Keeper of the Light

by Diane Chamberlain

  Lacey lowered her eyes again. “He’s been a little better since he started…being friends with you,” she said. “He used to walk around like he was sleepwalking or something. He hardly ate anything and he didn’t care what he wore and all his clothes got too big for him. He looked like a scarecrow, and all he’d do was carry around his stupid old pictures of the lighthouse and stare at them every chance he got. He used to sleep with my mother’s old sweatshirt.”

  Olivia ached for Alec. She was embarrassed by this glimpse into his dark and private world.

  Lacey took the last bite of her banana, now swimming in a chocolate soup. She swirled her spoon around in the bowl with her stubby fingers and their chewed-off nails. “I met your husband at the lighthouse meeting the other night,” she said, glancing up at Olivia. “I thought he looked kind of nerdy. No offense.”

  Nerdy? Olivia supposed that a forty-year-old man with wire-rimmed glasses and cerebral good looks would probably strike a fourteen-year-old as nerdy. “No offense taken,” she said.

  “Do you think my father’s handsome?”

  Olivia shrugged noncommittally, aware she was treading on dangerous ground. “I suppose so.”

  “My mother used to say he was hot. They were, like, completely and totally in love.” Lacey moved her wrist back and forth, her watch sparkling in the light from the table lamp. “Nola would love to get into my father’s pants,” she said, her eyes glued to the watch.

  “That’s sort of a crude way to say she’s interested, don’t you think?”

  Lacey grinned at her. “I think you’re kind of prissy. I mean, if you think my father’s handsome, don’t you sometimes wonder what it would be like to go to bed with him?”

  Olivia struggled to keep the shock from her face. She leaned forward and spoke slowly. “What I think, or what your father thinks, or what Nola thinks about that sort of thing is very personal, Lacey. It’s not your place to speculate about it.”

  Lacey’s eyes filled in a half-second’s time. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, crimson patches forming on her throat and cheeks. Her lower lip trembled in a way Olivia could not bear to watch. She set her own bowl of melting ice cream on the floor and moved forward to take Lacey in her arms. Lacey held her tightly, her delicate shoulders shaking with her sobs.

  “It’s okay.” Olivia kissed the top of her head. She remembered being held this way a lifetime ago by Ellen Davison, who never pressed her to tell her why her body ached and bled, who never once suggested she go home again. She remembered the surprising strength in Ellen’s slender arms, strength that let her know she could finally turn her burden over to a grown-up who would keep her safe.

  “My father hates me,” Lacey wept.

  “Oh, no, honey. He loves you very much.”

  “There was just that drop of blood on her shirt, so I told him she’d be all right. He was so scared. I wasn’t used to that—I’d never seen him look scared of anything before—and I kept telling him not to worry. He believed me that she’d be okay. He blames me for getting his hopes up.”

  Olivia felt Lacey’s fingers on her back, clutching her blouse.

  “It could have been me,” Lacey said. “I was thinking the same thing my mother was, that I should just jump in front of that lady. Maybe he wouldn’t have shot a kid, and then nobody would’ve gotten hurt. I think my father wishes I’d been the one to get shot. For the longest time after she died, he wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t even look at me and he kept calling me Annie.” Lacey stiffened beneath Olivia’s arms. “I hate him. He forgot my birthday. He thinks Clay’s so wonderful because he’s smart and got a scholarship to Duke and everything and I ended up having to go to summer school. He just wishes I’d go away. He wouldn’t care if I stayed out all night long. He wouldn’t care if I never came home.”

  Olivia’s own tears fell onto Lacey’s hair. It was Alec Lacey should be talking to, Alec who needed to listen to his daughter’s fears. It was Alec who needed to tell her he would do everything in his power to make her world right again.

