The Lighthouse Chapter 20

Chapter TWENTY:

Kristen went up the steps slowly, taking care to make sure her foot landed solidly on each stair before committing her weight to it. She carried a box that didn’t contain very many items, but she needed some fresh air. The second-floor bedrooms in the lighthouse had been filled with people all day, including Alice’s twins.

Kristen smiled just thinking about them. Ginny was a spitting image of her mother, while Charlie had obviously taken some parts from Alice’s husband. No matter what, Alice had trained them well, and they’d worked all morning without complaint, their manners impeccable.

AJ had treated everyone to lunch, which they’d taken outside to a picnic area down the hill a little bit. Kristen hadn’t been down there for a long time, as she usually only went with Joel and he hadn’t been able to traverse the rocks surrounding the lighthouse for some time now.

The wooden picnic table still sat there, proudly overlooking the water that stretched for miles in every direction. At that point on Diamond Island, none of the other islands in the cove could be seen, as they all lay to the west, behind the point.

She pushed open the door and took a deep breath of the island air. She couldn’t wait until this week was over. She loved having her girls back in town, and the tender way they attended to her needs reminded her of how much she was loved, even without Joel at her side.

For a day or two there, Kristen had forgotten how to breathe. Every now and again, the feeling returned, and she’d stop whatever she was doing and just stare. Seconds, minutes, or hours later—she didn’t know how long—she’d come back to herself and realize the world had kept moving after Joel had taken his last breath.

She needed to keep moving too.

Sighing, she turned and went down the sidewalk that circumvented the lighthouse as well as led down to the parking lot. Only six stalls, the lot hardly ever saw visitors. Maybe a teenage couple or two every so often, as they wanted to come stand in the bright light of the lighthouse as they held hands or shared their first kiss.

The stories around the islands included the lighthouse and kissing under the bright beam as she guided seamen back to safety. Kristen smiled at the memories, at the tales that the kids told to one another and passed down to their children.

She’d first kissed Joel under the beam of the lighthouse, and the rumor went that if one did that, they’d have a lifetime of happiness with the person with whom they’d shared the kiss.

As she lifted the box over the top of the Dumpster and let it fall on top of the other trash she and the girls had been cleaning out of the cottage and the lighthouse, Kristen wondered if she had gotten her lifetime of happiness with Joel.

Until she’d found that blue piece of paper stuck partially under those books, she would’ve said yes. Even now, her heart beat to a rhythm that only he’d been able to understand. When she thought of that letter, of the deed in the folder now under her mattress in the cottage, of Eloise’s test scores, then her heart would stop for a moment. A minute. An hour.

She didn’t know how long.

What she knew was that when her heart restarted, it hurt in a way she’d never known before.

As she stood beside the Dumpster, the sun shining overhead, and the distant sound of waves crashing against the cliffs, Kristen tipped her head back and looked into the sky. A brilliant blue laid the perfect background for the puffy clouds moving east, out to sea. The wind chased them, and she caught a couple of birds hitching a ride on the currents.

A smile touched her mouth, and she wasn’t even sure why. She normally loved the night sky, with her mistress the moon. She loved thinking of the stars as guarding those out on ships, and when they couldn’t provide the way the sailors should go, the lighthouse always could.

The lighthouse had always been able to point Kristen in the right direction too. She turned to face it, admiring the five stories that extended above the ground, the point of it piercing right into the blueness of the sky. Spots of grass grew around it, and as a young mother, Kristen had planted bulbs that came up in the spring to add life to the mostly rocky land. Joel had put in a new rose bush every year for many in a row. Reuben hadn’t done anything to change the landscape, so the roses endured, but the tulips and daffodils were long gone.

Kristen felt like so much in her life had gone…just gone. Passed by. Ended.

The sound of a car coming up the road to the parking lot met her ears, and she watched as a truck appeared, the sun gleaming off the dark red paint. Alice’s father drove, and he hadn’t even fully pulled into a spot before Kristen heard voices behind her.

She found Ginny and Charlie walking down the sidewalk, Alice holding onto the door that led into the lighthouse, a smile on her face. She lifted her hand in a wave to her father, and Ginny and Charlie got in the back seat of the truck.

No one appeared to have noticed her, standing there beside the Dumpster, and Kristen wondered if that indicated the future she had to look forward to. She knew from personal experience that life went on. People died. She’d had friends whose spouses had passed away, and the whole island had gone into mourning. They’d filled the seats at the funeral, and brought flowers to the ancient graveyard that sat on the rise near the middle of the island.

And after that…gone. Just gone.

She’d have to cling to her cottage, her son, her daughter, the lighthouse, and her girls.

The thought of her girls brought a cleansing breath to her lungs, and as Connor Williams pulled out, he suddenly stopped too. The passenger window rolled down and he said, “How are you holding up, Kristen?”

She blinked, seeing a different version of this man when she’d taken the ferry to Rocky Ridge to implore him to please take care of Alice. She’d seen those light brown eyes that Alice had inherited staring back at her, rimmed with red. His agony had been complete, and Kristen thought she had harder days ahead than she realized.

“I’m doing okay,” she said.

“Please call me if you need anything,” he said, and she didn’t doubt his sincerity.

