The Girl in the Lighthouse (Arrington)

by Roxane Tepfer Sanford

  I closed my eyes, leaned against the tree, and imagined Heath and I as husband and wife. He would be a famous and successful doctor and stay home in Boston, waiting for me to return from my overseas travels. When we reunited, we would be loving and passionate. He would hold me and kiss me and tell me he longed to have me home and couldn’t have lived another day without me. In Heath’s eyes, I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, even more beautiful than Clara. His eyes lingered on me and longed to touch me, but I wouldn’t give in to his manly desires; I would keep Heath at bay, only allowing him to kiss me, that was all. I was not going to have him undress me the way Daddy used to do to Momma. I could never be indecent in front of Heath or allow him to do that thing that made babies. The thought put pure terror into me.

  I opened my eyes to erase where my mind was headed. The vision of Heath undressing me left my body yearning, but my mind screaming no. I had to stop reliving that fantasy; I was too afraid.

  When Heath sat down for supper, I could barely look his way. I was ashamed and embarrassed of my own daydreams. I thought he would see through me and read my mind. Daddy, in the past, would have noticed my fluster, but he was too deep in thought, his eyes focused on the wall.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Arrington?” Heath asked.

  Daddy shook his head to gain back his senses. “Yes, I’m fine,” he answered, and then began to eat. “Your supper is delicious, Lillian,” Daddy said, smiling proudly at me.

  “You cook just as well as Mother,” Ayden said.

  I was pleased, but slightly disappointed that Heath hadn’t told me how good my cooking was. Unlike Heath, Ayden loved to eat. The way to his heart was through his stomach. Over the past years, Ayden had filled out and become a little chubby. In school, he was teased by the girls. They called him Abundant Ayden. It was mean, and I insisted they stop. Then they teased me and accused me of wanting Ayden to be my beau.

  “So what if I do?” I said back, and that made them stop. Ayden had overheard, and I didn’t want to tell him I only said that to make them stop teasing him. I didn’t want him as my beau. Since then, Ayden had been extra kind to me, so much so that it was becoming awkward. Ayden was like a brother to me, nothing more. I made that perfectly clear to him one day when we were by the shore, throwing rocks out into the surf. We had leaned down at the same time to pick up a rock, and when our faces were inches apart, Ayden leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. I gasped and stood up straight. From the reaction on my face, he knew he had done something terribly wrong.

  With wide, confused eyes, I pushed him back and yelled, “Don’t you ever do that again, Ayden Alexander Dalton!”

  His face turned bright red, and he stammered for words. Then Heath walked out of the chicken coop that he was repairing to see what was happening between us. I was too embarrassed to say a word, and Ayden was mortified.

  Heath looked from Ayden to me for an explanation, but we said nothing. Heath sensed it was personal, and backed away, though his eyes lingered on me for a moment before he turned and walked back to the coop.

  I waited for an apology from Ayden, but he remained speechless. So I laid into him and made certain he never tried to kiss me again. “If you ever do that again, I will tell my daddy,” I said, and left him standing there alone, full of regret.

  Opal and Edward returned with the news that we had been dreading. Elizabeth was deaf. They returned sad, but encouraged by all the information the doctor gave them.

  “There are schools for the deaf; Elizabeth will learn sign language,” Opal said as we gathered in the parlor.

  “We will have to send her away?” Ayden asked. The thought pained him.

  “There is a school in Hartford. When the time comes, we will move to Connecticut.”

  “Move? When, Mother?”

  “Not until she is around six years old. Until then, we will study the sign language book Dr. Schumer gave us.”

  Heath took the book and scanned it.

  “You won’t be a keeper anymore?” I asked.

  “We won’t be able to stay far from her. But we have many years until that comes to pass,” Edward assured me.

  “Is she healthy otherwise?” Daddy asked.

  “She is. She scores above normal in everything else,” Opal said.

