Lighthouse Beach

by Shelley Noble

  “I noticed that,” Jess said. “There’s that old television in the corner but no cable. So you can forget Netflix.”

  Diana strode across the room, opened the cabinet below the television. “Oh great. An ancient DVD player to go with the ancient TV covered with dust and not one damn DVD.”

  “That’s so weird. We used to watch movies all the time.”

  “You still do,” Diana reminded her.

  “I know. Total escapism.” Jess sighed. “But can you blame me?”

  “No. But I’m beginning to understand. Maybe they’re in the unused bedroom.”

  The three of them looked at the closed door of the bedroom.

  “I’m not sure we should go in without asking,” Allie said.

  “Why not?” asked Jess. “That’s where she got the wineglasses from.”

  “And I have a hankering to see that Horse Whisperer movie,” Diana said.

  “Yep,” Allie said. “She’s got it bad.”

  “I’m sure she would have it,” Jess said. “It was our favorite. About overcoming adversity. And it was Robert Redford. A young Robert Redford.”

  “That settles it.” Diana walked over to the door of the bedroom, turned the knob, and opened the door. “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Jess hurried over, Allie right behind her.

  They crowded behind Diana and peered inside.

  “It’s like hoarder city in there,” Allie said.

  “It is.” Diana would have never taken Lillo for a closet hoarder, the rest of the cottage was very orderly and not overfurnished. There were no stacks of old newspapers, no boxes of parts of things that would never work, but inside this room was a mountain of stuff.

  She could see a bed beneath cardboard boxes, some neatly taped and stacked, some open and shapeless, filled with castoffs.

  Jess and Allie nudged her inside. Diana didn’t really want to go; she was feeling a little sick. There were bookshelves crammed with books and other stuff, a closet whose door wouldn’t close. It was packed with dresses and suits. Good quality, Diana could see even from where she stood. So why had Lillo had to borrow clothes for the wedding?

  “Look at this,” Jess said, peering into one of the boxes.

  Diana and Jess joined her.

  “They’re medical books,” Jess said, barely above a whisper.

  “She said she’d planned to go to medical school but it hadn’t worked out.” Jess pulled out a red leather folder. Opened it. “She didn’t just plan to go to med school. She graduated with honors.” She looked at the others. “I don’t understand. Why isn’t she practicing?”

  Jess closed the folder and placed it back in the box. “I think maybe we should leave.”

  “Too late now,” Diana said. “There’s no way we can pretend we didn’t see this. I mean, I can get pretty messy and I’ve been known to let my shoes pile up in the bottom of the closet, but this isn’t normal. It’s like she dumped everything in here and never touched it again. Look at the dust.”

  “And the damp,” Allie added. “It’s like a dead room.”

  “Or like somebody whose life is permanently on hold.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Jess said. “You’re just being gothic. There’s probably a perfectly good reason. She moved back and didn’t have time to unpack.”

  “Jess, she said she’d been back a year or more.” Diana looked around the room. Definitely gothic. “And what the hell is that stack of boxes? They look like—”

  “—presents,” Allie finished.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Jess said. “Why would anyone get presents, then just leave them in the boxes?”

  “Maybe because of this.” Diana lifted a poster away from the wall. It was an enlarged photograph, printed on foam board. She’d seen one like it not too long ago. At Jess’s engagement party. A photo of the happy couple that everyone signed with their best wishes. And a big printed happily ever after kyle and lillo across the top.

  “Oh my God,” Jess said. “That’s Lillo.”

  “That about covers it,” Diana agreed. “Good-looking guy.” And Lillo looked … glowing. It was the only word for it.

  “But Lillo isn’t married,” Allie said.

  “Guess it didn’t work out. Some of us should know about that.” Diana eyed Jess.

  Jess leaned in to get a better look. “She didn’t say a thing about it.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to rain on your parade,” Diana said. “And then … maybe it just didn’t come up.”

  “And she didn’t return the presents?” Allie said. “That’s odd.”

