by Laura Kemp
“One thing I don’t understand,” she asked, and my heart chirruped. “How could he be a good guy if he ran out on his whole family?”
I focused on a water stain in the pitted ceiling to keep from tearing up.
Good question.
Chapter Two
The rest of that day lingered like a wet fog over the Big Lake, blanketing everything in slippery moisture that made moving our large furniture difficult. Lucky for us the biggest load consisted of two twin beds, and even those we were able to manage with a little girl power.
More than once I found my mind wandering.
Now that I was here in Lantern Creek I felt Dad’s magic surrounding me again, as though he would step from the mist at any moment and place me in the soft crook of a tree as though nothing had happened.
I knew I wasn’t ready to run into him at the corner store, wasn’t sure if I’d even have the courage to call his name if I saw him jogging down the sidewalk. And that was a big “if” considering Mr. Congeniality at the hardware store didn’t remember anyone being inside when the picture was taken.
Holly’s suggestion about our downstairs neighbor was the best advice I’d gotten yet and so I made up my mind to visit her before the week was up. Maybe she would know someone who knew someone who had somehow heard of Robert Cook.
I frowned because thoughts of Dad invariably turned towards thoughts of Mom.
She hadn’t called. In fact, the last two days marked the longest breach in communication between us—an unspoken standoff that felt both strained and liberating.
I fished my cell phone from my pocket and looked at it, willing it to ring first so I wouldn’t look like the sucker.
Uncomfortable moments passed—time filled with memories of that long-ago Tuesday and how my mother had cried into her pillow all night long while I listened through the back wall of my closet.
I looked at my cell phone again and dialed her number.
She answered on the third ring, breathless, no doubt having left her flower garden and all the spectacular things that seemed to happen there.
“Hey,” I tried the sweet approach. “I made it.”
I could almost hear her nodding, the brown hair that had once fallen across her face now a cute pixie cut. “Good.”
I cleared my throat, unsure how to proceed. “The place is nice and rent’s cheap.”
“Will you look for a job?”
I felt guilty. “I might try the newspaper. Donna said she’d give me a reference.”
She paused, and I knew she was thinking of the best way to offer up her daily dose of unsolicited advice. “Why bother, Justine? We both know you won’t be up there long enough to make it worth your while.”
I swallowed, my throat thickening just as it had when I was a child. “I might be here awhile. You never know.”
“Going to bond with your Dad?”
I felt the edges of my eyes tingle and hated her for it. “Would that be so wrong?”
“Justine—”
“Would it?”
A slight pause. “Yes.”
“Why?” I asked. “Tell me what you know.”
She laughed. “You think I’ve kept some great secret from you? That I know where he’s been hiding after all these years?”
I shrugged my shoulders even though she couldn’t see. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Not to me,” she replied, and I could almost imagine her gazing out the window at her garden, checking her small wristwatch for the time.
“You hate that I’m here—that I’m looking for him.”
“Your dad left us high and dry,” she said, her tone dismissive. “He never wanted me or the simple life we made together in Webber. You need to let it go.”
“Like you have?”
She sighed. “I had to. I had a daughter to raise.”
I shook my head as if to prove a point to a woman who couldn’t see me. “How could you? Let it go…I mean. He was your husband.”
“And I was his wife.”
I wanted to argue but couldn’t. “I gotta go.”
“Me, too.”
I swallowed again, “I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Please don’t.”
Her words hit me like a fist, leaving me breathless.
I sat for a long time after the phone call ended, looking out our living room window, imagining her hurt and anger and frustration, wondering why she hadn’t tried to find him, why she didn’t want me to find him.
Dad had shown me their wedding album one night. I didn’t understand it then but saw later that he was trying to paint a picture of her without his canvas and oils.
They had married on the winter solstice in a country chapel tucked so far into the woods only a chosen few were able to find it. Some brave soul must have made it through the snow with a camera because the ceremony was documented in a series of pictures that showed my mother in her best light: a bouquet of forget-me-nots in her hand, baby’s breath wound into her braided hair.
Dad wore a suit, his own hair falling against the collar of his shirt, his gray eyes fastened on Mom in a way I never remembered.
The love had been there, open and raw and unspoiled.
What had happened?
I knew I couldn’t answer that question, and so my melancholy stretched far into the evening until Holly came home from Camp Menominee and suggested we start the summer off with a bang and grill hot dogs for dinner.
We sat on our little porch beneath the sugar maple with a Coleman grill between us, still trying to get the feel for each other that our schedules hadn’t permitted.
Holly began by diving into the deep end.
“So, how’d you meet the jerk?”
I should have known her curiosity would bend towards my love life. Still, talking about men was better than talking about Robert Cook. At least for now.
“Brad?”
She nodded, eager almost, as she balanced her paper plate across the top of her knees.
I shrugged, half-wishing I’d never used the “Man Trouble” excuse. The truth was there was a person I’d been hoping “get a rise out of” by coming up here. Not Starbucks, but someone I genuinely cared for and the main reason I was not looking for a summer romance…so to speak.
