Keeper of the Light Page 9

  Alec tried to make himself invisible as he approached the door in the white brick foundation. He glanced over at the old keeper’s house. It looked as though no one from the Park Service was around today. Good. He slipped a key from his pocket and into the lock, jiggling it a little before the door opened. Mary Poor had given the key to Annie years ago, and she had cherished it. Controlled it jealously.

  He disappeared inside, locking the door behind him. It was cool, almost chilly. There were birds somewhere in the tower. He couldn’t see them, but he heard the echoing flap of their wings, the occasional chirp that ricocheted off the rounded brick walls. The brick was white in here as well, although the paint was crumbling, flaking onto the floor in a coarse white powder.

  Alec began the long climb to the top up the steel circular staircase, not bothering to stop at the six rectangular windows that marked the landings along the way, and by the time he reached the claustrophobic room below the lantern, he was winded. He was not getting enough exercise these days.

  He opened the door and stepped into the sunlight on the gallery. He sat down, close to the tower so he could not be seen from below, and breathed in the damp, salty air.

  Glassy blue water stretched out in front of him for as far as he could see. He had a clear view of the jetty, and it made him remember the funeral and the welcome numbness that had befriended him back then. From the moment Olivia Simon told him Annie was dead, he’d felt nothing. He didn’t cry, didn’t even feel close to crying. Nola helped him make the arrangements, weeping most of the time and talking about how Annie usually did that sort of thing, how good she was at rallying people together at a time of crisis, and he’d muttered some form of agreement from inside the comforting protective capsule that had formed around him.

  The funeral was held in the largest church in the northern Outer Banks, but even it was not big enough to hold everyone who wanted to come. Someone told him later that people stood in the vestibule and spilled out onto the front steps and into the parking lot.

  Alec sat between Clay and Nola. Lacey had refused to come and he didn’t press the issue with her, although person after person wanted to know where she was. He was too dazed to realize that his response “—she didn’t want to come—” was not enough.

  Even Annie’s mother was there, and Alec let her sit in the back of the church, although Nola begged him to try to make peace with the woman.

  “Annie would never have let her sit back there, Alec.” She spoke quietly in his ear.

  “I don’t want her near me,” he said, and he wished he could stop Clay from turning around to get a glimpse of the grandmother he had never known.

  Alec listened as people recounted how Annie had touched their lives. They walked up to the podium in the front of the church, one after another, ending finally with the county commissioner, who spoke of how Annie had been “woman of the year” for four years in a row, how she’d donated stained glass panels to the library and the community center, how she’d fought for the rights of people who could not fight for themselves. “She was our Saint Anne,” he said. “You always knew you could turn to her for help. The word ‘no’ was simply not in her vocabulary.”

  Alec listened to it all from behind the wall he’d built around himself. He did not like it, this recitation of her generosity. It was her generosity that killed her.

  Nearly everyone met on the cold beach at Kiss River afterward to watch Alec and Clay walk out on the windy jetty with Annie’s ashes. It wasn’t until Alec let them fly, until he watched in horror as the wind caught them and carried them away from him with cruel speed, that the numbness gave way to a searing pain. The ashes had been all that was left of her and he’d cast them away. He stared after them, stunned, until Clay tugged at his arm.

  “Let’s go back, Dad,” he said. By the time they reached the beach once again, Alec was weeping freely and leaning on his son. Arms reached for him, and he was quickly pulled into a loving circle. Clay, Nola, Tom, Randi. Everyone. They moved closer to him until they formed one black mass with Alec at its core, completely surrounded, completely alone.

  Alec leaned forward and looked directly down from the gallery. The ocean was closer to the lighthouse than the last time he was up here, or perhaps that was his imagination. Whatever the Park Service decided to do to save it, he wished they would hurry up.

  He patted his pocket for the illicit key. Mary! Alec had a sudden brainstorm. He would call that journalist, Paul Macelli, as soon as he got home and tell him to get in touch with Mary Poor. He hoped the old woman was still alive, still thinking clearly. She would be loaded with anecdotes. Paul might not even need the historical collection if Mary was lucid enough to help him out.

  Alec stood up and drew in a long breath of salty air. He felt better, although he could still hear Randi’s voice, telling him about the joys of being “free.” He shook his head. Randi couldn’t possibly understand, he told himself. He shouldn’t hold it against her.

  He thought of the doctor. Olivia. The woman whose husband had left her for an illusion. She knew how he felt. He could tell by the way she spoke to him, by the empathy in her eyes. She had understood completely.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Paul lay on his bed, staring at the colors in his ceiling. It was six in the evening, his favorite time in this room. The slant of the sun was just right to lift the tropical fish from the stained glass panel at his window and transpose them onto his ceiling, a bit distorted perhaps, but shimmering with blue and green and gold. He could easily lie here watching them until darkness fell. He had spent many evenings in this house watching his room grow dark, and this evening in particular he was anxious for darkness, for sleep. He wanted to sleep away the call from Alec O’Neill. He wanted to pretend he had not picked up the phone in the kitchen an hour earlier to hear the enthusiasm in Alec’s voice. How could he sound so content, so pleased with life? He had an idea, Alec told him. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. Paul could interview the old lighthouse keeper, Mary Poor, for the brochure on the lighthouse.