  “That’s good to hear,” he replied. Then he added, “It’s God’s plan. He has a plan for all of us. Sometimes we aren’t aware of what it all means, but in the end, the good and unfortunate happens for a reason. Only God knows why, and we must accept his way and believe it is for the best.”

  Secretly, I questioned God when I was alone in the privacy of my room and wondered why he thought it best for Momma to be crazy. Why didn’t he protect her from the devil? Did he think it was best for people like Opal’s mother and father to drown in the frigid waters off the coast of Nova Scotia? And how could I believe that God wanted Elizabeth never to hear her mother’s voice or her brothers’ laughter? I didn’t know what to think and believed the answers to my questions would come later. I feared all the mysteries of life would unravel and swallow me into a world of darkness, not unlike the cold, dark bottom of the unforgiving sea.

  Needing to put my cynicism aside for the sake of others, I worked hard to learn the sign language that would help Elizabeth communicate with us. Heath and I competed to see who could learn the most signs in a week.

  Heath learned many of the signs, but I remembered more.

  During our time off from school during our third summer on Jasper Island, Heath and I took Elizabeth down to the shore and taught her signs under the warm June sun. She loved to see the vessels out on the water; she enjoyed running up to the waves and allowing the chilly water to touch her toes. Down by the shore, there were many things to teach her how to sign. I recalled the first time she saw a whale. She couldn’t hear them come up for air, but she saw them surface and blow the water high out of their blowholes. She was very observant, and knew when she pointed something out Heath and I would teach her the sign for it. Heath, Elizabeth, and I were inseparable all summer long. We spent so many days at the beach that our faces turned bronze and our hair was sun-kissed. Heath’s hair was so light blond that it made his blue eyes stand out against his tan skin.

  Ayden didn’t want any part of teaching his little sister; in fact, he stayed far away from us. He spent most of his free time up at the light tower, being taught everything there was to know about manning the light.

  By the end of the summer, Elizabeth had learned twenty signs. I hated leaving her and going to school each morning. Opal would stand up at the bluff while Heath rowed us out to school, and try to have her sign goodbye, but Elizabeth only buried her little head against Opal’s shoulder because she was sad to see us go. It was the opposite when we returned to the island after school. Then she signed and greeted us with big smiles and dozens of kisses from the same spot we left her that morning.

  Opal handed her over to me then returned to the house. Ayden would hurry off without greeting Elizabeth. Heath hadn’t noticed his brother’s indifference towards her, but Elizabeth was aware. It troubled me to see her long for kisses and brotherly affection from Ayden. After all, she was the most irresistible little child; her blue eyes and adorable dimples always brought me a smile and warmed my heart.

  Every time I approached Ayden to talk about his feelings towards his baby sister, to try and convince him to spend time with her and learn to communicate using sign language, there was always some kind of interruption. Most were minor, until one fateful night. It was late, and Ayden was walking back to his house from the fog signal house after helping Daddy make some minor repairs on the structure. I came out into the chilly fall night to talk with him, when I heard Momma screaming in her bedroom. We all heard her.

  “Go get Daddy,” I told Ayden in a panic and rushed inside to see what was happening.

  I fumbled with the key from my dress pocket, but my hands shook so from the fright of her screams that I couldn’t grab hold of it.
Daddy rushed up behind me, reached in, and pulled it out. Daddy pushed the door open, and there was Momma, lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

  “Dear God,” Daddy gasped, and fell down to her. She was no longer screaming, but moaning. She moaned, and her eyes glazed over and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Amelia, what happened?” he asked, speaking to her as if she were somehow going to be able to explain her injury.

  “Lillian, go get Edward. Tell him to hurry!”

  “I’ll go,” Ayden said, and sped off.

  I stood back and watched Daddy try to soothe her pain. He was afraid to move her; he couldn’t see where the blood was coming from, but it was everywhere. The sight made me cry; the blood made my stomach turn.

  Edward arrived, but stopped in his tracks at the doorway.

  “What’s going on?” he gasped.

  “We have to get her to the doctor. Help me,” Daddy said. I was paralyzed by the shocking sight.

