The Lighthouse Chapter 5

Chapter FIVE:

Robin read the letter, some of the life and warmth inside her draining away. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” Kristen said. “I haven’t seen it before.”

Robin looked back at the words, trying to put them in the right order so they made sense. “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.”

She looked up as Alice joined them, stirring her coffee. She peered over Robin’s shoulder, reading the note herself, though Robin had just read it out loud.

“You were probably just busy,” Alice said. “I don’t see Frank very often. Out of our sixteen years together, I think we’ve been together maybe two or three years total.” She looked at Robin, who didn’t comprehend such a thing.

But she seized onto the idea and ran with it. “Yeah,” she said. “Duke can be gone for a while sometimes, when the fishing is good.” She looked at Kristen, who stood absolutely still. Her face had turned a strange shade of gray, and Robin’s worry tripled.

“You should sit,” she said to her, folding the paper and tucking it under her arm. “I’ll get you a treat and a cup of coffee.” She helped Kristen over to the armchair, her curiosity shooting through the roof. “Did you know what he meant?” She straightened and went into the kitchen, placing the blue letter on the counter and turning back to make sure Kristen hadn’t fainted.

Kristen shook her head. “We did have some very trying years, there for a while.”

“Everyone does,” Alice said with a sigh as she sat on the sofa. “In fact, I didn’t even tell Frank that I was coming here.” She gave a light laugh that Robin could tell covered something deep and painful. “And I brought the kids with me. Not that he’ll really care.”

Kristen and Robin both looked at Alice, who hid behind her coffee cup for a few seconds. Robin had no idea what to say. Alice had seemed to love Frank in the beginning of their marriage, but she obviously wasn’t overly fond of him now.

“He works in New York, right?” Robin asked, still puzzling through the letter from Joel to Kristen.

“That’s right,” Alice said. “Big, fancy lawyer.” Her voice slurred slightly, and Robin strode over to her.

“What did you put in your coffee?” She took the cup from Alice and lifted it to her nose. “Alice. This is mostly vodka.”

Alice reached for the cup, but Robin held it out of her reach. “No, it’s far too early for this much alcohol.” She took the cup back into the kitchen and rinsed it down the sink. “Where did you even get it?”

“I know where Kristen keeps the good stuff.” Alice giggled again, and Robin wanted to throttle her. Didn’t she know they were here for Kristen? This wasn’t a vacation where she could get drunk by ten a.m. and someone would take care of everything—including her two teenagers.

Robin shook her head in a tight back-and-forth movement as she started opening cupboards. Kristen shouldn’t be drinking either, as she lived above an uneven path that bordered cliffs. She found the vodka bottle in the cupboard next to the refrigerator and she stepped over to the sink.

“She is no fun,” Alice said.

Annoyance shot through Robin as the clear liquid went down the drain. “Someone has to be responsible, and I can see it’s not going to be you.”

“I’m responsible,” Alice said, her light brown eyes flashing. She was on a plane reserved for the wealthy and royal, and Robin had no idea how to talk to her anymore. She reminded Robin of her mother, who held herself on such a high pedestal, no one would ever be able to reach her standards. Robin knew she’d never been able to.

“I do everything around that house,” Alice continued. “Frank’s never there, and I’m the one doing the homework, and teaching the twins to drive, and managing everything.” She stood up and stalked toward Robin.

Robin glared at her as the last of the liquid left the upturned bottle. “Drink on your own time. You have to take a ferry back to Rocky Ridge and drive back to your dad’s.”

“Nope,” Alice said, popping the P as she leaned into the counter. “I got a hotel here tonight. The kids are staying there for the week. My dad’s going to take them out on the sailboat in the morning.”

“Oh, well, in that case, you should’ve stayed with me.” Robin didn’t really want to subject her family and house to Alice’s scrutiny, but she had to offer. “Eloise is staying with me too, but she won’t be here for a few more days.” She capped the empty bottle and placed it in the recycling bin.