  “And not like Lillo,” Jess said. “She must be devastated.”

  “Or thanking her lucky stars.”

  “Diana, you don’t mean that.”

  Diana shrugged. She didn’t know what to believe.

  Jess sniffed. “Here she is taking us into her home after a broken engagement, and I didn’t even sense something was wrong. I’ve been totally self-absorbed.”

  “I have, too,” Allie said.

  Diana gave it up. “Okay, me three. But it really isn’t our business unless she wants to share. Besides, I see the DVDs.” They’d been hiding behind that damn engagement poster.

  Allie grabbed Diana’s arm. “If we bring them out, she’ll know we saw this.”

  “She’s going to know anyway. It’s not like we can pretend we didn’t see any of it. We’re going to have to fess up. But until then, Jess, see if you can find the damn movie.”

  Jess squeezed past them to look through the pile of DVDs. “It’s right on top.” Her voice cracked. “She probably brought it out to watch, all alone.”

  “Stop it. Let’s get out of here.”

  The three of them reached the door at the same time and squeezed through.

  “Like three sardines.” Diana shut the door behind them. “That would have been laughable if it wasn’t so pitiful. Put in this movie, and it better be worth it.” She pulled one of the chairs around to face the screen.

  Jess turned on the television. “It is.” She opened the cover. “You’ll be crying ten minutes into it, so don’t diss it.” She looked over her shoulder. “Chairs, please.”

  “You sure you know how to work that thing?”

  “Some people still use DVD players,” Allie said.

  “Luddites,” Diana groused.

  Jess fumbled with the controls of the DVD player. “Can somebody turn on a light? I can’t even see what’s what in the gloom.” The tray opened. “Never mind. Got it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Diana said. “Watch what you’re doing or you’ll drop it and step on it and then where will we be?”

  Jess popped the DVD into the disc holder, pressed the button to close it. “See. It all came back to me in a flash. Like riding a bicycle.”

  Diana and Jess moved the writing table out of the way and pulled over two more chairs while Jess fiddled with the connections.

  “Stupid place for a media center,” Diana said.

  “Something tells me Lillo doesn’t watch television at all.”

  The screen brightened, turned blue.

  “There’s no remote,” Jess said, and leaned over the player to press play. “Now, no snark,” she demanded, and sat down between Diana and Allie. “I wish we had popcorn.”

  After several seconds of black, the movie started. It only took a few seconds for Diana to realize it had nothing to do with horses or handsome men. It wasn’t even a movie.

  It was a homemade video—a party—an engagement party with Lillo and the man on the poster, Kyle, opening presents, laughing and kissing and everyone having a great time.

  Diana could do nothing but watch. Like the proverbial train wreck, and she knew when this one hit, it was going to be nasty—still, she didn’t get up to turn it off.

  “This isn’t the movie,” Allie breathed.

  “They look so happy,” Jess said. “What could have gone wrong?”

  “We shouldn’t be watching.”

 
But no one got up to turn it off.

  And then it was too late.

  The door opened. A gust of rain and wind blew in—and along with it, Lillo. The other three froze, the party video playing behind them. The door shut. Lillo had stopped inside the entryway, shucking off rain gear. Then she really stopped, stared past them to the TV screen.

  Jess found her voice first. “We didn’t know, I swear. We were looking for The Horse Whisperer. We thought it might be in the storeroom. We didn’t mean to snoop.”

  “It’s true,” Allie said. “We just wanted to watch the movie. It was in the Horse Whisperer case; we didn’t notice until it started playing.”

  Jess stood and turned toward Lillo. “We’re so sorry.”

  Lillo shook her head.

  “You didn’t get married.”

  Lillo just shook her head.

  “What happened?”

  Lillo looked from one to the other. Took a shuddering breath. “I killed him.”

  When Lillo hadn’t shown up by eleven o’clock, Ned knew she wasn’t coming. But he held out hope for another couple of hours. Then he got mad.