  But Alec wasn’t here, and perhaps he wasn’t capable of listening to Lacey yet, or of coping with fears that were so much like his own, and so Olivia pulled Lacey more tightly into her arms. She would hold her for as long as it took to make her feel safe.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Every time Alec glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw the lines across his forehead and the deepening crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. Maybe he’d spent too much time in the sun over the last few years. Or maybe he was just getting old.

  He’d left Clay at Duke a few hours earlier and he had not expected the crush of emotion that came over him as he said good-bye to his son. There had been other students in the lounge of Clay’s dorm, and so he’d hugged him loosely when what he really wanted to do was hold him close. It had been a one-sided hug, anyway. He could see the light in Clay’s eyes, the excitement he felt at this new chapter in his life about to begin. Only one of them was truly going to miss the other.

  He turned off the highway into Manteo as a light rain started. He drove past the Manteo Retirement Home in its blue splendor, thinking that he should call Mary Poor soon to arrange the tour of the keeper’s house. On a whim, he turned the car around and stopped in front of the Home. Might as well do it now.

  As he got out of the car, he noticed the small antique shop across the street, where a few antique dolls sat in front of the window on ancient-looking chairs. A gray-haired woman was moving some of the dolls inside, out of the rain. Olivia was right. This must be the store where Annie had found Lacey’s dolls.

  There was no one sitting on the broad front porch of the Retirement Home. He rang the bell and a young, blond-haired woman answered.

  “I’m looking for Mary Poor,” he said.

  “Come in.” The woman stood back to let him pass. “She’s in the living room working on a crossword puzzle, as usual.”

  She led him into a room where several elderly women were watching television. Mary Poor sat apart from them in a wing chair in the corner, holding a folded newspaper under the beam of light from a floor lamp. “Mary?” the blond woman said. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”

  The old woman rested the paper in the lap of her blue skirt as she looked up into Alec’s face, a surprising sharpness in her blue eyes. She was wearing tennis shoes.

  “Mrs. Poor?” Alec held out his hand. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Alec O’Neill. Annie’s husband.”

  The woman squinted up at him for a moment before shaking his hand. “So you are,” she said. “So you are.”

  Alec sat down in a second wing chair, noticing with some admiration that Mary was working the puzzle in pen.

  “I stopped by to ask if you’d be able to give some of us on the lighthouse committee a little tour of the keeper’s house. I guess you know we’re putting together a booklet on the lighthouse. Paul Macelli’s been talking to you, and it’s really coming together, but I think he should get a firsthand look at the house so he can describe the rooms, and I’ll take some pictures.” He looked at the thin skin covering Mary’s blue-veined, fine-boned hands. “Would it be possible? I mean, are you able to get around?”

  “Well enough, well enough,” Mary said. “When would this be?”

  “Sometime in the next few weeks. That will give Paul time to write it up and me time to develop the pictures before we have to get all the material to the printer.”

  “You just call when you want me, and I’ll get one of the girls to drive me over.”

  “That’ll be great. Thanks.” He glanced over at the television, then back at Mary’s face. “How are you? Is there anything you need? I know Annie used to bring you things.”

  The old woman smiled. Her teeth were beautiful, and Alec wondered if they were her own. “She was one for giving things, all right,” Mary said. “I miss that little girl.” She pointed to the window behind Alec’s head, and Alec turned to see a stained glass panel of the Kiss River L
ighthouse, its beam of light cutting through the dark blue ribbons of a night sky. It was stunning in its simplicity, and for a moment he was speechless.

  “I’ve never seen that one before,” he said finally. “It’s beautiful.”

  “She gave it to me years ago and I brought it along when they moved me here.”

  He stood up for a closer look, hypnotized by the dazzling white of the glass lighthouse. He thought he had seen all of Annie’s work and he felt as if he’d just discovered another dimension of the woman he thought he’d known so well.

  Mary followed his gaze to the window. “You’ll call me, then?” she asked.

  He forced his eyes back to hers once more. “Yes,” he said, reluctantly turning to leave. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He stopped by Olivia’s to pick up Lacey. He watched them hug on the front deck, a prolonged hug that made him feel oddly excluded.

