The Lighthouse Chapter 4

Chapter FOUR:

Kristen Shields entered the office her husband had kept in their small, cliffside home. She’d rarely came in here while Joel was alive, and now she faced the task of cleaning out the cramped space.

Joel could probably be labeled a hoarder, as the entire back wall was stuffed with bookcases that had papers, books, notebooks, and receipts spilling from them. The thought of looking at each thing in this office and deciding to keep it or not brought a powerful wave of weariness to Kristen’s entire being.

As if the Good Lord above knew she couldn’t face such a thing alone, knocking sounded on the door behind her. She’d barely turned when Robin said, “Knock knock.”

Kristen paused and took a deep breath. She and Robin had remained close over the years, and she appreciated the woman the shy, only-made-of-legs girl had grown into. She did want Robin to accompany her to the funeral home, because Jean had left the island that morning, and Reuben didn’t know when she’d be home. And Clara—

“Hey,” Kristen said, cutting off the painful thought of her daughter. She pasted a smile on her face as she entered the living room, where Robin stood clutching a white paper bag in her fingers. She still ran every morning, and she seemed to have made Kristen’s house part of her workout, because she still wore a pair of black leggings and a black jacket that clung to her curves.

“Look who I brought.” Robin’s smile seemed made of marshmallows and cotton candy—so utterly sweet—as she moved to the side to reveal another woman.

Kristen’s breath caught in her throat, choking her. “Alice.” Her hand fluttered up near her throat, the tears coming instantly. “Oh, come here, child.”

Alice’s eyes gleamed like wet glass as she crossed the room and embraced Kristen. She pressed her eyes closed, remembering everything about this girl. The way she’d braid her hair to try to make it more interesting. How she’d shown up one night at the lighthouse with a bright red face, a rash that had come on suddenly after a facial mask gone bad. The academic scholarship she’d earned to Harvard, and how she’d supported her husband through law school by working at a family law firm until her children were born.

“How are you?” she managed to ask through her memories and emotions. She stepped back but kept her hands on Alice’s shoulders. “You’re so bony.”

Alice reached up and wiped her eyes, glancing at Robin. The two of them were almost cut from the same skin, though Alice certainly had more of an image and reputation to maintain. “I’m not bony, Kristen,” she said, and she seemed so…refined. Like she knew exactly where to put every word, and exactly how to enunciate it as it came out of her mouth.

“We brought those lemon tarts you like,” Robin said, moving into the kitchen while Kristen and Alice looked at one another as if they’d never met. Kristen knew better than most how much time and circumstances could change a person, and she hardly recognized the woman in front of her.

Alice was so unhappy, and Kristen had seen that inside her before. She’d also seen her radiate pure joy, and she desperately wanted that woman to come out.

As Robin bustled around the kitchen, unloading the plastic containers holding the pastries, Kristen asked, “How are the children?”

“Good,” Alice said, her voice a bit too high. “Good. They’re with my dad and Della today.” She nodded and looked around the living room. It too held too many things for its size. Kristen had never minded the clutter, the extra furniture, the single path through things to the hallway. Until now.

“This is such a lovely place,” Alice said, so much falsehood in her voice and eyes that Kristen could only stare at her.

Did people believe her when she spoke like that?

She shook herself, trying to find something else they could talk about. “How’s Frank?” Kristen asked.

Darkness gathered across Alice’s face, but she swept it away with little effort. Instead of answering, she sucked in a breath. “Is that the picture of us on the sailboat?” She moved away from Kristen and picked up a framed picture sitting on the bookcase. “Oh, wow,” she said, laughing. “It is.”

But even her laugh sounded fake.

She looked at Kristen and held up the picture as if she’d never seen it. “Remember this day?”

“Of course.” Kristen stepped around the end table where Joel had kept all of the many remote controls. She didn’t even know what they all did, and she’d have to sort that out too. She took the picture from Alice and gazed down at the five girls smiling for all they were worth. “It was our first successful launch.”