  “She’s a selfish, self-involved, stubborn—”

  Clancy handed him a sandwich. “Doesn’t do any good to be pissed off.”

  They were breaking for lunch. It had been the first thing Clancy did on his return: close the clinic from one to two for lunch.

  “Then what will do some good?” Ned unwrapped the sandwich. “What’s this?”

  “Mac’s chicken cacciatore BLT. You should have come over last night.”

  He should have, but he’d been too riled up. Lillo was really getting to him this trip. “How long can she keep up this stupid self-imposed exile? It’s stupid.”

  “So you said.”

  “And counterproductive.”

  “Goes without saying.”

  “Can’t you do something?”

  “I’ve tried. Like you said. She’s stubborn. And she’s still hurting.”

  “I get that. I do. It’s just like she won’t let herself move on. She was rocking it the day she came to help out. Then zip, nada.”

  “Maybe she realized she liked it too much.”

  “Then she should go back to it.”

  “Well, you can’t force her into it. And we have patients to see. I’ll take the next one; you finish your sandwich.”

  Ned finished his sandwich wondering if he would ever be as accepting and even-tempered as Clancy. It was great for instilling a sense of safety in your patients. Ned was pretty good with his patients, but it was like all the goodness in his bedside manner tended to go south in his personal life, when his impatience and temper took over.

  He went down the hall to tell Agnes he was ready for the next patient.

  She called out Will Clayton and his sons. It was time for the boys’ annual checkup. Tommy, eleven, the town hellion and his brother Alex, eight-year-old hellion-in-training. No wonder Clancy had been willing to take the first appointment.

  Will Clayton came into the exam room, dragging Alex. There was no sign of Tommy.

  “I don’t wanna!”

  “Hush up, now. You just be polite and say hello to the doc.”

  Ned had known Will for years. A single father who worked two jobs off island. That left his boys a lot of time to get into trouble, and get in it they did. He was tempted to say something about Tommy’s attacks on Bobby and Joey Trader, but he knew it would go nowhere. Will was barely keeping his head above water.

  Today he looked like he might drown.

  “Couldn’t find his brother anywhere. I just hope he’s not down at the marina in this weather. He just can’t get enough of them boats.”

  “Is Tommy down by the boats, Alex?” Ned tried.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Probably knew he needed his DTP booster,” Ned said. “Climb up on the table.”

  “Nooo! I don’t wanna shot!”

  Will grabbed him as he tried to slide to the floor.

  “And you’re not going to get one. But I do have to prick your finger.”

  Will kept hold of him while Ned examined him. Nothing untoward showed up on the cursory examination. He probably had iron, vitamin D, and a few other deficiencies. Ned would prescribe vitamins and the father would either forget to buy them or he’d buy them and they’d forget to take them. But barring any serious illness, they’d muddle through.

  Ned checked the boy’s heartbeat, his blood pressure, his reflexes. He took blood. He’d given up trying to get kids to pee in a cup.

  “All right, you’re done.”

  “I wanna sucker.”

  “Alex,” his father admonished. “Sorry, Doc, just can’t seem to drum any manners into neither of them.”

  “You do the best you can. Alex, if you ask Ms. Agnes very nicely, she might give you one.”

  Alex slid off the table and pulled his father toward the door.

  Will held back. “You go over there by the door and wait for me,” he said. “I need to talk to Doc Hartley for a minute.”

  Alex stuck out his bottom lip, but he went to the door and stood facing it, resting his forehead against the wood.

  Ned wondered if he spent a lot of time with his face to the wall. Ned would have used more drastic tactics. Though he wasn’t sure what. He wasn’t planning on having any of the little buggers himself.

  “I’m at my wit’s end with these two. They’re out of control and I know it. People are always complaining about them. Alex over there is only eight, how can an eight-year-old get into so much trouble?”