  Paul had said nothing, stunned. Oh sure, he thought. Why don’t I just lie down on a bed of nails?

  “She’s living at the Manteo Retirement Home,” Alec continued. “My wife used to visit her there, and as of the last time she saw her—about six months ago—Mary was very lucid.”

  Paul could see no way out of it. He’d set his own trap the morning he’d called Nola Dillard and begged to be on the committee. But maybe Mary Poor would not remember him. Regardless of how lucid she was, she was a very old woman and she had not seen him in many years. He thought of telling Alec that something had come up and he would not be able to serve on the committee after all, but the pull of the lighthouse was too strong. He would be happy to meet with the old keeper, he said. He’d get on it as soon as he could.

  Then he’d hung up the phone, walked into his bedroom, and lay down to let the colors soothe him.

  The phone rang again, and Paul reached over to his night table to pick it up.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Olivia asked.

  “No.” He lay back again, phone to his ear. The colors were beginning to blend, melting onto the far wall.

  “I just called to see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m all right,” he said. “You?”

  “Okay. I’m working at the shelter tonight.”

  “Still doing that, huh?” He hated her working there. Annie had worked at the shelter out of a genuine desire to help others, but he did not understand Olivia’s motivation. Occasionally he’d pictured something happening to her there, something horrible. Another crazed husband, perhaps. The thought of her being hurt terrified him in a way he hadn’t expected.

  “Yes. Just one night a week.” She hesitated. “But the real reason I’m calling is to let you know I still love you.”

  He closed his eyes. “Don’t, Olivia,” he said. “I’m not worth it.”

  “I haven’t forgotten the way things u
sed to be between us.”

  He felt villainous. This was so hard for her. She’d counted on him, been dependent on him. She could be tough and self-assured in the ER, but once she took off her stethoscope, she was far frailer, far softer than anyone would guess.

  “Paul?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just needed to let you know that.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  She hesitated a moment before saying good-bye. Once she’d hung up, he squeezed his face into a grimace. Damn. What was he supposed to say? She kept setting herself up to be hurt again.

  He thought of telling her the truth. It would upset her at first, but then she’d understand. She’d know that what he’d felt for Annie had been no infatuation. It burned him every time he thought of that word coming out of Olivia’s mouth, although it was hardly her fault for thinking that. He had let her believe it.

  He had done countless interviews with Annie, dragging them out, putting off the inevitable writing of the article when he would no longer have any legitimate reason to see her. Those interviews had been torture for him. He’d had to keep his distance from her, hanging on every word across the vast plane of a restaurant table, when what he longed to do was touch her cheek or curl a strand of her phenomenal hair around his finger. He knew better than to try to get that close. He could tell by the little light of warning in her eyes to deal with her in a businesslike manner.

  He’d taped the interviews, despite her reluctance. “Promise you’ll interview me as though we’ve never met before, Paul. As though we’re total strangers to each other,” she’d pleaded, and he had done his utmost to comply. He was afraid to listen to those tapes now, to actually hear her husky voice and her Boston accent and her crazy giggle.

  She’d filled the tapes with talk about Alec. Paul hated listening to her talk about him, always with warmth, always a softening in her tone when she mentioned his name. He didn’t need to hear about Alec, he told her. Her husband was not a necessary part of the article. She persisted, though, stubbornly reciting anecdotes of her marriage, drawing the words around herself like armor. He allowed her the armor, the distance. Until the night he could allow it no longer.

  On that bitter cold night, five days before Christmas, he drove to her studio. He had not planned it, not in any conscious way, but he knew exactly what he would do. He parked in the little lot and looked up at the studio windows. The lights were on inside, and the colors of the stained glass in the windows were vibrant. He approached the front door, dizzy from the array of multihued designs mapped out on either side of him. Or perhaps from nerves.

  Through the front door, he could see Annie leaning over the worktable, her hand moving slowly above a stained glass lampshade. The door was unlocked, and she looked up as he stepped inside. Her mouth was open, her eyes surprised and, he knew, a little frightened. She was alone, at night, in the cozy, colorful warmth of her studio. There was no safe restaurant table here, and she must have known he would not allow her to weave little stories about Alec and her marriage to deter him. He understood the fear in her eyes. He was just not certain if it was him she was afraid of or herself.

  “Paul.” She leaned back in her chair, making an effort to smile.

  “Keep working,” he said. “I just want to watch.”

  She made no move to lift the ball of cotton she was holding. He pulled a second chair close to the end of the table and sat down.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She dipped the cotton into a bowl of black liquid. Then she carefully smoothed it over the lead veins in the stained glass lampshade. She was wearing green corduroy pants and a heavy, off-white fisherman knit sweater. Her hair fell over her arm, spilling onto the table, onto the glass.