“I’d be happier in a hotel,” Alice said, and Robin believed her. A stitch caught in her breath at the same time. When Alice had trouble in the past, she’d come to Robin’s house, not a hotel.

“If you change your mind—”

“He cheated on me,” Kristen said, and both Alice and Robin looked at her. They exchanged a glance, but otherwise, Robin didn’t dare move.

“What are you talking about?” Alice asked, some of her ultra-shine sliding back into position.

“That letter,” Kristen said, shooting to her feet too fast for a woman her age. “Look. Come look.” She sounded frantic, and Robin met Alice’s gaze again. Her worry was explicit, and Robin’s own anxiety lifted.

“Right here,” Kristen jabbed at an empty line on the page. “He erased it. It said, ‘and another woman.’” She straightened, the letter in her fingers now. She waved it, sending it crinkling. “He cheated on me.”

“Where?” Alice asked, and Kristen showed her again. Alice peered at the paper, her eyes narrowing and then widening. “Wow, look at that.”

Robin really wanted to see it, so she joined the other two women at the counter. She didn’t want to believe them. Joel Shields had been like a second father to her, and she’d held him in high regard her whole life.

There was no way he could’ve cheated on Kristen. She looked at Kristen, who wore anguish in every line of her face.

She studied the paper again, and she too could see the words. And another woman. Written and then erased. A letter never to be finished.

“When did he write this?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” Kristen said, running both hands through her hair. Some pieces of it stuck up haphazardly, and she looked around wildly. “It could’ve been sitting there for a week or a year or a decade.” In the next moment, a primal yell came from her mouth, and she reached for the glass sitting on the counter.

“Kristen,” Alice yelled, but Robin just got out of the way. Kristen hurled the glass against the cabinet, and the glass exploded into thousands of tiny shards.

“Okay, we’ll deal with this later,” Alice said in a very business-like tone. In her world, she probably had a servant to clean up things like this. “Come on. To the lighthouse.”

“Yes,” Robin said, grasping onto the symbol of safety and security. “Let’s go to the lighthouse.”

Kristen wailed, the sound quickly quieting into more subdued crying, but she allowed Alice to lead her out of the cottage. Robin panted, taking in the ruined lemon tarts and the pieces of glass on the blue paper.

The small space crammed with too much furniture threatened to smother her. The old paint on the walls seemed dirtier than she’d ever seen it. All the papers, the files, the folders, she now viewed as weapons.

A scream gathered in her stomach, coiling and tensing like a tornado did. She’d been in this house so many times, and she’d never noticed all the ugliness of it.

She turned and left it all behind.

She did not follow Alice and Kristen down to the lighthouse, but instead marched further into the trees, pulling her phone from her pocket. She often ran along a path lined with trees like this, the tall thin trunks that would soon be filled with leaves. Robin took comfort from them every morning, but today, the trees were only made of wood, representing fences in her life that Robin still hadn’t been able to scale.

She’d called AJ twice already, and the woman hadn’t even had the decency to answer the phone. Kelli had answered the first time and said she’d call Robin back in fifteen minutes. But she hadn’t, and she didn’t answer Robin’s second call.

Panting and with burning calves, she tapped to dial AJ again. “Come on, AJ,” she muttered, keeping the anger very close to her heart so she wouldn’t have to feel too deeply. “Answer the phone.”

AJ did not answer, and her chirpy voicemail further irritated Robin. She hung up without leaving a message and immediately dialed AJ again. “I swear, if you don’t answer—”

“Robin, hi,” AJ said, as if Robin hadn’t tried to call her three times already. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Robin barked into the phone. “Do you even know what we’re dealing with here?”

Of course she wouldn’t. AJ never was the one to stick around and deal with the aftermath of a situation. She was the girl who snuck off before drama happened and returned only minutes before it was time to go home, often carrying her shoes and once with her shirt on backward.

“I’m sorry?” AJ asked, her voice definitely cooler.

Robin breathed in through her nose, the way she did when dealing with her fifteen-year-old. “AJ,” she said, forcing a measure of kindness and cheer into her voice. “Poor Kristen is just…she needs us. She needs all of us.”

