The Lighthouse Chapter 16

Chapter SIXTEEN:

Kristen carried the plate of blueberry muffins up the path and over the slight rise in the rocks, feeling a bit better that morning. The girls would be arriving a little late today, and Kristen had decided to take the muffins she’d made when she couldn’t sleep that morning to her son. That way, Robin wouldn’t feel bad for not being there to eat them, and she’d get a chance to talk to Reuben.

Her mother’s heart had never been so full of worry, and her hands shook slightly as she crested the rise in the path and started down the other side. The sun shone down on this place where she’d lived for so many years of her life. She could see the milestones etched on the rocks at her feet, each crack and vein of color in them as familiar to Kristen as her own hands.

She could hear Reuben’s first word, see him take his first step, smell the baby soft powder of him when she’d first brought him home from the hospital. A smile accompanied her all the way to the navy blue back door, where she raised her free hand and knocked.

“Coming,” her son said from inside, and she heard his footsteps on the stairs immediately inside the door. She knew every one of those too, to the fourth one that was slightly higher than the others, to the last one that got very slippery whenever it rained.

The door opened, and her boy stood there, leaning into the frame and looking from her to the muffins in her hand.

“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.

“No.” He stepped down. “Come on in.”

“I think you should know I’m going to ask you about Jean. If you don’t want to answer, you can take the muffins and go. I’ll go sit on the deck.” Just inside the door, she could go up or down, and while the stairs were steep, Kristen could still get to the deck in only a couple of minutes.

“It’s fine,” Reuben said coolly, and he reminded her so much of Joel though he had her pointed chin and her hazel eyes above the shape of his father’s long, slanted nose. His hair color sat somewhere between Joel’s and Kristen’s, and he’d let it grow out enough to have it curl along the ends.

“All right then.” She stepped into the lighthouse, the familiar scent of glass cleaner and polish mixing with the coffee Reuben had obviously already started. “I’ll give you a head start to think about what you want to tell me.”

He took the muffins from her, turned deftly on the stairs—something she never would’ve been able to do at her age—and started down. Twenty-five steps down, and Kristen could take them in her sleep. Reuben, thankfully, had inherited more of her minimalist personality, and the room the stairs ended in held a single couch with a simple table next to it. They both faced a cabinet with pretty seaglass green doors which bore a TV on the top.

Around the corner, Reuben set the plate of blueberry muffins on the counter and went into the small kitchen to get down a pair of mugs. “I guess you want to know if Jean is going to come back.”

“That would be a great place to start,” Kristen said, taking one of the two barstools that faced into the kitchen.

“I don’t know,” Reuben said, lifting his chin as if trying to be brave. She’d seen this hopeful, bright look in her son’s eyes before, and Kristen’s heart grew and pulsed simultaneously. He’d wanted to be the captain of the chess club too, and he’d worn such a desperate expression then too.

He’d gotten that position, and then he’d wanted to go to college, knowing that Joel and Kristen didn’t have a lot of money.

He’d asked—actually asked—if he could go and pay his own way. And he had, working two jobs to put himself through semester after semester until he’d earned a degree in architecture. He’d been working for the citifies up and down the Atlantic Seaboard for the past twenty-seven years, and he’d retired from that job to come keep the lighthouse.

Kristen loved her son with all the energy of her soul, and she couldn’t abide his obvious pain.

“When’s the last time you spoke with her?” she asked.

“Last night,” he said. “We talk every day, Mom. She just hates it here, and she doesn’t understand the significance of the lighthouse.” Reuben gave a partial shrug, like he and Jean disagreed on where to spend their summer holiday.

Kristen ran her hands along the pale countertop, the same one that had been in the lighthouse when she and Joel had lived here. She saw the red stain she’d never been able to get out, though it was so faded now that it was hardly noticeable. But Kristen could still feel the red-hot anger that had filled her heart when Clara had spilled the permanent dye on the countertop. She’d told her daughter to put down newspaper, but of course, Clara knew better than everyone, about everything, and she’d just rolled her eyes.

“Are you going to stay?” Kristen asked, accepting the cup of coffee her son gave to her.

He set a bowl of sugar and a pint of cream in front of her and leaned into the countertop. “Mom…” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I need to know,” she said, her pulse picking up now and not just from the second dose of caffeine she was giving it that day.

“I want to stay,” Reuben said, staring down into his mug. “But I love my wife too.”

Kristen nodded, because she understood the exact place where her son found himself. She’d loved Joel with everything she had. She’d given him everything. Her whole life. Two beautiful children. A life on the island he loved so much. Room to write and breathe when he needed it. All of her earnings, to keep their small family and humble surroundings theirs.

If Reuben couldn’t keep the lighthouse… Kristen cut off the thought. Someone had to run the lighthouse, and the house where she lived came with it. If she had to sell, she’d lose everything she’d ever known.

