I reached into my jacket and pulled out my father’s picture. When had I last looked at it? When hadn’t I, was perhaps the more appropriate question. There wasn’t a day that had gone by when I hadn’t glanced at it wedged in the corner of the mirror. In fact, some mornings I studied his reflection instead of my own. The image was so ingrained in my mind that I could see the details with my eyes closed: the fountain on which his foot rested, the base of the lighthouse rising over his shoulder, his enigmatic smile. The picture felt more like an actual memory than some trivial event that had taken place before I was born. It had been so long since I had seen him, it was difficult to imagine him without hair, with age-lines around his eyes and wrinkles framing his mouth. When I thought of him, it was this youthful, black and white image that came to mind.
“So this is where you spend your free time.”
It was Mr. O’Leary. He stood with an elbow on the railing as if it were the lectern in his classroom. I stood up, muttering about needing some fresh air.
“That was quite a climb,” he said, clutching his stomach to ease a side ache. “Actually, I saw you in Oak Yard and came up here to reprimand you.”
“You’re determined.”
“That I am. You ever been in there?” he asked, glancing at the lantern room.
“Sure. You wanna go?”
“Maybe in a little while. Some fresh air will do me good. Quite a view,” he added, looking at the ocean without much interest.
Mr. O’Leary put his back to the railing, perhaps to relax, but it only made him look more out of place. The lighthouse didn’t seem like somewhere he would ever care to be. It was the equivalent of showing up for first period and finding Max lecturing about the correlation between the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire.
“Is Wellington … leaving?” I asked.
“Leaving?” Mr. O’Leary’s forehead wrinkled. “Leaving where?”
“The island.”
“Now what makes you think that?”
“Max said that renovations have stopped.”
Mr. O’Leary pursed his lips. “News to me.” Then he smiled. “Why, you worried you might actually fence somewhere other than a swimming pool?”
I was about to respond when a familiar sound caught my attention. In the distance, a dark speck hovered in the sky. It was miles away, flying over the ocean. Mr. O’Leary followed my gaze, and we both watched as the helicopter approached. Just when I became convinced it was coming to the island, it veered to the west.
“You miss your friends, don’t you?” Mr. O’Leary asked.
I nodded. “Every day.”
We both watched until the helicopter disappeared in the glare of the sun.
“Never in a million years would I have expected it from Roland,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. You’d have to be pretty dense not to know where those questions came from, but Roland was an exemplary student. As honest as they come.”
“But in a way … he was being honest.”
“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
A moment of silence passed. I continued to watch the horizon, half-expecting something else to appear. Perhaps the silhouette of a ship, or another helicopter. But there was only the flat blue of the ocean.
“What’s that you got there?” Mr. O’Leary asked.
“Hmmm? Oh, nothing,” I muttered, slipping the picture back into my jacket.
“Wait a second. Not so fast. Come on, let’s have a look. Probably one of your girlfriends you’ve got lined up for the holidays.”
Not seeing any way around it, I took the picture back out and handed it to him.
“Let’s see here …” he said, taking out his reading glasses. “This looks rather old. Rather old indeed. Wait a second …” He removed his glasses and circled around to the other side of the lighthouse. I reluctantly trailed behind.
“Quite amazing. This place really hasn’t changed,” he said, looking down into the courtyard. “You’re full of surprises, Mr. Hawthorne. And here I thought it was next week’s date. My apologies. I didn’t mean to pry,” he added, somewhat sarcastically, and returned the picture. Then he put his glasses away and looked out at the horizon as if willing to let the conversation drop. At first I couldn’t believe my good luck, but as the silence lengthened, I considered it unusual, even offensive, that he didn’t have the courtesy to inquire more about the picture.
“Well, aren’t you even going to ask who it is?” I asked.
“Who what is?”
“The man in the picture.”
“As a general rule, I never ask a question to which I already know the answer.”
I was on the verge of asking him who he thought it was—eager for the chance to prove him wrong—but then realized this was probably exactly what he wanted. In the end, I resigned myself to silence.
“It’s your father,” Mr. O’Leary said after a moment.
I looked at him. “The resemblance is that strong, huh?”
“There’s actually very little resemblance.”
“Then how did you know?”
He shrugged. “Who else would it be?”
When I didn’t respond, he said, “He must be very proud with his son questioning the leaders of the free world.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling his eyes upon me. “My family is proud.”