  “Thanks, Olivia.” Lacey picked up her duffel bag and headed toward the Bronco.

  Alec smiled up at Olivia. “Thanks from me, too,” he said. “Any word from Paul?”

  She shook her head. “I was very glad for Lacey’s company.”

  He got into the Bronco and pulled out onto the road, while Lacey pushed the buttons on the radio, finally settling on a mind-numbing cacophony.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.” She tapped her palms on her thighs in time with the music, and he noticed the watch.

  He touched her wrist. “What’s this?” he asked.

  She lifted her arm to look at the glittery face of the watch. “Olivia bought it for me,” she said. “I’m supposed to call her at midnight on the nights I go out.”

  He frowned. “What for?”

  “Just to let her know I’m okay.”

  “That’s crazy. You’ll wake her up.”

  “It was a contingency.” Lacey’s voice started to rise. “She would only buy me the watch if I agreed to call her.”

  “Why do you want a watch all of a sudden? You’ve never wanted one before.”

  “You wear one. What’s the big deal?”

  He didn’t want to fight with her. In a few minutes they would walk into the house and feel Clay’s absence. They only had each other now.

  He pulled into their driveway and turned off the ignition. He lifted her wrist so he could study the watch. “It suits you,” he said.

  She pulled her hand away and made a face at him. “What is that supposed to mean?” She reached into the back seat for her duffel bag and got out of the Bronco, walking ahead of him toward the front steps.

  “Lace.”

  She swung around to glare at him.

  “I like the watch on you. That’s all I meant.” He looked at her across the hood of the Bronco. “It’s just you and me, now, Lacey,” he said. “Let’s not start out on a sour note.”

  “You started it. I was perfectly happy just listening to the radio. You’re the one who wanted to talk.” She stalked up the steps and into the house.

  He called Olivia at nine, from the den, too annoyed with her to wait until ten-thirty. He didn’t want to feel all that close to her tonight.

  “I’m upset about the watch,” he said.

  “It wasn’t expensive.”

  “It’s not the money.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s not even the watch, actually. It’s this bit about her calling you at midnight. I’m capable of taking care of her, Olivia.”

  Olivia didn’t answer right away. “She needs some…guidelines, Alec,” she said finally. “She needs to know you care enough about her to want to know what she’s doing.”

  He shook his head. “I know the way this house has always been run strikes you as weird, but I’m not about to change it. If I started changing the rules on her now, she’d take off. She needs the familiar—the same structure she had when Annie was alive.”

  “What structure? The two of you allowed her to do anything she wanted. She’s a child, Alec. She needs a parent.”

  “So you’re taking it on yourself to be one for her, is that it? You spent one night with her, Olivia. That doesn’t make you her mother.”

  Olivia was quiet and Alec closed his eyes, regretting his words. He was, he knew, a little jealous of her sudden, easy relationship with his daughter.

  “I’m getting off,” Olivia said.

  “Olivia, I…”

  “Let’s just drop it, all right? Good-bye.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Lacey called her at midnight, four nights in a row, twice from home, twice from someplace else. Olivia woke up when the phone rang, groggy and a little nauseated, but she wasn’t about to tell Lacey not to call.

  “My father says I don’t have to call you,” Lacey said on the first night. She was at a friend’s house, and Olivia could hear laughter and loud music in the background.

  “Well, he’s right,” Olivia said. “You don’t have to, but I’d like it if you did so I don’t worry about you.”

  “Okay,” Lacey said, easily. “I will.”

  Alec had called her a couple of times since the night they’d argued about the watch. He’d apologized for blowing up, and she’d allowed the subject to die. Still, it had soured the air between them, just a little, just enough to keep her from feeling too close to him again. And that, she thought, was fine.