  “Lillian, get the blanket from the bed!”

  Ayden, who had returned with Edward, passed me and did what Daddy asked. They wrapped Momma up and carried her off. Heath arrived just as Daddy and Edward left.

  “Are you okay, Lillian?” he asked, glancing down at the floor where all the blood was. Then he said to Ayden, “Go get Mother. She can clean this up.”

  Heath took my arm and brought me to my room. Then all my terror flooded out in uncontrollable sobs, and I fell into Heath’s arms. Heath hushed me, as he did when Elizabeth had fallen or woken from a scary dream that left her trembling, silent cries escaping her tiny mouth.

  “It’s going to be all right. Whatever is wrong with your momma, the doctor can fix,” he said in a quiet voice, stroking my hair. I grabbed onto him as if he was the only thing keeping me from drowning in my own fears. For the first time, I realized that she might really die. It wasn’t the same as when she jumped off the cliff. I knew Daddy and Heath would save her life. This time it was different, much different. We didn’t know why she had fallen to the floor or why she was so covered in blood. There was so much blood.

  Heath didn’t have to say a word to me; his arms around me were enough to hold me up and keep me safe.

  The sound of Opal and Ayden carrying buckets of water up the stairs caused Heath to pull away. His eyes were filled with concern for me, and for a short time, I thought I saw something more; I thought it was love. However, when he stepped back and said, “Get some sleep, kid,” I knew that his compassion came from his love for me as a friend, and nothing more. It would never be more, because he would always be years older. And although I thought I wanted more from Heath, it felt good just to have him there, holding me as a friend, and telling me everything would be all right. But to my dismay, it wouldn’t be all right. My life was about to take a new path, and I would be forced to a place that one day would put all the mysteries of the past and present together and give me the

  answers to Momma’s years of impenetrable madness.

  _______________

  Chapter Twelve

  Momma’s screams and moans of pain didn’t come from some mysterious illness that left her in a pool of her own blood, but from plunging a letter opener into her stomach. Momma had once again tried to kill herself. The doctor stitched her up and told Daddy what he feared most. Daddy was devastated, but he had no choice but to send Momma away to an asylum. She didn’t return to Jasper Island before Daddy took her on the long railway trip to Indianapolis; I never got a chance to say goodbye. With Momma gone, I was left with a permanent ache in my heart that I believed would never go away. If it weren’t for the Daltons’ love, I would have had no choice but to wither away and die. Daddy was gone for nearly three weeks, and they kept me close, insisting I stay with them and sleep in their house. It was Elizabeth’s need for my attention and companionship that kept my heart from breaking into a hundred pieces.

  While the early winter raged on and we were kept locked on the island, I was able to keep my sadness down and spend all of my time on her. Even Ayden had come around slightly, with my encouragement, and welcomed me to teach him some signs. He loved his baby sister, and it became apparent that what kept him away was his fear of learning how to sign. He lacked confidence. It didn’t take long to convince him it wasn’t as hard as it appeared. I was impressed by how quickly Ayden caught on, how much he studied, and in the end, he could sign with Elizabeth as good as Heath and I.

  On many stormy days, Heath, Ayden, and I would sit by the fire and play with her. I was fortunate enough to have a place that took my mind off Momma. Daddy wasn’t as lucky. He struggled to get out of bed and make his way up to the light tower each night. He had aged considerably since Momma left. His hair had turned completely white. His eyes were always sad, his expression forlorn; his heart was heavy and full of anguish. I heard him cry when he thought he was alone. He attempted to keep his suffering closed up and to himself; he withdrew until he could no longer handle the emotional torment. Then I began to smell stuff on Daddy’s breath like the sailors who frequented the taverns. He only went to the mainland once a week, if the weather permitted, but all winter long, Daddy always smelled like that. His personality changed, too. He stopped crying, and even laughed more often than not. But his duties as lighthouse keeper suffered. He often forgot to wake to light the lamp when the darkness of night approached. Edward began to fill Daddy’s shoes, and I could see he was not pleased about it. He was always mumbling under his breath, saying something about Daddy that I struggled to make out. I didn’t want Daddy to be in trouble with Edward, and did all I could to wake him. Almost every evening, I would steal quietly into his room, light the lamp, and try to bring him out of his deep sleep.