And she’d already lost so much.

Reuben rounded the counter and sat down next to her. “How are you holding up?”

She hadn’t told him about any of the secrets she and the girls had unearthed. She hadn’t seen the point, and she was still trying to iron them flat in her own mind. Then maybe she could see the kind of man her husband had really been.

Dealing with his physical death was actually the easiest part of the past week. It was the slow, painful uncovering of the truth that painted a different picture of Joel than Kristen had in her memory that had been utterly exhausting.

“I’m okay,” she reassured her son, reaching over to pat his hand. “Have you heard from your sister?”

“Nope.” He stirred his coffee and took a sip. “She’ll come around when she’s ready.”

Clara always took her sweet time getting ready, though. Kristen wasn’t sure how she’d gotten such a dramatic daughter, but Clara had cried every day of fifth grade, and she’d joined the theater company in junior high and high school.

Kristen could ask her a simple question about one of her classes, and Clara would get offended and refuse to return calls for a month. Then, when she finally did speak to Kristen, she’d admit she didn’t even know why she’d been upset.

Kristen had been through it all before, and Reuben was right. Clara would come around when she was good and ready, no matter what everyone else wanted or needed.

She sighed before she could pull back on the show of emotion. But her son didn’t say anything, and she remembered she didn’t have to guard every reaction around him the way she did her Seafaring Girls.

She loved them as much as her own biological children, but she didn’t want them worrying over her. They had their own children, families, and problems to deal with. She didn’t want to be one of them.

They sat together, mother and son, sipping coffee in the silence of the lighthouse, and Kristen finally found a measure of the peace she’d enjoyed before Joel’s cancer diagnosis. When it was time for her to go, she stood and embraced her son, glad he seemed to hold as tightly to her as she was to him.

“You’re a good man,” she whispered. “You do what you think is right.”

He stepped back and looked down at her. “Even if it means leaving the lighthouse?”

“It’s just a lighthouse.” She tried to smile, but it only stayed put for a moment before falling right off her face. She turned quickly and started for the steps, bypassing the ground-level exit and going all the way up to the deck.

Six flights definitely made her huff and puff, and she leaned into the railing and let the wind push and pull her hair as she sucked at the fresh air. Kristen didn’t make it a habit to lie, especially to her children, but she’d just told a bold lie.

This place was so much more than a lighthouse. It symbolized her entire life, and if Reuben walked away from it, it would be like he was walking away from her.

She watched the clouds roll through the sky, seeing so many memories of the past playing on the puffy surfaces. How many times had she stood here, seeking clarity? Seeking answers? Praying for her girls, and her own children?

Many. So, so many.

Below her, the water crashed into the rocks, creating a spectacular white spray that arced into the sky. Kristen smiled at it, because she loved the ocean and its antics. She loved that it was different every single day, and completely unpredictable. She loved that the lighthouse had tamed that unpredictability over and over again, and that she and Joel had led dozens, hundreds, and thousands of boats to safety.

The lighthouse was so much more than a home for her, though if that was all it was, that would be enough. Having a place to call home meant something, and she’d always been safe in the lighthouse.

She took her phone from her pocket and dialed her daughter, seeing Clara’s life in the several seconds it took for her phone to connect, ring, and go to voicemail.

“Hello, dear,” she said, her neck muscles tightening. Her throat narrowed against the emotions there, and Kristen couldn’t say anything else. In such times, every second felt too long, and she finally said, “I love you,” in a high-pitched voice that would say everything else she wanted to say to her daughter, and hung up.

She had the sudden, inexplicable urge to hurl her phone over the railing and out into the ocean. But she knew she didn’t have the strength in her arm to even get it to the water. She’d tried to throw things off the deck of the lighthouse in the past, and they’d barely reached the edge of the cliffs. Then she’d had to explain the broken, cranberry-colored pieces of pottery Joel had found and brought inside, confusion in his eyes.

She half-laughed, half-cried at the memory of that pot. When she’d told Joel that she’d found it in Clara’s room, with a Mother’s Day note attached that said cruel things, he’d held her tight and tried to reassure her that they should be grateful they had a daughter who could think for herself.

“I still don’t want that pot,” Kristen had said, and he’d quietly cleaned it up. That was what Joel had done his whole life—live quietly.

“A little too quietly,” she muttered, thinking of the things she and the girls had found in his personal and business papers. He hadn’t seemed to put a divide between them, and that only made the chore of going through his things that much harder. If she knew she was going to open a folder of receipts, perhaps her chest wouldn’t constrict with every beat of her heart. As it was, she teetered on the edge of a complete breakdown with every movement of paper, every file that got flipped open.

She stayed on the deck for another minute, and then she held tightly to both handrails in the stairwell and pushed open the door to the first subterranean level in the lighthouse.

The door had just closed behind her when Reuben opened it again. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get started,” she said.