“I was writing for the newspaper and he was on a committee for some fundraiser I was covering. I had to interview him.”
“Sounds juicy.”
“Not really,” I muttered, hardly ready to admit we’d waited a whopping three hours to consummate our affair, a spectacular encounter that began with a glass of white zinfandel and ended on the leather sofa in his office.
“Why aren’t you with him?”
I considered the truth—that my daddy issues combined with my lousy taste in men had led me to a guy hiding a wife and two school-age sons. A man who also lived in a big Colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac and drove a Range Rover, a guy I learned the truth about when I ran into him at the Kalamazoo Target with his wife and wedding ring securely in place.
And still, I’d wanted to piss him off by running away.
These thoughts darkened my mood and so I answered Holly with a simple, “He had a lot of things going on.”
She took a bite of her hot dog and said, “That’s kinda weird.”
“Not really.”
Her laugh startled me. “You’re not getting off that easy. I can smell bullshit at fifty yards.”
“Oh, hey—”
“Gay?”
I looked at my hot dog.
“Drugs?”
I grabbed the ketchup and squeezed a big glob onto my plate.
“Married?”
I stopped mid-squeeze.
She sucked in her breath. “Did you know?”
I shook my head, surprised at the anger her question stirred in me.
“Don’t sweat it, Squirt. Bad boys always find girls like you.”
“Like me?” I questioned, a defensive flush creeping across my chest.
>
“You’re sweet,” she said.
Sweet? I had never equated that adjective with myself, just as I’d never thought about my All-American looks or penchant for unavailable men.
“But that’s old news,” I quickly changed the subject. “What about you? Any good stories of love in a northern town?”
She settled back into her chair and laced her fingers behind her head. “Got all night?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I don’t because I’m taking you on a little field trip.”
I couldn’t imagine what would be worth seeing in Presque Isle County besides my father but played along.
“That picture on your bedside table…the one of the lighthouse.”
I felt embarrassed. Sure, I’d taken a picture of the painting Dad had left for my college education before the buyer took possession. Sure, I’d kept it along with a million other keepsakes, and sure, I’d brought it with me and left it amongst the clutter in my new bedroom but I still didn’t want her looking at it or talking about it.
“What about it?”
“Who painted it? It’s really good.”
Another sore subject. But I couldn’t lie. Especially if she could help me.
“My Dad. That painting helped pay for my college.”
She looked at me, thoughtful. “Did he do it from memory or something?”
I felt my heart hitch in my chest. “Memory?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed, still chewing her hot dog. “That lighthouse is about five miles from here. I thought you might want to see it. We could bond or something—”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right, wasn’t sure I wanted to hear her right, but it all made sense. If Dad had come here for the best fish in Michigan, chances are he’d also admired the local attractions and an isolated lighthouse was right up his alley.
“Are you sure it’s the same one?” I asked, not wanting to hope for fear everything she said would vanish in a puff of smoke. “I mean…Dad painted a lot of lighthouses.”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“Okay!” I said, a little too eager before cooling off with a casual, “Let’s go. Sounds good.”
“It’s pretty famous around here,” she paused for what I imagined was dramatic effect. “Some people say it’s haunted.”
“Oh?” I asked, thinking how it made sense that Dad would pick a haunted lighthouse even as I grabbed my jean jacket and slipped on my favorite pair of pink flip-flops.
Five minutes later we were heading south on Highway 23 in her Lumina. The moon was just beginning to rise, and a few clouds were obscuring it like the tattered hem of a gray gown. Passing the Big Lake at a steady clip, we swung inland between the slender fingers of Grand and Long Lakes.
Presque Isle, which means “almost an island” in French, was just that—a narrow peninsula that stuck out into Lake Huron and fattened up like a fist before slimming back down. The small village for which the county was named clung to that little strip: a few clapboard houses held together by a town hall, post office, and Lutheran Church. The lighthouse we sought was five miles from the turnoff and sat adjacent to a small restaurant known for the odd hours only places that serve outstanding food can get away with.
I felt my heart racing as we neared the lighthouse, felt like I’d gotten the first scent of my father and didn’t know whether to continue the chase. If Holly noticed my apprehension, she didn’t mention it. We rode in a comfortable silence I was grateful for before turning into the restaurant parking lot.
Perched on a rocky outcropping that vanished at high tide, I knew we couldn’t reach it by foot. Still, just being this close to the subject of Dad’s painting made me feel close to the man himself as I opened the car door and slid out.
“Kind of spooky out here,” Holly admitted. “Why do you think your Dad painted a picture of this lighthouse? Did he come up here with your uncle or something?”
“Uncle?” I asked, realizing my misstep only moments later.
One look at Holly’s face told me she was on to me.
“You don’t have an uncle, do you?”
“Uh…” I stalled, feeling the wind whip around my body, wanting to rewind the clock and go back to being a mystery.
“What’s going on? Tell me or you can find yourself a new roommate.”
