The Lighthouse Chapter 30

Chapter THIRTY:

Kristen stood on the very edge of the rocks, the dark water in front of her invisible. She could feel the power of it, though, as it washed through her soul. The ocean possessed something unrelenting and magical, and Kristen wanted to be like the ocean.

She wanted to crash through obstacles. She wanted to continue on, no matter what challenges stood in her way. She wanted to roll through wave after wave of punches and still arrive on the shore.

She breathed in, feeling the power of the sea air fill her from top to bottom. Right now, she felt like the waves had sucked her under, and they were tossing her up and down and around. She didn’t know which way to swim to break the surface, but she knew she’d find her way.

Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next week or next month. But she’d figure out how to live in this world without Joel, and she’d learn how to accept who he was and how he was different than the man she’d believed him to be.

The lighthouse beamed into the distance, and Kristen felt like there was another one clear across the ocean, drawing her home, guiding her back to a new definition of normal.

The wind blew up the cliffs, and Kristen rubbed her hands up her jacketed arms. She needed to get back to the house, but she didn’t move. Clara and her family were staying in the lighthouse, and they had not invited Kristen to come over after the funeral.

She’d tried not to be hurt by it. She knew Clara had a lot of healing to do, and she whispered into the sky, “Please help her come to a place of peace.” Kristen wished the same thing for herself, but she didn’t vocalize anything.

When her nose tingled with cold, she finally turned from the edge of the world and made the solitary walk back to her cottage. Behind the closed, locked door, she paused, trying to find how she felt. Perhaps she should be crying now. She could break down, take a few pills to help her sleep, and not get out of bed in the morning.

Kristen didn’t do any of that. She drew in a long, deep breath and looked around the starkness of the house as compared to what it had once been. “I miss you, Joel,” she said, talking to him for the first time since he’d died. “I wish you would’ve told me the truth about a lot of things before you left, but I can’t change the past.”

She’d been alive long enough to know that. But knowing something and doing it were two very different things.

So when Kristen woke the next morning, she didn’t get out of bed. She lay there, staring at the ceiling as the daylight turned from gray to yellow to gold. Her mind seemed to race at times, remembering summers on the beach with Joel and the kids, rugby games for Reuben and dance recitals for Clara.

Other times, she lost her train of thought and let her mind drift into blankness as she searched for the next memory to occupy herself with. She remembered Thanksgiving dinners, and Christmas trees that lit the small living room with colorful lights. The report cards that had earned the kids doughnuts, and the Sunday night movies with popcorn and soda. It had been one of the only times she’d allowed the kids to have carbonation.

Her brain halted, and she realized it hadn’t been her that had disliked the children drinking soda, but Joel. How she’d put that on herself, she didn’t know.

“Mom?” Clara called, and Kristen pushed herself up with a groan. A moment later, her daughter poked her head into the bedroom. Kristen hated that she hadn’t been happy in the cove, but she smiled at her. She’d come, she’d read a good eulogy, and Kristen could appreciate how hard that was for her daughter.

“Are you okay?” Clara asked, coming into the room.

“Yeah.” Kristen nodded as her smile slipped away. “Just tired already.”

“Well, you have lots of time to rest.” She sat down on the mattress beside Kristen and put her arm around her shoulders.

“I love you, Clara,” Kristen said. “Thank you for coming.”

“I love you, too, Mom.” She leaned into Kristen, and so much more was said.

After a couple of minutes, Kristen asked, “Are you headed out?”

“Yeah, our plane leaves in a little bit.”

“All right.” Kristen sighed as she got up. “I packed up some cookies for you. Let me get them.” Clara didn’t protest, and when she took the zipper bag of cookies, she also took Kristen into a hug.

“Maybe we could come visit this summer. Lena does love the beach.”

Clara and Scott’s only child had been born with Down Syndrome, and she’d never married. She lived with her parents, and she worked twenty hours at the local grocery store in Vermont, where they lived.

“Come any time,” Kristen said. “I’m sure Reuben wouldn’t mind hosting you, or we can rent a house closer to the beach. Maybe on Bell Island.”

“I’d love to go to a different island,” she said. “Especially in the summer. Diamond is always so crowded.”

Kristen nodded, out of things to say. “Well.” She hugged her daughter again, and she followed her daughter outside and down the sidewalk to the parking lot. She hugged Scott and then Lena, and they all got into the car. Kristen waved and waved and waved until the car turned out of the parking lot and went down the hill.

