The men spent hours in that tiny room below the light. The ceiling was just tall enough for Thomas to stand with space for a small writing desk and chair, a trunk that held supplies and a heating lamp. An easel was folded and stashed next to the trunk, along with a set of paintbrushes wrapped in a rag, and a few rolled-up canvases.
A door led out to the iron gallery that wrapped all the way around the tower and a ladder went up to the light.
“Can you get that door for me, please?” Thomas asked. I knew it pained him to ask me such a basic favor.
As I unlatched it the wind pushed the whitewashed door back against me. Thomas leaned against the wind and went out, checking some gauges and apparatus, and I followed him out.
“Whoa, we are high up!” I said.
“Gets you every time, doesn’t it?” he said.
I walked all the way around the widow’s walk and breathed in the fresh evening air. Thomas limped back in to the desk and made notes in the logbook and I stayed out there for a while. The sky had turned a purple color, and the setting sun seemed to be reaching out to me, stretching its reflection from the horizon all the way to the lighthouse across the silvery ocean.
* * *
The following afternoon when I walked back through the Manor lobby after lunch in the main dining room I stopped and picked up my mail from the front desk. I sat down at the big open fireplace.
Dear Mrs. Bordeaux,
Thank you for the article about the diaper explosion from Montauk. I was not surprised to receive more from you; I had an inkling that once you started writing for the paper and got settled in you’d be compelled to write more. But I will say that the topic was not what I was expecting from you. It was indeed amusing and really exposed those women. Bravo. Between this and the greasy pig contest piece that was published last week you really have captured our hearts. The diaper piece will be published in this week’s paper and I look forward to more of your unique take on this town and the people in it. I give you autonomy to choose whatever topic you feel appropriate for our readers and I truly look forward to working with you. Please submit as frequently as you wish and I will of course respect your wish to use the pen name Jonathon Hubert.
Sincerely,
Mr. Adam Rosen.
P.S. I have enclosed a check for $2.30. This will be your weekly rate going forward.
I had to read the letter four times over to make sure I was reading it correctly. He had actually liked it. Not only did he like it; he also wanted me to write more. The idea that he enjoyed my writing, and that I would be published, me a woman, my thoughts, my words, in a public place for others to read, thrilled me. My mind raced at what else I could write about. Ideas sprang into my head, interesting local characters, the woman who sold pies from the back of the van by the lighthouse, Dolly’s trunk show, a day in the life of a deep-sea fisherman, swimsuit fashions. I should talk to Elizabeth, I thought, and see if she had any suggestions.
I gathered my belongings and my letter and was about to head up to the room when I felt a trickle between my legs; my underwear felt damp. I had to get upstairs quickly. Once again my period had come. I had done as the doctor had asked: I had relaxed, I had drunk a little brandy, I had tried to encourage Harry to bed to the best of my ability when he was with me, without any luck. In one instant I was elated by the letter; the next I was filled with disappointment. Another month gone by. Another month without the hope of a child. But then I thought of my wish after seeing Dolly working in the factory, to be good at something when everything else was failing.
I rushed up the stairs and put my key in the lock as fast as I could to change, but as I did the door opened by itself. Had I left it unlocked? I wondered. I went inside and knew I had not. My clothes and Harry’s were strewn across the room, my jewelry thrown all over the bed, pillows and sheets knocked to the floor, drawers pulled open, cabinet doors swinging wide.
In jarring red lipstick across the mirror on my dressing table someone had written: “Your husband is a lying cheat and a whore—I’m not the only one—neither are you.”
I took a deep breath; I was shaking. I set my letter and check on the dressing table and walked into the bathroom and locked the door.
* * *
By the time I bathed, dressed, cleaned off the mirror, organized my disheveled bedroom and walked down the back service stairs, it was well past eight o’clock at night. I went around the back where the Manor staff parked their bicycles and found the small, rusty one that Elizabeth had loaned me. On the pathway alongside the tennis courts and toward the hill that led to the fishing village the first evening star glimmered in the sky, but when I turned left down Manor Hill the trees on either side of the road reached overhead, forming a darkened canopy. I focused my eyes on what I could see in front of me, trying to make it to the bottom of the hill without hitting a fallen branch or rock and tumbling over the handlebars. I crossed the main road at the bottom of the hill and pedaled on to the fishing village, turned right after crossing the railroad tracks, then leaned the bike against a stack of lobster traps.
Elizabeth’s small house glowed—an orange warmth illuminating the shack against a darkened sky. A dirt road separated the narrow sandy bay from Elizabeth’s front yard and doorstep and the Long Island Sound lapped, quietly, at the bay, light from the houses flickering on its smooth glassy surface. It was strange, I always thought, that the sound could be so calm and gentle in the cove here at the fishing village when just one mile across the narrow hamlet of Montauk the ocean waves were crashing on the beach and at the farthest point, the tip of Montauk where the lighthouse stood, the sound joined the ocean, swirling around the cliffs with wild abandon.
