases them inside the house, and Annie gives a glance to the sea, hoping Jeremiah will be all right down there. A new chill sends a shiver down her spine as she steps inside the cottage built by her father’s own two hands.
He’s seated by the picture window, bent over a workbench—a new addition since the last time she was here. Last time a comfortable couch had hugged the wall below the window, a basket of books to wile away the hours.
Apparently the hours hadn’t wiled quickly enough for his ever-sparking mind, for he has turned the whole room into some sort of workshop. Bright gold-toned metal pieces, precision-cut into lengths of curves and odd sawtooth-segments, are laid out on the floor.
A computer screen in the corner shows some sort of engineering program—AutoCAD, maybe?—displaying a three-dimensional diagram of something that looks like an archaic diver’s helmet straight out of a Jules Verne novel. All bulbous and ridged.
On his worktable, where his concentration remains unbroken, are several segments of glass-like material. Each curved slightly, with a central disc laid with care in the middle.
“We have a visitor, William,” her mother says, voice radiant.
He turns, piercing blue eyes going straight to her. His chair scrapes the floor as he stands, crosses the room. He raises his hands to cradle her face and looks at her as if he’s just found long-lost treasure. Those justice-defending arms—perhaps not quite so thick or chiseled as they once were—wrap her up and draw her close.
Annie pauses, surprised at the change in him. He’s no spring chicken, as he likes to remind her every month during their phone calls, but she hadn’t anticipated the salt-and-pepper of his hair—decidedly more salt than pepper—or the way his shoulders bend, as if the weight upon them is increasing every day. Is this the broad, strong, unbeatable father of her youth? The one who charged into international conflict to defend justice and came home to embrace his daughter?
Stories swirl in Annie’s memory. Of her father, young and broken, before he met her mother. Abandoned. Gathered up. Bearing the weight of a guilt he was never meant to carry. Standing here wrapped in arms that doused a burning barn to save a corner of life . . . she feels how this guilt has shaped him. Softened him. Maybe hardened him, too, driven him far away from Bob for too long.
His embrace tightens until all she can do is melt into it, lay her head on his shoulder, let herself be wrapped in this all-encompassing sense of belonging. Until rece
ntly—she thinks again of Jeremiah waiting on Glad Tidings—she’d only known such love here with her parents and one other place in her life.
And that was with Bob.
No one has spoken, and yet they all feel this electrifying current zipping around them.
“Dad,” Annie says at last, “will you go to him?”
He knows exactly who she means, and his pursed lips declare what his answer will be.
“I can’t,” he says. “Not yet.”
The question she must ask might sound impertinent, so she takes care to curve it into compassion, a need to understand. “Why?”
“I will come,” he says, stroking her hair. He glances around. “But I’ve got to finish something first, and then—”
The pieces shift into place in the scene before her. The animation on the computer screen turning, glass pieces assembled around a cavern made for . . . a light.
“You’re building a lens,” she breathes.
She has been on the phone with the Lighthouse Society in recent days, asking how she might order a lens apparatus—heart aching a little when she learns the classic lenses are a thing of the past, that what’s used now is the same technology as that of siren lights and air traffic control lights. All the mystique and wonder of Bob’s original lens . . . gone. Destroyed by fire it was meant to contain.
But here, in her father’s living room, is the real thing. If the pieces aren’t evidence enough, there’s a coffee-stained printout fluttering in the breeze from an open window, held down by a tattered copy of Rob Roy. The paper is marked U.S. Coast Guard. Private Aids to Navigation Application.
“You did this?”
He nods. “I’ve had some time on my hands.”
“All those trips to Florida.” She laughs. “They weren’t for consulting, I take it.”
She loves him for the telltale red of his face. “Well, you could say I had to consult an expert, about this new technology they’re using to re-create Fresnel lenses.” He gestures toward the bench. “I had some learning to do for the Paton.”
She gives him a quizzical look.
“Private Aid to Navigation.”
“This . . . is for Bob’s lighthouse?”
His eyes fly to hers. Searching. “You know?”
She nods.
“Ansel never could keep a secret.” He stuffs his hands in his jean pockets. “Well, I guess you might know, then, why I have to finish this first.”
She surveys the parts of the lens, imagines how grand a scale this is. “This is amazing, Dad.” She steps closer, scanning the room, this man, with respect. “But . . .”
His eyes snap back to hers again, concerned. “But . . . ?”
She shakes her head, desperate for him to understand. “He doesn’t want recompense.”
Dad’s jaw works, and she sees in him the shadowed youth who Bob once took in.
She rushes to correct the sting of her words. “He’ll be amazed by what you’ve accomplished, but what he really wants”—he drops his gaze, possibly knowing what she’s about to say—“is you.” The hardest thing of all for him to bring.
Rain starts to fall against the windows, and her father turns to shut them. He gathers up the application, stares hard at it as if it will give him the answers to all his unspoken questions. Finally, he voices one.
“He’s doing all right? Your mom said he was stable, that things are looking up . . .”
Annie opens her mouth to answer, but a muted knock sounds at the door. Her mother opens it, and there stands Jeremiah, face awash with urgency. His shoulders rise and fall fast from what must have been an all-out sprint up those rock stairs.
And then he speaks.
“He’s awake. Really awake.”
thirty-eight
This place. They’re all dead set on keeping Bob here, needles poking him like he’s the bull’s-eye at target practice.
Well, it’s not going to work.
