“Not everyone wants to grow up to be a doctor, Heath,” Ayden said, overhearing the conversation on his way back to the oil house.
The younger children took off, now preoccupied with getting sat down for supper, while Heath, Sylvia, Ayden, and I stood ready to debate the topic.
“That’s right. I’ve had all the schooling I need. Don’t plan to go tomorrow.”
“What does your father say about this?” Heath asked.
“He says I’ll make a fine keeper,” she snapped.
“But does he say you should drop out of school?” I asked. She frowned at me, then turned to Ayden. “You told me you were the same way, that you didn’t like school. Tell them I know what I’m doing,” Sylvia instructed. Ayden’s face turned bright red, and I sucked in my breath, appalled that he would reveal such a personal thing to Sylvia and condone her decision, no less.
“Now Sylvia, I think you took what I said out of context,” Ayden calmly began. I was too stunned to listen any more.
“I need to help serve supper,” I said, and I stormed off.
The talk during supper was all about school. Heath gave another lecture for all to hear, but I tuned it all out. My mind was preoccupied with how easily this one young girl could manipulate everyone around her. I refused to look at Ayden during supper, and avoided him afterward. And when the next morning I that learned Sylvia had gotten her way, I was livid with Ayden. “You know how impressionable children can be. How could you lead Sylvia to believe she didn’t need to go to school any longer?”
“You didn’t finish school, and you’re fine,” he said in his defense.
“That wasn’t my choice!” I shouted in my own defense.
“Calm down, would you. This is her parents’ decision, not ours.”
“You’re the one who got yourself involved by allowing her to believe she could be a keeper. You know it’s nearly impossible. Though there are skilled women keepers, Sylvia is one who can only be a keeper’s wife without proper schooling,” I argued disdainfully.
Weary, Ayden ran his hands through his thick hair and sighed. The night had been rough - a duck had slammed into one of the glass panels and smashed it to pieces. Ayden was on his way to the barn to retrieve his tools and a new section of glass when I stopped him.
“I am not the one who will douse her dreams, as no one did yours. Besides, from now on I’m going to keep my mouth shut, for anything that has to do with that girl somehow gets me into trouble and you angry with me.”
Ayden was hurt, his shoulders sunk in defeat. Instantly I regretted my attack. “I’m sorry, Ayden. I just think she should get an education, and . . .”
“I need to get this glass panel up. James is waiting for me,” he said coolly, and he walked away without another word.
Heath passed by on his way to the boathouse and asked if I wanted to row to the harbor village with him.
“Gladly,” I said. “I can use the distraction with a short excursion to the village. Let me ask Hazel if she needs anything. I’ll be right there.”
“I already asked. She said we’re short on salt and flour,” he said, and nudged me along. “Looks like the day might end in rain, so let’s go.”
I turned to see if Ayden cared, but he was busy in the barn, unconcerned about what I was doing for the day. Heath was right. The dark grey clouds were closing in on the pale blue sky. I hurried along behind him.
The water was choppy, the ride over less than pleasant. Heath rowed with great vigor, his arms surprisingly strong and brawny. By the time we reached the docks, it was raining lightly.
“I need to run an errand. I’ll meet you back here in a short while,” he said, seeming unusually distracted.
I nodded and began to walk to the store. Heath immediately headed for the post office, pulling a letter from his vest pocket as he walked briskly. I hurried inside, but instead of giving Mr. Makson my short list of items, I stayed close to the window and fixed my eyes across the street to the open door of the post office, where Heath stood inside and handed Mrs. Hagen his envelope. The rain came down fast and steady, so rapidly the streets turned into instant mud. People scattered and ran for cover, ducking under the porches of taverns and storefronts. The rain became so torrential and blinding that I couldn’t see across the street any longer, and I lost sight of Heath.
“Can I help you, Mrs. Dalton?” Mr. Makson asked, after he finished with a customer.
“What . . . yes. I need a pound of salt and a sack of flour,” I replied, not prying my eyes off the post office.