I stood on the doorstep and heard a gentle humming coming from inside and the low chatter of male voices. Everything about her home at this time of night seemed peaceful and calm and I considered for a brief moment sitting on the front step and waiting for a break in the quiet conversation. But as the thought crossed my mind a shadow appeared at the window, the curtain moved and the handle on the front door turned.
“Hello?” It was Elizabeth’s husband, Patrick. His voice was accusatory and he looked shocked to see me on his doorstep. “Something you need?”
“I’m Beatrice,” I said, “Elizabeth’s, um … acquaintance. I met you at the pig contest.”
“I remember.”
The humming stopped and Elizabeth appeared at the door by her husband, holding baby Jake in her arms. She looked as if I’d woken her from an incredibly pleasant dream. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, her face looked relaxed and her baby, almost asleep, snuggled into her shoulder. Behind Elizabeth the chair still rocked and one of her boys, Johnny, the eight-year-old, was at the table building a model car.
“Is everything okay, Beatrice?” Elizabeth asked. I nodded. “Your eyes are red,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I said, and then, in a slightly hushed voice, “Could I have a word?”
Patrick looked from me to Elizabeth. His eyes held her gaze and seemed to ask a question.
“It’s okay, love,” she said. Patting his arm and nodding once, a communication they must have mastered, because he turned slowly and walked back to his spot at the table, glancing back at me twice.
Elizabeth stepped out onto the front porch and pulled the door closed just a touch, all the while gently rocking Jake from side to side.
“What is it? Do you need help?” She lowered her voice even more. “Is it Thomas?”
“I was wondering if you might be able to drive me there,” I said. “I was supposed to be there at the start of his shift, help him get up to the light, but something happened; I couldn’t get there on time. It’s too far and it’s getting too dark to take the bike at this time.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Patrick would never let me take the car and drive so late at night; it’s too dangerous. There are no lights yet on the new road; I could steer that clunker right off the road and into the trees.”
“Could
I try driving?” I said, terrified at the thought of it. I’d only driven a car twice, in broad daylight and on a wide-open road. “I’d bring it back early, before anyone would even know it was gone.”
“Lord no, Patrick would never let you,” Elizabeth said, just a touch too loud.
“Patrick wouldn’t let you what?” He poked his head around the door.
Elizabeth sighed and looked at me, shaking her head slightly as if to tell me she had no choice. “Beatrice has been helping Thomas out up at the lighthouse,” she said.
His forehead wrinkled and he looked from her to me and back to her.
“He took a tumble a few days ago, cracked a rib and sprained his ankle pretty bad. You know how those two goons up there Milton and Worthington are out to get Thomas.” She turned to me. “They don’t like that Thomas gets to keep the main house as head keeper even though he’s got no family living there with him no more and never really did.”
“How bad is it?” Patrick asked. “He should have let someone know.”
“He did,” Elizabeth said, flicking her eyes to me.
“He should’ve let one of us know, someone who can help him.”
“I’ve been helping,” I said, “as much as I can; in fact, I am trying to get up there now to help him start the night shift.”
Patrick rolled his eyes and pushed past us to pick up his mud-caked boots from outside the front door. “Don’t know why nobody didn’t tell me,” he said.
“What are you doing, Pat?” Elizabeth asked. “It’s almost nine o’clock at night.”
“Well, someone’s got to go, I guess.”
“For God’s sake, you’ve got to be at the docks at three in the morning.”
She turned to me, “He’s on a tuna boat tomorrow. They go seventy miles out sometimes, so they leave really early.
“Come on, Patrick; be serious.”
The baby started to whimper and Elizabeth rocked him and reached inside the front door for a blanket. “If you want to help Thomas,” she said, “take Beatrice up to the light, then come home and go to bed for a few hours.”
“Her?” he said.
“She’s able to help him; it’s worked out so far,” Elizabeth said, quietly, perhaps aware of the awkwardness of speaking about me as if I weren’t there but unable to avoid it. “It’s not ideal; I’m clear on that. I’d be much happier if it were one of our folks up there”—she motioned to her neighbors’ homes—“but no one here can afford that right now.” She turned to me and added, “No one here has a spare four or five or six hours, not one person I know; between kids and summer work, every minute is accounted for.” She turned the conversation back toward her husband. “Beatrice has the time and she’s willing.”
Patrick and Elizabeth seemed to continue their conversation through slight nods and thoughts passing between them. I stood there waiting for their silent conversation to come to a conclusion and at last Patrick sat down on the step and began tying his laces.
“I suppose you’d best get in the car, then,” he said.
* * *
“Thank God you’re here,” Thomas said when I walked into the living room. He was in his armchair waiting.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I said.
“Don’t worry; I got Worthington to light up before he left, but I just need to get up there now to keep an eye on things. I was about to call on Milton, but you came just in the nick of time.”
“I’m really terribly sorry I’m so late. My room was broken into, I thought I’d been robbed, but it seems they didn’t take anything; they just messed everything up.”
“What? Why would they break in but steal nothing?”