  On the fifth night after Lacey started calling her, Olivia woke up automatically at midnight, reaching for the phone before she realized it hadn’t rung. Maybe Lacey had stayed home. Probably she had fallen asleep, safe and sound in her own bed. Olivia watched the neon-green numbers change on her night table clock. Finally, at twelve-thirty, the phone rang. She picked it up to hear Lacey sobbing on the other end, speaking unintelligibly. Olivia sat up in bed to give the girl her full attention.

  “I think you’ve had too much to drink, Lacey.”

  Lacey cried for a moment into the phone. There was a ripple of laughter in the background. “I’m scared,” she said finally.

  “Of what?”

  There was another pause while Lacey struggled for control. “I haven’t gotten my period.”

  “Oh. How late are you?”

  “I’m not sure. I lost track.”

  “Where are you, Lacey? I’m coming to pick you up.”

  Lacey didn’t resist. She gave Olivia a muddled set of directions to a house near Kiss River and said she would wait for her out front.

  The road was nearly deserted, and Olivia was relieved when she finally spotted the beacon ahead of her in the darkness. She drove on slowly, knowing the horses were out here somewhere. She found the intersection Lacey had told her about and turned onto a road of packed sand, praying her car would not get stuck. She could just imagine being stranded out here in the middle of the night.

  Lacey’s directions had been poor, but after a few hundred yards on the sand road, Olivia heard music. She followed the sound to a small white house, where Lacey sat alone on the concrete front stoop. She looked up as Olivia pulled into the grassy driveway, then started walking toward the car.

  Olivia opened the door for her. She was clearly drunk, and her clothes smelled of beer and tobacco. It took her three attempts to get into the car, where she closed her eyes and rested her head back against the seat.

  Olivia leaned over to snap Lacey’s seat belt in place. “Have you had anything besides beer?” she asked.

  “Uh uh.”

  “Have you gotten sick?”

  Lacey nodded, her eyes opening to half mast. “Three times,” she whispered.

  “Let me know if you’re going to get sick again so I can pull over.”

  “Mmm.” Lacey closed her eyes again. She slept for most of the drive to Olivia’s house. Olivia set her up in the guest room, deciding there would be time in the morning to pursue Lacey’s concern about her late period. She went back to her own bedroom and called Alec.

  “It’s Olivia, Alec. I’m sorry to wake you.”

  “No problem,” he said,
his voice thick with sleep. “What’s up?”

  “I have Lacey here with me.”

  “Why?”

  “She was at a party and had too much to drink and she called me, very upset. So I picked her up and brought her here.”

  She heard the heaviness of his breathing. She pictured him sitting bare-chested on the edge of his bed, rubbing his face, trying to wake himself up.

  “I’ll come get her,” he said.

  “No, don’t. She’s asleep. I’ll bring her home in the morning.”

  “I don’t want you to have to go to all that trouble.”

  “It’s all right. I’m off tomorrow. Go back to sleep, Alec. We’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

  Lacey was pale and red-eyed the next morning. She sat at the table in her foul-smelling jeans and T-shirt, dumping spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee. She was sober and very quiet. Olivia put a plate of toast in front of her and sat down on the other side of the table.

  “When you called last night, you said you were concerned that your period was late.”

  Lacey looked up, startled. “I said that?”

  Olivia nodded.

  Lacey groaned and leaned back in the chair. “I can’t believe I told you that.”

  “Do you know when you were due?”

  Lacey shook her head back and forth against the chair, her eyes closed.

  “Have you had sex since your last period?”

  Lacey made a face, her cheeks reddening. “I can’t talk to you about that,” she said.

  “Well, just tell me if there’s a possibility you could be pregnant.”

  She nodded.

  “We’ll go into the ER this morning and get a test done.”

  Lacey opened her eyes and looked directly at Olivia. “Oh, God, Olivia, what if I am? I’d have to have it. I don’t think I could ever have an abortion. My mother would have killed me. She hated abortions. She said they were murder.”

  “But you and your mother are different people.”

  Lacey looked surprised by that thought. “Still,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t think I could do it.”