I didn’t doubt she meant business, and so dug the toe of my flip-flop into the dirt in an effort to kill time. If I told her about Dad there was a good chance she could help me, and there really was no reason to think she wouldn’t. Aside from my own pride.
If I wanted to get anywhere up here I was going to have to come clean about who I was: a girl who had been ditched by her father and not some cool downstate reporter sent by her family to collect a bounty on her uncle.
And so I spilled the beans about Dad’s disappearance, my lonely teenage years and maladjusted mother, culminating in the fateful newspaper article that had led me to Lantern Creek.
I waited for her anger, or at least irritation, but Holly Marchand surprised me when she smiled and said, “I’m really glad you got that off your chest. I was beginning to think you were a serial killer or something.”
“Oh—”
“Just kidding,” she punched me in the shoulder. “I know a Thomas Cook, but he lives over in Onaway. Never heard of Robert, but like I said, that’s not saying much.”
“I don’t want to scare him off,” I said, embarrassed to be talking about my own father in that way. “Chances are he doesn’t want to be found.”
“That really sucks, Squirt.”
I didn’t know how to respond at first, and so stood silently and let the truth of what she’d just said sink in. Most of my friends in Webber had been too scared to talk to me about it, let alone empathize. When the conversation turned towards “Dads” in general, they quickly changed the subject. Sherry had asked me how I was doing a few times but after a while, it seemed like my Dad had never existed and that Mom and I had always been alone.
And here was a woman I barely knew speaking the truth…finally.
I felt tears well up in my eyes and fought to suppress them.
No way was I bawling now.
“Do you want to go?”
I shook my head, determined to remain at the lighthouse now that I knew it was the same one Dad had painted. The trim shafts of birch and pine had grown up a bit but there was no doubt in my mind he knew this place from memory.
I turned toward the car. The warm June wind of a moment before had suddenly grown cold. My hands were shaking, my ears numbed by a sound I didn’t recognize. A strange buzzing that reminded me of the fan I had clipped to my headboard for white noise since I was a kid.
I swallowed, thinking perhaps my ears had popped, but that wasn’t it.
“Holly?” I said her name, unable to hear my own voice when a flash of white caught my eye in the smudged forest behind the Lumina. I looked to the trees, looked deep within them and saw something stir between the branches—something that moved like a human where no human should have been.
“Holly?” I squeaked, pointing a finger towards what I thought I saw. A moment later the form broke from the tree line and entered open moonlight, a form that looked like a young woman in a white dressing gown.
I gulped, wondering if all upstate folks dressed like they were getting ready for Pioneer Days. “Do you see her?”
I saw Holly’s mouth moving in response to my question, but I couldn’t hear her, my ears were still plugged, the white noise still buzzing. Something was happening to me, that had never happened before I came to Lantern Creek.
And it was scaring the shit out of me.
I saw Holly’s lips move and tried to read them. “Who?”
“The woman,” I whispered, too frightened to move, knowing she couldn’t be real but not able explain away her presence or why I was the only one who could see her.
“What woman?”
“Right there,” I pointed again as the woman took another step into t
he open, the moonlight revealing a dark splatter on the front of her dressing gown.
My breath suspended in my throat. This woman was hurt, possibly dying…but how could she be wandering the woods in a dressing gown from over a hundred years ago?
Another step and she was only twenty yards away, her eyes glassy, but I was sure she saw me, marking me with some sort of recognition I felt but couldn’t explain.
All of a sudden, the blood began to rush to my feet and legs and hands as I sprang from my spot. The buzzing sound that had reminded me of my fan stopped, and when I screamed, “Come on!” I heard my own voice, along with the welcome sounds of wind through pine trees and tossing surf.
Holly, still clueless, gave a strangled cry and hopped like a startled frog for the Lumina.
I felt the gravel crunch beneath my feet, knowing the strange woman with the bloodstained dress was there, moving too.
Twenty seconds later I reached the Lumina, my fingers slippery against the metal. The next second, I yanked open the door and jumped inside.
Holly didn’t ask questions, she just threw the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot.
“What the hell did you see?” She demanded once we had put some distance between ourselves and the lighthouse.
“I don’t know,” I panted, my eyes squeezed closed. “Something bad, something,” I paused, “There was blood all over her.”
Holly cursed—punched the gas and sent the Lumina careening down the twisting road.
I looked back, relieved to see nothing was following us and said, “I don’t see anything now.”
“Praise the Lord,” Holly sighed, regaining some of her composure. “I never really believed the stories about the place being haunted but…” She paused. “You’re not making this up, are you? Because if you are I’m reconsidering my ‘serial killer’ stance.”
“You didn’t see her?” I asked, unwilling to believe my mind had been playing tricks on me, or worse yet—that it hadn’t. “It looked like she’d been stabbed or something.”
“I didn’t see crap out there,” Holly insisted. “And if you’re trying to make me pee my pants you’re doing a damn good job so just stop it, okay!”
“I’m not trying to scare you.”