I sighed; I didn’t want to talk about it or talk about Harry. He had obviously trodden too close to home this time and ruffled some feathers, which meant that he was involved with at least one woman at the Manor, and probably more knew about it. It was humiliating to think that it could be anyone. And to think I was trying to make friends with all these women. I felt horribly ashamed, but I couldn’t talk about it. Besides, Thomas needed to get up those stairs to the light.
“It doesn’t make sense; they must have been looking for something,” he persisted.
“Who knows.” I shrugged. “Come on; let’s get you moving.”
I gave him my hands and gently eased him out of his chair.
He looked at me, his eyes serious. “I’ve become completely reliant on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t even dare to attempt the stairs alone.”
“Really? I wasn’t even sure if I was helping, coming up here,” I said. “In fact, I was worried I might be more of a hindrance than a help.”
“Hardly,” he said. “You’re a godsend.”
* * *
“So who’s the artist?” I asked when at last we were settled at the top of the light.
“Artist?”
I nodded toward the easel and canvases.
“I dabble,” he said. “I’m no good, but we have to do something to keep ourselves from nodding off up here.”
“I’m sure you’re better than you’re letting on.”
“I’m okay with landscapes, but there’s only so many times you can paint the view from up here,” he said. He reached over to the rolls of canvas and began to unravel them. “I’ve painted it at sunrise, sunset, dusk, facing east, west, north and south.” He peeled each painting back, allowing me a quick glance. One canvas remained in the back of the pile, but he rolled them up again.
“What’s the last one?” I asked, reaching over to take a look.
“Oh, it’s no good, just an experiment.”
“Different scene?”
“No.…” He paused. “I was attempting a portrait, but it’s much harder. Can’t get the expression quite right.”
“May I?” I asked, trying again to take a peek. He paused a second. “I could give you a critique? I’m no artist, but I am honest.”
He considered it for a moment, then unraveled the paintings, slipping the last one out from the pile. It was a half-finished image of a young boy’s face, looking off the page, into the distance. I thought of the picture I’d seen in Thomas’s bedroom. It could have been the same boy, but in this image he looked a little older.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“It’s not finished.”
“But I love it like that.” I could see the pencil lines under the paint and something about the incompleteness of it tugged at my heart.
“Is it the boy from the picture in your room?” I asked.
“Same boy,” he said. A look of sadness fell across his face. The way he kept himself, his brown hair mixed with grey, shaggy and falling into his face, his facial hair scruffy, not quite a beard but enough to conceal some of his expression, I wondered if that was intentional, an attempt to hide his feelings. But his warm eyes now revealed his emotions.
“Your son?” I asked, quietly.
He nodded. “Tommy.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Connecticut with his mother.” He rolled up the paintings and put them back behind the easel. “I came back from the war a very different person from the man I was before I left,” he said. “I saw things and did things that were difficult to live with in the real world. I was mixed up”—he tapped the side of his temple—“in the head, you know. A lot of men were in a tough spot when they got back from the war and Louise, she had a hard time with that. We’d married just months before. I was drafted for the tail end of it, the last year, but it was enough to do some damage.”
“You probably saw some terrible things.” He nodded, but I really had no idea what he might have seen. “So she left you, just like that?”
“No, no. We were technically man and wife for another six or seven years, but we didn’t live as man and wife should. My fault in a lot of ways. I took a job as the assistant at the Stratford Shoal Light, a crooked, just about uninhabitable place. No land, just a pile of boulders
and this rickety, small lighthouse. I lived there, coming home only one day a week. It suited me fine then, thought it would allow me to phase back into my old life gradually, but it just cut me off from her even more.”
“You must have been lonely,” I said.
“I needed some time.”
His life fascinated me, so very different from mine. I wanted to know everything about him; I didn’t want him to stop talking.
“I needed to learn how to live with everything that had gone on during the war. But it gave Louise time and reason to distance herself.”
He tried to stand but couldn’t, his ribs causing him to suck in air. I helped him up as best I could and he climbed the few metal steps to check on the enormous lens turning rhythmically above us.
“So then you came here?” I stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and watched him.
“I did another gig at another light, taking the boat home when I could; then I managed to get transferred here. It was a very desirable assignment, a family light, because there are keepers’ dwellings and a whole family can live here. I thought it would be good for us, together again. Thought we’d try to have a baby and live a normal, simple life. She agreed at first. We packed up everything; I bought a car. We drove from Connecticut to here; it took twelve hours because most of the roads you see now weren’t done then. She stayed three months, then said she couldn’t do it anymore, the marriage, the lighthouse, me. She was fed up and wanted out, so she packed up and went back to Connecticut. She’d already wasted so many years on me. Three weeks later she wrote and told me she was pregnant.”
I watched him in the metal gallery encircling the giant lens that pumped the ocean with its steady, rhythmic light like a heartbeat. Instinctively I put my hand to my chest. I wanted to reach out and touch his hand, to let him know that I was listening, and that I cared, but he turned to climb back down the ladder and I moved out of the way.
“Do you see him much?” I asked. “Your son?”
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