“Doesn’t look like this rain going to let up anytime soon,” he said, peering out the store window over the spectacles that sat just on the edge of his thin nose. “I’ll write up the order and as soon as the rain lets up I’ll have it brought to your boat.”
“Thank you." I waited a few minutes longer to see if the rain would subside enough for me to find Heath. But after standing and staring, holding my breath and wondering, I couldn’t stand not knowing with whom Heath was corresponding.
I ran as quickly as I could through the thick mud and battering rain and finally made it into the post office.
“Why, Mrs. Dalton, what in the world are you doing running in that rain? You could catch your death!” Mrs. Hagen said.
“Dr. Dalton . . . which way did he go?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.
“Toward the docks, I believe.”
I noticed Heath’s letter on her desk, though most of the address was covered by other pieces of mail waiting to be organized.
“Did he happen to pick up our mail?”
“Why no. There are a few pieces. Let me get them for you,” she said, and turned around to gather the letters from our slot. I took the opportunity to slide Heath’s letter over and quickly scanned the name and address in Heath‘s handwriting. The name read Felix Lowell, Esquire, and the address - a street in New York City.
“Here you are,” Mrs. Hagen announced. “And look, the rain has finally let up.”
“Thank you. Have a good day.” I rushed out so I could get to the dock before the rain let loose again. The clouds were still thick and black, and thunder clapped overhead.
As I hurried, my dress and shoes weighed me down, covered with thick mud. I checked our mail to make certain there wasn’t anything for Heath. There wasn’t. Heath was helping load the boat when I arrived.
“I came as quickly as I could,” I said, and climbed into the wet boat. Heath unlatched the rope and pushed off the dock, then immediately sat down and began the tedious row back to the island.
Not long after Heath had rowed us out from the harbor, the rain started again, so much it seemed as though the sky were falling in. Lightning bolts snapped all around the sea, causing me to cover my ears and curl up in fear. Heath yelled for me to drop onto the floor of the boat. I grasped onto the sides, then slid down as he instructed. Poor Heath - the rain and wind blinded him, and he was doing everything he could to row us over the swells and whitecaps. I feared we were going to tip over at any moment. And as I sat in the puddle formed in the middle of the rowboat, tossed and jerked by the angry waves, I tried to focus on the light. I knew Ayden was up there, sending out the beam, guiding us toward home. Heath struggled to keep the boat from capsizing and lost one oar in the process.
“Reach for it!” he yelled above the howling wind. I scrambled up to my knees, leaned over the side, and tried to grab it as the wave grew higher with the long, wooden oar floating along for the ride. That’s when I fell overboard.
“Lillian!” Heath screamed and he rushed over to the side to reach out for me. “Grab my hand!”
But I couldn’t. The water was cold, and the waves pulled me away, just out of his reach.
“Heath, Heath!” I cried out in gurgles, while being swept under by another large wave. My mind flashed back to when I was younger and I threw myself off the cliff to end my life after Momma had died. I was mysteriously saved then by Lady, our dog, or by Momma’s spirit, I didn’t know whi
ch. Now, as I grew more tired with each stroke I used to make my way toward the drifting boat, I truly feared my life would end. After being dunked repeatedly, when I surfaced I began to panic, trying to find a way to survive the ordeal. I didn’t see Heath any longer, and I lost sight of the lighthouse.
The day grew dark, and I no longer felt cold. I became listless, unable to tread water. My fight was ending, my hope dwindling. I didn’t see the light. It had faded somewhere in the distance.
“Lillian!” I heard my name called, then felt Heath grab me, wrapping his arm around my waist. The two of us plunged under the water for a moment, then bobbed back up, both of us desperately gasping for air. “Hold onto me,” Heath ordered, and he held me tight and managed to swim with me in tow until we reached the end of the line, the rope that James, Sr. threw out that Heath had managed to take hold of.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
Castles may crumble
I bolted awake in silent screams, gasping for air, covered in sweat, my damp hair pasted to my clammy skin. I was disoriented, confused, and uncertain as to whether I had survived the nightmare. I tried to focus my eyes, but could only make out a tiny flame coming from the lone lamp. Painstakingly slowly, my vision cleared enough to make out my dollhouse, and I noticed the shadow of someone playing with my dolls. I blinked my lids repeatedly and took a deep breath, which immediately caused my lungs to spasm.