“My shoulders hurt for days after that,” Alice said, still chuckling. At least she seemed more real now. More like the self-confident girl that had pulled and pulled to get the sailboat out into the current.

“Lemon tarts,” Robin announced, and Kristen started to put the picture frame back in its spot. It wasn’t hard to know where to set it, because she wasn’t the world’s best housekeeper, and she hadn’t dusted this bookcase in at least a month. Or a year.

So the blue piece of paper stuck partway under the books that provided the backdrop for the Seafaring Girls caught Kristen’s eye. It had no dust on it and looked as if someone had put it there quite in a hurry.

Alice moved into the kitchen, but Kristen took a moment to set the picture frame down and pick up the paper. It was folded in the traditional way, into thirds, as if someone was getting ready to put it in an envelope and mail it off.

She had no idea what she’d find as she unfolded the paper, because Joel had so many writings and scribbles lying around the house. He’d had a real affinity for words, and he was constantly putting down poems or words he liked, stuffing the papers into every drawer and crevice he could. He’d studied four languages over the years, and he’d made flash cards of the signs for American Sign Language.

Words fascinated him, and when he’d started the chemotherapy treatments, she’d found a vocabulary app for him to help him keep his mind sharp despite the drugs.

The paper made a crinkling sound as she opened it, and her eyes scanned the words at the top quickly.

Kris,

I have to tell you something, and I don’t know how.

A letter. Kristen loved the nickname he had for her, and she’d often received letters from her husband throughout their life together. She’d open them while he smiled at her, secrets in his gaze that would be revealed as she read about their trip to New York City he’d planned or the anniversary dinner at Pearl Island’s premier restaurant.

But the more she read this letter, the faster her heart raced.

I haven’t always been faithful to you. There were many things pulling my attention from you, from our marriage. The sea, the school, the lighthouse.

They’d both done more than tend to the lighthouse, which was a part-time job at best. Joel had coached recreational baseball and worked at the high school, coaching girl’s track. His personality was perfect for coaching, because he possessed a no-nonsense approach to guiding teens who didn’t want to be guided, tempered with his more artistic, writing side.

Kristen had worked with the township of Five Island Cove, teaching and training girls to be masters of the sea, from fishing to sailing to everything in between, in the Seafaring Girls program. The day that program had been canceled had been a terrible one for her, and if she were being honest, without Robin, she’d have drifted a lot more than she had.

She read over the words again, not sure what Joel had been trying to say. The pencil was obviously old, most of it smeared slightly in some way. When he wrote this, surely he was just feeling like he hadn’t connected to her in a while. They’d been through years where it felt like they were two ships passing in the night, both of them working to make ends meet, keep the lighthouse functioning, and maintain their family dynamic.

Kristen pushed away thoughts of her Clara, who hadn’t yet confirmed that she’d be returning to the cove in time for the funeral. Joel wasn’t a god, and not everything had been perfect between them. He yelled too much. Drank sometimes. Had very strong opinions.

Clara had butted heads with him since the age of two, but surely she’d come to the islands for the funeral. He was her father.

She read the letter for a third time, the chatter of Alice and Robin in the background and fading fast. They’d ask her what she was reading in a minute, and she needed to refold the paper and join them in the kitchen.

But when she saw the erased words beginning a new paragraph in the letter, she couldn’t help tilting it to try to get a better idea of what her husband had written and then erased.

After several long seconds of struggling, her brain finally seized onto the three words there.

And another woman.

The breath left her body; the blue paper fluttered to the ground; a moan came from her mouth as she reached for something to steady her.

“Hey,” Robin said, appearing in front of Kristen. “Are you okay?”

She should’ve just nodded. Tacked that smile back on her face. Joined the others in the kitchen. Drowned her feelings in lemon curd and crumbling pie crust. They’d simply think she was grieving her husband, and she could deal with this in private.

She looked down at the ground, where the blue paper had landed, the top and bottom flaps sticking straight up.

“What’s that?” Robin bent to pick it up, her hand extending toward the blue page as if in slow motion. And Kristen couldn’t stop her.