Once they were out of sight, Kristen turned back to the lighthouse. She wanted to go see what Reuben and Jean were doing, but she didn’t want to impose. Jean had come into town on Friday afternoon, and she’d only said a handful of words to Kristen.

She’d mind her business, and she’d taken a couple of steps down the sidewalk back to her own house. She paused, though, wondering that if she’d stuck her neck out more, maybe she would’ve known about some of the stuff Joel had done.

Perhaps she should’ve asked more questions when he came home late, or stayed quiet when she asked questions. Perhaps she should’ve been more involved in paying the bills, so she would’ve seen him buy the glassworks shop out from under Guy. Or looked at the computer screen when he sat in front of it.

She changed direction and headed toward the lighthouse. She didn’t normally go somewhere uninvited, but she thought maybe she could simply invite herself in to visit with her son and his wife.

After arriving at the navy blue door, she knocked and waited, something she hadn’t done before. She had to ring the bell before Reuben came up the steps and peered through the window. He smiled at her, unlocked the lighthouse, and said, “Morning, Mom.”

He came all the way outside and enveloped her in a hug, and Kristen clung to her son as if her life depended on having her arms around him.

“Come in,” he said, stepping behind her. “Jean just pulled a loaf of bread out to make French toast.”

“All right.” Kristen entered the lighthouse, everything about it fused to her soul. She went down the two flights of narrow stairs and emerged into the living area of the lighthouse. “Morning, Jean,” she said to the petite brunette whisking eggs in a glass bowl in the kitchen.

She flashed a smile so brief that Kristen barely saw it. “Morning.” She turned her back on Kristen and bent to get the griddle out. A chill definitely radiated off her shoulders, and Kristen didn’t know what to do about it.

She sank into a chair in the living room with a sigh, thinking she should offer to help Jean. But she didn’t know how, and the woman would tell her no anyway. She thought of Alice, and how she’d told Kristen no several times as a surly teenager. AJ had a stubborn streak that was as strong as gravity, and Kristen had tamed her.

So she pushed herself back to her feet and headed toward the kitchen. “What can I do to help? Heat up the syrup?”

“I’m fine,” Jean said, opening another cupboard like she didn’t know where anything was.

Behind her, Reuben’s anxiety bled into the air, but Kristen ignored them both. She’d been around the block enough to know a situation was only awkward if she allowed it to be.

Kristen stepped into the kitchen and opened the second drawer down in the cabinets, pulled out the power cord for the griddle, and plugged it into the outlet on the end of the counter.

“Here it is,” Jean said, and she tapped several shakes of cinnamon into the bowl. She looked at Kristen, and their eyes hooked together.

“I’ll heat the syrup,” Kristen said. “Get out the plates and all of that.” She tried for a warm smile and felt like she’d achieved it when Jean noticeably softened. They moved around each other in the kitchen then, and Kristen finally asked, “How’s your mother, Jean?”

“She’s doing okay,” Jean said. “This last round of chemo was really hard on her.”

“I know what that looks like,” Kristen said quietly, and she kept her head down though she felt both Reuben’s and Jean’s eyes on her. “Mint leaves helped Joel quite a bit with the tongue sores.”

“I’ll tell her,” Jean said just as quietly. She dipped a piece of bread and placed it on the hot griddle. Kristen put plates on the table, laid a knife and fork next to it, and took the syrup from the microwave. With a plate of butter on the table too, Jean flipped the last piece of French toast and unplugged the griddle.

“Mom,” Reuben said, stepping next to his wife. “We have something we want to tell you.”

Kristen put her hand on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and leaned into it. A trickle of trepidation bubbled inside her, because Reuben could say anything. Kristen would deal with whatever it was.

Just like the ocean, she told herself.

“Jean and I have talked, and we want to re-commit to the lighthouse for at least another year.” He looked at his wife and put his arm around her. “Her mother is sick, but she’s not going to leave for very long periods of time, as she has in the past.”

Kristen’s heart beat wildly in her chest, even though he’d said what she’d wanted to hear. “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said.

“Just a year,” Jean said. “And then we’re going to re-evaluate. My son is in Texas, and we’ve talked about relocating there.”

And do what? Kristen wanted to ask, but she kept the question beneath her tongue. Reuben hadn’t married Jean until six years ago, and she’d been divorced for ten at that point. She had one son, and Reuben had never been married and had no children.

“You two will make the right decision for you,” she said. “I’m just glad I’ll get to have you here for another year.” She beamed at both of them, truly glad she’d deviated from her original plan to go hide in her cottage.

Reuben picked up the spatula. “All right,” he said. “Let’s eat.”