  He watched her work for several minutes before he spoke again.

  “I love you, Annie,” he said, the words crackling in the silence. She looked up, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “I know,” she said. She returned to her work but within a minute or two raised her head again. “Maybe you should go, Paul.”

  “Do you really want me to?”

  She dropped her eyes quickly to the lampshade. Then she set down the ball of cotton and knotted her fingers together on the table. “Paul,” she said, “please don’t make this so hard.”

  “If you can honestly tell me you want me to go, I will.”

  She shut her eyes and he reached over to rest his hand on hers. Her fingers were cold and stiff. “Annie,” he said.

  She looked over at him. “I was so grateful to you for the way you handled the interviews,” she said. “For not bringing up the past, for not trying to…take advantage of the situation when I knew that was what you really wanted to do.”

  “It was so hard to be with you and not…”

  “But you made it,” she interrupted, leaning toward him.

  “We both did. So why come here now and undo three months of willpower?”

  “Because I’m going crazy, Annie,” he said. “You’re all I think about.”

  She withdrew her hand from his and lowered it to her lap. “You have a wife to think about,” she said. “And I have a husband.”

  Paul shook his head. “I’ve treated Olivia terribly since we’ve been here.”

  “You need to put your energy into her, not me. Here.” She pulled open a drawer in the worktable and took out a rubber band, which she slipped onto his wrist. “Every time you think of me, do this.” She pulled back hard on the elastic and let it snap against the inside of his wrist. He actually winced at the sting. “You’ll forget about me in no time,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “It’s that simple, huh?” He looked down at his wrist, running his fingers over the reddened skin. “Will you wear one too?”

  “I don’t have to,” she said. “When I think of you, I remind myself about Alec. My marriage comes first. I’m nearly forty now and my priorities are very clear in my mind. Forget about me, Paul. Walk out that door and forget I exist.”

  He stood up. “I won’t ever be able to forget you,” he said. He took off the rubber band and set it on the work table. “And I don’t need this. Thinking about you is already painful enough. But I’ll leave. The last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you.”

  He bent over to kiss the top of her head, her hair soft beneath his lips. Then he walked slowly to the door, determined that he would leave without taking one last look at her.

  “Paul?”

  He turned around. She had stood up. She folded her arms stiffly, tightly, beneath her breasts, and he could almost see the battle going on inside her. “I don’t want you to go,” she said. “Could you just…hold me?”

  He walked back to her and pulled her gently into his arms. She fit snugly against him, her hair smelling like sunshine. She sighed, letting her arms circle his back, and he felt a shiver run through her body.

  “Oh, God, Paul.”

  He raised his hand to her throat. Her pulse was warm and rapid beneath his fingers. “I want to make love to you,” he said.

  She drew her head back to look at him, a crease between her brows. “This is a dangerous place to make love,” she said. “There’s glass everywhere. It gets into the carpet. It…”

  “Shhh.” He pressed his finger to her lips. “I don’t care.” He leaned forward to kiss her, and he was not surprised when she tipped her head back and opened her mouth for him.

  She stepped away from him and reached for the wall switch to turn out the light, but he caught her hand.

  “Leave it on,” he said. “I want to see you.”

  “This is a glass house, Paul.” She extracted her hand from his.

  She was right, of course. On either side of them the glass walls were filled with the black night outside, but everything that went on in here would be visible from the parking lot, filtered through the multicolored images in the glass.

  Annie hit the switch and took his hand, suddenly the leade
r. “Come with me,” she said.

  She led him to the far end of the studio, where photographs were displayed on a maze of white walls. She walked among the pictures, turning on the little light above each one to create a soft white glow around herself and Paul. Then she sat down on the floor, her back against the wall.

  He was about to drop down beside her when he glanced at the photograph closest to his head and found himself looking directly into the unsmiling eyes of Alec O’Neill. A chill ran up his spine, and he was a bit shaken as he lowered himself next to Annie. But she pulled him toward her, and his anxiety disappeared.

  He watched her face as he undressed her. There was a need in her eyes, a need she had masked during the interviews that was open in her now. “I just want you to hold me,” she said, but she did not try to stop him as he unfastened her bra. She rose to her knees to unzip her corduroy pants, and he helped her take them off. There was a softness, a fullness to her body he had not expected, a fullness he wanted to drown in.

  He laid her back on the carpet and kissed her again before lowering his head to her breast. She caught his chin, drawing his face up until their eyes met. “Couldn’t you be satisfied just lying here with me?” she asked.

  He shook his head slowly, and as he touched her, as he moved his hands over her body, her resistance fell away.

  He felt a sort of joy when it was over, when he lay holding her close to him and felt their hearts pounding in harmony. It seemed that they had lain that way for a very long time before he realized she was crying.

  “What is it?” he asked, kissing her eyes.

  She pulled away from him abruptly, covering her face with her hands. “I’m such a fool,” she said.