“Oh, you’re wake,” the somewhat familiar voice said, and I heard her throw the dolls back into the dollhouse. Then she turned up the flame. It was Sylvia. “You sure came close to dying,” she said in an offhand manner.
“Heath . . . where’s Heath?” I said, panic-stricken at the agonizing thought he hadn’t survived.
“The doctor is with Ma, though he isn’t much better himself.” Sylvia sauntered over beside the bed and fluffed up my pillow behind my back. I lay drained and took another breath, eliciting another round of coughing spasms. Sylvia stood motionless and appeared slightly annoyed, waiting for me to stop.
“Pa dragged you up on the beach, turned you over, and slapped the water out of you. Never seen someone spit out so much sea water,” she said, while pouring me a large glass of water. “Thirsty?”
“Ayden. I need Ayden,” I begged.
“The weather hasn’t let up. Your husband is up in the tower, working the light while Pa waits to hear what Doctor Dalton says about the baby, though poor Doctor Heath is no better than you are. Sick with fever, coughing and hacking.”
Against the windows, the rain was relentless - pelting the panes with small pieces of hail. The storm hadn’t yet surrendered.
“What’s wrong with your ma?” I asked in between coughing.
“Thinks she is losing the baby. It happened once before. It was a girl, born dead as a doornail at five months along. Ma named her Leslie, but Pa wasn‘t happy about it. He said a baby that isn’t born alive doesn‘t need a name. So on her gravestone back on the lighthouse station, it simply reads, Female Baby Cooper and the date she was born and buried.”
Sylvia was holding my favorite doll, the one I’d named Jane. She was tenderly stroking her hair, admiring her, not looking at me. I closed my eyes, dizzy from the coughing. My chest ached, my head throbbed, and I was horrified by Sylvia’s short but dreadful chronicle.
“Can you please fetch Ayden? You can mind the light, can’t you?” I begged with what little strength I had left.
Sylvia, without consideration, threw the doll onto the bed. “Fine, I’ll tell Ayden you’re awake.” She stomped to the door then stopped abruptly. And with her back toward me added, “One would guess it was Heath who was your husband, the way he moaned and carried on when he thought you were going to die. Ayden hasn’t been down from the tower once to see how you have fared.”
Finally, Ayden came to see me with obvious reluctance. He reached for my limp hand, held it against his chest, and sighed. “I apologize for not coming sooner, Lillian. The storm . . . Hazel . . .”
I slipped my hand out from his and swung my weary eyes away.
“You’ve been in good hands. Sylvia volunteered to stay by your bedside when Heath had to see to Hazel. She stayed vigilant for the past two days while her mother recovered,” he said, and affectionately caressed my back as I lunged forward to cough up the thick, yellow mucus from my lungs.
“Go back to the tower,” I choked. “I can look after myself. Tell Sylvia to tend to Hazel.”
“Please understand. You know what I have to do. I will have Heath look in on you. Sylvia says there is nothing more he can do for Hazel. She lost the baby.”
Ayden was drained; his long hours in the tower left him little to offer. “I have to get back. I love you. I promise to come in and see you as soon as the storm ends,” he said. He went to kiss me on the cheek, but I turned away, leaving his kiss to linger in the still, damp air.
“Daddy would have never left Momma,” I muttered, resenting his priority to put the light before me.
“Your daddy was a fine keeper, but in the end he lost sight of his obligations. He let love blind him. Love drove him to despair, to desperation. He died the kind of man I shudder at the thought of becoming.”
“What are you talking about? Daddy died saving sailors at sea,” I cried out in short wispy breaths not to provoke my lungs to spasm again.
“No!” he lashed out. “Your father died a fool. He was found dead in the arms of a prostitute. It was the gossip all over town.”