“I will.” She waved at him, Della, and the children, and the red truck left the parking lot. After her visit to Connor, he had sobered up, at least in the evenings. He’d made sure his daughter and son had what they needed for school, and he’d kept his job with the Coast Guard. When he’d retired from that, he’d taken up shrimping with his vast knowledge of boats and the sea.

He’d survived.

Kristen would too.

Armed with this belief, she turned toward the path that led back to the cottage. She didn’t want to live the rest of her days with regrets, which she now knew Joel had done. They hadn’t been strong enough for him to reveal his secrets while he was alive, and Kristen wanted to be stronger than him.

Stronger than a secret.

Her legs shook as she went down the path, her mind zipping from one thing to another. She wanted to pause against the side of the cottage and throw up, but she continued inside. The living room had been completely cleaned out so all that remained was a single couch, which faced the TV on a single cabinet. Her beloved bench, which she’d had sitting on the east side of the lighthouse so she could sit there without having to climb the flights of stairs to the upper deck, had been put in front of the window.

Gone were the bookshelves, the end tables, the stacks of papers, files, folders, books, and magazines. Gone was the clutter. Gone were the several pairs of shoes always threatening to trip her as she came or went from the house.

The pictures on the wall were yellowed with age, some going back a couple of generations. They showed the keepers of the lighthouse, and Kristen felt a strong pull toward them, like a planet’s need to go toward the sun.

She paused in front of them, seeing her grandmother and grandfather, both Diamond Island residents. They’d bought the lighthouse years and years ago, and it had been in her family for four generations now.

Reaching out, she touched the edge of the frame with Grandmother Rose’s picture in it, her eyes wise and knowing, her smile not present. “I’m trying,” Kristen said, the thought of losing the lighthouse almost worse than it had been losing Joel.

In that moment, she thought she knew exactly how Guy Watkins had felt when he lost his glassblowing shop. She faced the hallway that led down to the two bedrooms, one completely empty now, save for Joel’s desk and chair. But the desk too had been emptied, and Kristen thought she might take it outside and paint it. Next week, after everyone had gone back to their regular lives.

After all, she needed something to go back to as well, and she’d always liked painting furniture. Sprucing it up and making it into something new and different. Maybe she’d help Reuben with the whitewashing of the lighthouse too, at least the lower areas she could reach without having to climb a ladder.

She went down the hall and turned into her bedroom. Her phone chimed, and she knew if she didn’t respond to whoever had texted, the girls would come find her.

She didn’t want that. She wanted to take them up to the upper deck and give Kelli the folder. Try to explain, if possible. And offer to sign the business back over to her or her mother. She couldn’t make it one-hundred percent right, because Guy Watkins had died about the same time Joel had been diagnosed with cancer.

And still, he’d said nothing.

Kristen’s anger grew as she bent to retrieve the folder from underneath her mattress. With it securely in her hand, she pulled out her phone to find Robin had texted to ask where she’d gone.

Tucking the folder under her arm, Kristen then used both hands to quickly send a text to all of her girls. Can we meet on the upper deck? Ten minutes?

Her throat narrowed, and she told herself this needed to be done. Kelli deserved to know. Besides, what was Kristen going to do with an old, shut-down glassblowing studio? Even if she had use for it, she’d give it back. The Watkins family deserved that.

With all the confirmations in place, Kristen took one more breath and went to meet her girls in the safest place she could think of—the lighthouse.

Huffing and puffing, she paused on the landing just before the door that led outside. It had been left open a couple of inches, and she could hear the five of them talking on the deck. Oh how she loved their voices. She loved that they’d come back to Five Island Cove for her—for her—and that their bond seemed to be as strong as ever.

She stepped out onto the deck, and Robin said, “There she is.”

Everyone faced her, and Kristen’s chest collapsed in on itself. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t cause any more grief for Kelli, who had seemed quieter than usual today.

“What’s going on?” Alice asked, standing next to Robin. She folded her arms, and Kristen thought the woman might blow away with a stiff wind coming off the water.

She couldn’t speak, so she held out the folder.

“What’s that?” Robin asked. No one moved. No one spoke. Pure terror moved through Kristen, and tears gathered in her eyes.

Alice swore softly under her breath and stepped forward, practically ripping the folder from Kristen’s fingers. AJ held her gaze for a moment, but everyone else followed the movement of the folder, and then they all gathered around Alice.

Kristen told herself to breathe. That this secret couldn’t be buried beneath her mattress until the day she died. She’d seen Robin’s face, and Alice’s eyes, and Eloise’s disbelief when the first secrets were revealed.

She knew that when she died, her girls would come to clean out the cottage. She couldn’t do to them what Joel had done to them all, and she wouldn’t leave that folder there for them to find after she’d gone.

She blinked, wondering how much time she’d lost standing on the deck. Slowly, Alice looked up from the folder.

Robin’s head still bent over it, and Eloise reached toward the paper inside in slow, slow, slow motion.

The silence broke with the words, “Kelli, it’s the deed to your dad’s glassblowing shop.”

The sky she loved so much broke.

Her heart broke.

The siren in Kristen’s head sounded, and she let the tears fall down her face.