“Where’s Annie?” He knows she was here. He couldn’t have dreamed her laugh, that voice sweet as spring blueberries, the mandolin. He looks to his visitors.
Bess looks at Ed, who rocks forward in his chair in the hospital room. “She’s . . . gone out.”
Bob gives him a look, as if the man can see. And knowing Ed, he’ll know exactly what’s going on.
“All right, all right.” The man straightens, holding his hands out in defense. “She’s off to Casco Bay.”
“Casco Bay.” Bob doesn’t believe it. She hasn’t been there in over a year—not since her ad in Rusty Joe’s proclaimed a white Christmas there and he’d written back, saying to get herself up the coast or he’d rope her in like a lobster trap. She’d thought he was kidding.
“Casco Bay.” Ed repeats, a note of admission in his voice. “With Jeremiah.”
“With . . .” He pictures the lanky lost fellow and his way of carrying his torment with him and his unbending determination. Then he pictures Annie and her ways of music and light, always a little rootless, searching. “Well, at least that part makes sense. But what in tarnation are they doing out there in this?” He flings an arm toward the window, where the sky is blue and the treetops bend gently.
Great. They’re all going to think he’s lost his marbles. But he knows it in the ache of these bones—those clouds will soon be staging something fierce. One of the needles in his arm comes loose, and something starts beeping.
“They went to get him,” Bess says, looking Bob directly in the eye with her chin up, a challenge.
“Went to get who?”
“You know very well who.”
William. Something bright and terrifying surges through Bob. Hope.
Followed immediately by something fierce. “They didn’t go in the boat,” he says, willing it to be true, and knowing the second he says it that that’s exactly what they did.
Bess focuses on a loose thread on her sweater, pulling at it. “Anyone tell you yet about Lobsterfest? Rich got us a searchlight that twirls all over the night and makes it seem like real doings. He keeps forgetting to shut it off, though. And speaking of festivals, don’t think we all don’t know that you up and injured your way into this place”—she twirls a finger around the room—“to escape Bobsterfest.”
She’s avoiding his question. “Bess Stevens. Did they or did they not take the boat?”
Bess’s look confirms it.
“Don’t you worry ’bout them.” Ed waves it off. But even through his southern-sculpted voice, there’s a shadow of worry.
If they are out on the seas, surely they’ll take cover on land. And soon.
And if this hospital thinks he’ll stay in their web of tubes and needles, they have another thing coming.
The radio hums low, the National Weather Service issuing word for word its near-daily statement: “Humid with a chance of rain, accompanied by moderate wind.” They might as well be proclaiming that the sky was up and the earth was down. A scant shower from a blue sky was hardly a storm warning. Still, there’s an urgency lining the room as her father inclines his ear to the radio.
A look toward the bay tells Annie the seamen are still going about their business, no mass return to shore. They have the best heads on their shoulders when it comes to reading sky and sea—and hopefully, this means they’ll have time to get back up the coast. Knowing Bob is awake so far away, and that the ocean could turn on them quicker than fast, she’s aching to get on their way.
Jeremiah stands at the door like a runner awaiting the sound of a starting pistol. Annie had made quick introductions once Jeremiah told them of Bess’s call. The cell-phone connection had been bad, he said, but it was clear that Bob was awake. What she’d said next was either good news, or bad. A few missed words and then “not long.” Not long, what? Until he’d be fully awake? That he’d be alive? In the hospital?
“We need to go,” Annie says.
“It will be better if we drive,” Jeremiah suggests. He’s right, and she looks to her parents, who exchange a grave look.
“Our car is out of commission,” her mother says. “Over at the garage in Portland.” A look to her husband, and something passes between them. An unspoken pleading. Her father swallows hard, looks to the clock, the sea, the scattered parts of the lantern.
“Here,” he says, stooping to roll the metal parts in the drop cloth they’re laid upon. He hands a bundle to Annie, one to Jeremiah. Does the same with the glass-like pieces, tucking them carefully but swiftly into a wooden box built to house them.
The phone, back in its cradle, jingles on the wall. It’s an older model with a long spiraling cord stretched out from one too many trips to the lawn with it. Mom answers, and they’re all still as they try to discern what news there is.
“Yes? Yes. Oh, no. Can they stop him? I see. Thank you very much, Shirley. Yes, do call if you hear more.” She hangs up and tells them, “It’s good and bad. He’s doing well . . . but maybe too well for his own good.”
“What does that mean?” Dad asks.
“It means he’s left.”
“Left?” Annie’s heart lodges in her throat.
“Checked himself out against medical advice. He declared he had a literary festival to avoid and walked right out of there. She said he’s stronger than most of his age who wake up, but he still needs to be under care, with extensive rehabilitation.”
Jeremiah’s shaking his head, and she knows if it weren’t so serious, he’d be laughing. Maybe even cheering him on. “Stubborn,” he mutters.
“Shirley’s planning to go over to his house as soon as her shift is done. He needs close monitoring, and support, and physical therapy, and—”
Dad sets his jaw. “Let’s go.”
There is a weather advisory. Not a storm warning, not even a storm watch. There’s a difference, and it should be enough to help Annie breathe easier.
The knot in her gut is tied solely to Bob, she tells herself. But the waves tell a different story. Mom is staying behind to man the phone in case more calls come in. Her connection is better than Jeremiah’s. His already spotty cell reception, and even radio communication from the boat, cannot be depended on if the weather turns.