“That’s not true!” I cried out in panic and disbelief.
“It is true! Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? Your father was nothing after your mother died. He had no pride, no decency. He abandoned the lighthouse and you. How can you possibly admire him?”
“That’s enough, Ayden!” Heath boomed, and then went straight into a coughing spell.
“Lillian deserves to know the truth about her father. He was no hero. He was a discredit to all keepers!”
“This is not the time,” Heath commanded.
Ayden glared over at Heath, then reached for my hand and insisted I look at him. I opened my bleak, tear-filled eyes, staring at the man who had just proclaimed that I was second in line to his heart. His position as keeper of the light of Jasper Island claimed his love first. How could I compete? The light demanded him every night, and I had been foolish enough to believe Ayden could possibly love me more than anything. I dreamed he would love me as passionately as Daddy loved Momma, as deeply and unconditionally. Ayden had claimed only a few months back that he’d waited years for me to return, and life was not worth living without me. However, here he was, standing before me, plunging a dagger of truth deep into my soul, then pulling it out, leaving me wounded and clinging onto whatever he had left to offer.
Perhaps it was my misgivings, my enormous reluctance to be a real wife to him that drove a wedge between us and allowed Ayden to fall in love with his own importance. Or was it truly my father dying a disgraced, pitiful man that made Ayden pull away from me, only to throw himself into the incessant duties as primary keeper?
Ayden laid my hand down to my side and marched back to the light as the faithful keeper he was. Heath came and felt my forehead for a fever, then checked my pulse. He was sickly himself, feverish and worn. His cough was as deep and debilitating, and the spasms so violent he needed to cling to the headboard, just so he wouldn’t fall over.
“Ayden should never have told you about your father! Sometimes he doesn‘t think before he speaks.”
“Have you known all along?”
Heath attempted to contain his cough long enough to say, “I just learned recently.”
“You need to rest,” I said, barely above a whisper, so exhausted I could barely tolerate the energy and strain it took to talk.
“You need not worry about me. Polly is on her way up with some chicken soup. I left Hazel in the care of Sylvia. There is nothing more I can do for her,” he said, and then collapsed into the chair nearest to the bed.
Heath smiled at me, and though it was a weary smile, I saw the sincerity behind it. “All right, Lillian, I will do as you say,” Heath conceded and stood up.
Unexpectedly, he lingered over me, blocking the light, casting his shadow like a blanket. Then leaned in and whispered into my ear, “Ayden doesn’t deserve you.”
“Please don’t say that,” I replied in a sleepy stupor, and I began to drift off, barely aware of the delicate, uninvited kiss he placed on my lips.
The night dragged on, the dampness and chill from the deluge rooted into my bones and filled my lungs with added fluid. I violently tossed and turned, moaning from the physical agony and groaning from the woe in my heart. My mind continued to play back what Ayden had said. Daddy had turned into a drunk, a lush who frequented brothels. He forgot all about me and had no intention of seeing me again. When Momma died, Daddy’s soul died along with her. He didn’t return to his duties as a keeper, as Warren had told me. It was all a lie! The visions of him dead in the arms of a dirty prostitute made my stomach turn and twist and cry out in emotional torment.
Now I was left to face the truth and attempt to recover, to pull myself out of uncompromising despair. And where was Ayden? Was he beside me, comforting me, consoling me in my grief, or wiping the sweat from my brow as the fever took havoc on my body? No, he locked himself away in the tower, serving those out on the sea and forgetting all about me.
The dewy morning brought dull sunshine with a light, subtle wind. Polly came up early with a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage, the mere sight of which caused me to gag. “Take it away,” I said, sickened, and then I coughed up thick mucus into the cloth she handed me.
“You’re not hungry?” she asked worriedly, and she removed the plate from my lap.
I shook my head no, and took slow, minute breaths until I was able to relax and fall back into the pillow.
“You look peaked, Mrs. Dalton. Maybe some tea and honey would help soothe your cough,” she said. “Here, sip on some.”
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