AJ said nothing, and Robin had forgotten her carefully constructed arguments for why she needed to get on the next plane to Five Island Cove.

“If you could find a way—any way—to get here for the funeral, she would appreciate it,” Robin said.

“I’m covering a story in Miami this week,” AJ said.

“So you know Joel Shields died.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

AJ sighed as if Robin were being difficult on purpose. “When you called the first time, I did a search. Nothing ever happens there, and it wasn’t hard to find the news.”

“He wrote the obituary himself,” Robin said, a bit of fondness creeping into her voice. Kristen had said he’d planned everything, right down to when and where to have the funeral, to make things easier for her.

Now, Robin didn’t think so. Joel had planned everything for his own funeral out of guilt. He didn’t want Kristen to have to do anything for him once she learned the truth about who he was.

“Yeah, well, I could tell,” AJ said.

“What does that mean?” Robin asked.

“It means it was the biggest load of lies I’ve ever read,” AJ bit out.

“AJ,” Robin said, shocked. AJ had never said anything bad about Joel. She’d left the island for college, sure, just like a lot of people. But Robin had never gotten the impression that AJ didn’t like reuniting on Five Island Cove.

It had been a while since Robin had put something together for the five of them, and she closed her eyes and put one hand on the back of her neck. She felt too hot; nothing was how she’d imagined it would be.

“He was your coach,” she finally said.

“Yeah, so who do you think knew him better? Me or you?”

Robin honestly could not handle any more revelations right now. But she had to ask. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing,” AJ said. “I’m saying nothing. But I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to make it.”

Robin swallowed, not above begging. “Please try. Even if it’s just for a day.”

“Five Island Cove is a pain to get to,” AJ said.

“And yet, thousands of tourists do it every year,” Robin shot back.

AJ burst out laughing, and Robin smiled despite herself. When she quieted, she said, “I’ll see what I can do. The sports world doesn’t stop for funerals.”

“No, but maybe we should,” Robin said. A few seconds passed, and she gazed up at the clear, blue sky, wondering how many more secrets she’d uncover that day. “AJ, what happened…I mean…did something happen between you and Joel?”

“I’m sure it’s all documented in that office of his,” AJ said. “Have you started cleaning that out yet?”

“No,” Robin said, her mouth suddenly dry. “You think…he wrote it down?”

“The man wrote everything down,” AJ said. “Literally everything. And Robin, if I come to this, you have to know it will be the single hardest thing I’ve done in my life. And I’ve lost babies and never been married.”

“I—AJ.” Robin’s heart bled for the girl she’d once known so well. “Why?”

“I left Five Island Cove because of Joel Shields, and I don’t really mourn his death.”

The words landed like bombs in Robin’s ears. “I don’t understand,” she managed to say.

An alarm sounded on AJ’s end of the line, and she said, “I have to go. I’ll let you know if I’m coming or not.” The line went dead, and Robin let her hand fall back to her side.

AJ didn’t mourn his death. Unbelievable. Inconceivable.

What had he done?

Robin pictured the frail form of Joel Shields as he laid in bed in the very house she’d just been in. She’d brought him lobster bisque and garlic bread when he could stomach food. She’d sat with Kristen while she wept. She’d never suspected anything about Joel.

AJ might not even come to his funeral, because of what he’d done. Robin’s imagination churned, and she turned back to the house, suddenly anxious to go through it. At the same time, she thought she’d rather light a match and toss it into the pile of papers and books and folders than find out any more unsavory details about Joel’s life.

Sighing, she rolled her neck, trying to find a way to get AJ there. She wasn’t sure why it was so important, only that it was.

She lifted her phone again and tapped to Kelli’s name. “Get your game on,” she muttered to herself. “Get them all here. Find all the rotten roots and rip them out.” It was a lesson Robin had learned from her mother, though neither of them were very good at it—at least not with each other.

She dialed Kelli anyway, ready to plead, beg, and turn tables if she had to. They just all had to get here.