  “Daddy, it’s time to light the lamp in the tower,” I said, shaking him lightly. It always took me nearly a half-hour to get him to finally rise from bed. He never changed out of his uniform, and it was wrinkled and in dire need of a wash.

  “I’m up; I’m up,” he would say and push me away. Then he would stagger out of the room, and before going up to the light tower, first make a trip to the fog signal house. I couldn’t understand why he went there every evening—even when there was no need, when there was no fog.

  One night, when he was up in the tower, I went to see what brought him there. I saw the bottle right away; he didn’t try and hide it. The bottle of rum was half empty, and five other empty bottles were stacked in a pile near the corner. Daddy was drinking his loss away. Angry, I took what was left and poured it out onto the floor. After that, I didn’t know what to do. I was sure Edward knew Daddy was drinking, and I was more than aware that Daddy could lose his position. Alcohol was absolutely forbidden on lighthouse premises. It was all falling apart, our whole life on Jasper Island. It was so unexpected. I recalled when we first arrived—the hope and promise of a better life. I believed we were sure to find everlasting happiness on the new island, but it turned into just the opposite for us.

  Momma was far away, locked up in an asylum, Daddy had turned into a drunk, and I was left to try and sustain what we had left. I was afraid to go to Opal; I was ashamed of my family. She had done so much for us already. There was no way she was going to be empathetic to Daddy now that he was drinking. Ayden I wasn’t sure I could trust with that information. I was too ashamed to tell Heath. My only hope was that I could keep Daddy’s drinking problem a secret and bear the burden of protecting what was left of my family’s good name.

  By the spring, nothing had changed except for the weather. I worked hard to keep Daddy straight and poured out as many of his bottles as I could. Eventually he figured out, through one of his many drunken stupors, that someone was touching his secret stash. Daddy for one minute didn’t think it was me, and instead staggered over to the Daltons’ house and hollered for Ayden. Daddy thought Ayden was pouring his rum out.

  “Ayden Dalton, I want to talk to you, boy,” Daddy commanded.

  Opal hurried out of the kitchen. “Garrett, what is it?”

  “Your
boy has been touching my things!”

  I was sitting with Elizabeth by the windows, reading a book. She was aware of Daddy’s anger and hid her face in my long hair.

  “Who has been touching your things?” Opal asked, wiping her wet hands on her apron.

  “Ayden. Now get him down here,” Daddy demanded. Edward and Heath walked in the front door, and Daddy stumbled aside as Ayden appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Daddy lunged forward after Ayden, but he tripped on the first step and crashed to the floor. I gently set Elizabeth aside and ran to help him up, but not before Edward grabbed hold of Daddy, picked him up by the back of his uniform, and threw him outside. Daddy fell onto the ground then fumbled around, trying to get up.

  “Get up, you drunken fool,” Edward shouted.

  “Leave him be, Edward; he doesn’t know what he is doing,” Opal said, and pulled Edward back before he laid a punch into Daddy.

  “He knows exactly what he is doing. Now go back to your house and sleep it off. I will man the light tonight. Don’t you ever come to my house like that again,” Edward warned. “Do you understand me, Garrett?”

  Heath saw me heading to help Daddy, and shook his head. “Leave him be, Lillian; he needs to go to sleep.”

  I looked at Heath and saw his pity. I was humiliated, embarrassed, and wanted nothing more than to run and hide. Heath called after me, but I didn’t stop. I ran down to the boathouse and climbed into the first rowboat. I needed to escape the island, get far enough away that I wouldn’t have to face what Heath and the others knew for certain. I could no longer hide it. The Arringtons were full of sin and madness, and I was certain people like the Daltons didn’t want to be linked with us.