“You’re not going to wait for your girls?” The concern on his face sparked joy in Kristen’s heart.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Where are you going?” He wore hiking boots now, along with a hat with a wide, oval brim.

“I’m going up to the electric box,” he said. “Make sure the path is clear. Bring back some supplies.”

She saw the straps of the duffel bag on his back then, and she smiled. “Okay. I’m just going to be in the spare bedroom. I won’t touch your things.”

He nodded and backed out the door. Kristen faced this space, which was like the second level of their home. Three bedrooms, one bathroom. She stood on a small, circular landing with doors leading off of it every so often.

The lighthouse had only had room for a washing machine, and that was downstairs in the kitchen. She’d hung their clothes outside to dry, and April had been the perfect month for that. She held back a sob as she remembered how many times she’d hear rain hitting the lighthouse and shout for Joel and the children to come help her gather the clothes from the line before they got too wet.

She pushed through the first door on her right and entered the spare bedroom where Joel had left some of his papers. After the children had grown and moved out, he’d slowly started to take over their rooms. This one still had all the glow-in-the-dark stars and constellations Clara had stuck to the ceiling, and Kristen let the door close behind her. She didn’t turn on the light, and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the pure blackness in the room.

Since they’d lived underground, and her kids were like other kids and afraid of thunder and the dark, Kristen had found little ways to bring light to their world. It had actually been a friend of hers that had shown her the glow-in-the-dark stars, and Kristen had ordered them instantly.

Clara had loved them, and Kristen wished she’d held onto her ten-year-old daughter for longer instead of being annoyed by her constant questions and eagerness to help with things she was too little to help with.

She flipped on the light, and all the magic of the stars fled. It took her several moments to find where they’d stopped working yesterday, and she pulled up a chair and opened a folder.

Annual report from 1989. Trash.

Another folder. Another report. Trash.

Another, another, another. Kristen worked steadily, keeping her mind busy by examining the documents. Gradually, they began to change, and she sorted through budget analyses, the bills Joel had paid to keep the land, the cottage, and the lighthouse.

She finally opened a folder that held the deed to the lighthouse, and she pulled in a breath. “Oh, Joel,” she whispered, lifting the paper with one shaking hand while the other went to cover her mouth.

A blue sticky note had been placed in the top right corner, and it read, It’s ours!

She remembered the day he’d paid the last mortgage payment for the place where they’d labored and loved for so long. They’d both cried then, and Joel had gone to town for lobster. They’d feasted that night, and Kristen allowed some of that memory to brighten her heart now too.

She set the deed to the left, the only thing she’d be keeping so far today. In the folder, another deed sat, and confusion furrowed her brows as Kristen reached for it.

They didn’t own anything else—at least to her knowledge.

Her heart thumped in her chest, the vibrations landing in her ribs, her arms, and the back of her throat.

She couldn’t read fast enough.

When she realized what she held, she gasped, her fingers releasing the paper so that it floated neatly back into the folder.

“It can’t be,” she whispered. She closed her eyes as if not being able to see the deed to Guy’s Glassworks would make it not exist.

She saw Kelli standing on the stoop, tears falling down her face. The memories played in stilted images, as if the videotape of it had been cut and spliced back together, one scene per second.

Kristen making cookies.

Kelli explaining about the divorce.

Advance time a year.

Kristen making more cookies.

Kelli crying.

Sitting on the deck, looking at the water while Kelli says her father has lost his business.

Kristen hugging her, saying that she’ll help anyway she can though she and Joel don’t have much money either.

Going to the grocery store and seeing Sharon Watkins there, working now that her husband’s art studio and custom glassworks is out of business.

Kelli in her hand-me-down clothes and shoes.

Guy Watkins getting questioned by authorities about fraud.

The rumors Kristen had heard then…

She screamed, effectively making the wicked film stop jumping through her mind. Her fingers crunched over the paper, crushing it into a ball and throwing it across the room.

Just as quickly as her emotions had exploded out of her, they calmed again. She drew in a breath, her mind trying to find a way through the misty maze she’d just entered.

That deed was for Guy’s Glassworks, and it had her name on it, right beside Joel’s.

Her name.

She felt damned.

“Kristen,” someone called, and she jumped to her feet faster than a woman her age should be able to. Robin could not see that paper. Worse, Kelli could never know.

Kristen rushed to where the crumpled ball waited, and she picked it up, flattened it, folded it, and shoved it in her pocket.

“There you are,” Robin said with a smile in her voice.

Kristen didn’t bother to brush the tears from her eyes. She wouldn’t have to explain them, and she’d rather not lie to Robin.

“Guess who I found?” Robin asked. She stepped to the side, and AJ stood there, tears already pouring down her face too.

The air left Kristen’s lungs, and all she could say was, “Oh,” before she opened her arms and AJ rushed into them.