  By following in the footsteps of his eleven-year-old brother, Ned thought, but he wouldn’t say it. He knew Will was doing what he could do and didn’t have the family or the county services he needed to make ends meet and raise two healthy, well-behaved boys.

  “You don’t have anybody who could watch them while you’re at work? They’ve just got too much time on their hands.”

  “Don’t I know it and idle hands are the devil’s—”

  “Have you talked with Sada over at the community center?”

  “I did, but there’s only her most days. And they pick on the other kids and she told me not to bring them back until they learned to behave.”

  Will’s shoulders slumped. “They don’t even want to go back there. And I can’t trust them not to get in trouble. My own flesh and blood. And don’t go tellin’ me to get a wife. Won’t no woman look at me twice when she knows I have these two.”

  Ned couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t think a wife is necessarily the answer to your situation.” Though at this point it couldn’t hurt. “Boys need a routine. They’re better during the school year. Right?”

  “A little, but even there it’s gettin’ worse. They’re good boys, just took a wrong turn somewhere. I’d stay home with ’em if I could, but somebody’s got to earn a living.”

  “Let me think about it. Maybe Sada can enlist some guys to play ball with the kids or something.” God knew there were plenty of retired and unemployed old geezers who could oversee a few kids. But getting them to do it was a whole different ball game.

  He passed Clancy in the hall as he was walking Will and Alex back to the waiting room. Clancy nodded at Will and rolled his eyes at Ned as he passed by.

  Ned left the two Claytons in Agnes’s capable hands and took the next patient.

  Maybe Lillo could help Sada out with the kids, put her in charge of games and finger painting. He smiled with satisfaction. If that didn’t drive her back to medicine, nothing would.

  Lillo wanted to push past the three women who were staring at her in horror, in disbelief. Rip the DVD out of the machine and throw it into the ocean. But it was one of her few testaments to a happier time. She’d stored it in that movie case because she thought it would be safe there. Away from prying eyes when she still lived in her apartment, when she still had friends and colleagues, before their sympathy and support turned to questioning, then to suspicion. Before they pulled away
and avoided her at the hospital.

  But Lillo had known this could happen. Maybe she welcomed the discovery, just to feel something besides a dull familiar ache for whatever she used to be. Once she’d said yes to their flight from Jess’s wedding, let them stay at her cottage, it had probably been inevitable.

  She’d seen the same look on her friends’ faces before. That initial horror. And she could predict exactly what would happen with her houseguests, too. They’d want to hear her story, and she would have to tell them because it was stupid not to. They’d sympathize, tell her it wasn’t her fault. But their sympathy wouldn’t last, and just like the others, their curiosity would change to doubt, their compassion to contempt. The distancing, the looks and whispers, the hurrying past would start all over again and nothing would ever change.

  She might as well send them packing now. Except the rain was still coming down—not as heavily as before, but it would be a while before it cleared up. And someone would have to drive them somewhere to get a rental car.

  In the meantime, she might as well get the whole sordid thing over with, and then she’d burn the contents of that godforsaken room. She should have done it a year ago. She should never have brought any of it back in the first place.

  Jess was the first one to move. She stepped toward Lillo then stopped.

  And Lillo’s heart, what was left of it, broke. She turned and ran blindly for the door. She didn’t know where she’d go. To Mac’s? Wait it out until they figured out how to leave? But Mac wouldn’t help her, wouldn’t make them leave.

  Back to Ian’s? If only she could go back to that house and start again. Make different choices. Stay on the island and run the camp like her parents did before her. Like they’d hoped she would do. Until it finally gasped its last breath and succumbed completely to the rich Ivy League camp down the road.

  Back to before she left for Jess’s wedding? If she’d refused to go, she’d be waiting the rain out, with only one thought, wondering if the tomato stakes would hold. But that wasn’t true, was it? She never had just one thought. Wherever she was, whatever she was thinking or doing, there was always, always, the underlying knowledge of the lives she’d destroyed, including her own.

  She turned the knob, yanked the door open only to have it slam shut again.