“Oh, I didn’t even realize. Was it … was it his father who passed away last month? You’ll have to excuse me, Jake. Sometimes I can be an insensitive oaf.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” I looked at my watch. “Well, I should probably—”
“If nothing else, at least you got to see him at the funeral.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
I started to formulate a response, but stopped, fearing he would hear the lie in my voice. Suddenly I regretted showing him the photograph. Why had I even brought it up here?
“Jacob,” I heard him say. “I think this has gone on long enough.”
“What? What’s gone on long enough?”
When he spoke, his voice became magnified with self-importance, as it often did when reciting literature. “This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“More Shakespeare?” I asked, relieved he was joking.
But Mr. O’Leary did not respond.
“I don’t get it,” I said, running the words over in my head.
“And what exactly don’t you get?”
“The punch line. It’s not funny.”
“It’s Hamlet. It’s a tragedy. There is no punch line.”
I looked at him, confused.
“To thine own self be true,” he said again.
“Look, I don’t really know—”
“Jacob, it’s okay.”
Why was he looking at me like that? “… What’s okay?”
“You can say it,” he said, a paternal quality entering his voice.
“Say what? What are you talking about?”
I started to back away.
“I just want you to know that it’s okay,” he said, following me.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re—”
“It no longer has to be a burden.”
“Burden? There’s … there’s no burden.” When I laughed, the noise twisted in my throat, coming out dry and humorless.
“You no longer have to fight it. Let it go.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just … hey, leave me alone!”
We had circled around to the other side of the lighthouse. The walkway was unnaturally quiet without the wind, making my voice sound loud, even desperate. I lifted one arm and leaned heavily on the railing.
Somewhere far below, the island fell in ledges to the sea.
I struggled to steady myself as the first wave of vertigo pressed into my periphery. Something so enormous loomed over me that if I looked up, I would lose my balance and fall from the edge
.
“You need to hear it, Jacob. You need to hear it from yourself.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t you fucking do this!”
“Say it, Jacob.” His face was close to mine. “The truth has to start with you.”
But this was the truth. Father had been at the funeral. How could I ever forget the anger in his eyes when he looked up and saw me there? Infuriated that I had come back against his wishes, he had forced me to find my way back to Wellington.
Had he really been there? I couldn’t quite remember. The island had a way of making you forget. It had all started that first day at the parent reception.
There’s no record of him boarding the ferry. You’re sure he’s coming, right?
I ain’t your father, kid. But I will take your picture. Wanna make the headlines?
“Jacob, it’s okay.”
Of course it was okay. Father was home at that very moment. He hadn’t called or visited because he needed me to be strong for the family. And when I returned for Thanksgiving, it would be just like before. We would have a long talk after dinner while Mother played one of her melodies on the piano. His tone would become serious, even lecturing, as the topic of conversation turned to school and how my grades needed improving.
How I wanted to hear those words!
I want to hear about Judge Hawthorne. I want to know why he doesn’t call on Sunday night …
… never once got a call from home…
… whenever someone spends a lot of time with their grandparents, there’s always a problem at home. Every time.
“It’s okay. You can say it.”
Mother hadn’t sent me to Wellington. She had been against it from the very beginning, believing I was too young to leave home. But Father had insisted. He had been angry with me because I had visited Grandpa against his wishes. He had sent me away to prevent me from following in David’s footsteps.
This was the truth, I swear.
Jacob, darling, certainly you know that it’s not possible for him to be here. This was all a mistake. I thought it would help to send you to Wellington. You would have what you couldn’t at home.
But why would I have made any of this up? What purpose would it serve?
Who better to blame than my old man? I needed him more than I thought. I needed that touch of evil in my life. Nothing made sense without it.
Have you ever lost something so dear to you, that you would do anything to get it back?
I locked eyes with Mr. O’Leary, intent on keeping the chorus of voices out of my head.
But David’s words came back to me, from around the world.
The funeral is at Pine Crest Cemetery. You remember how to get there?
Why would he have asked me that? Grandma Hawthorne had died before I was born, and I had never visited her grave. Then how had I known where Grandpa would be buried?
And why were there three tombstones, Jacob?
I had been there before, not so long ago. Yes, I remembered now. I remembered it being overcast and dreary. I could see my breath in the air, and a strong wind cut across the hill, making the cold more bitter. And it had been me sitting before the casket, receiving a rose after the service. And when David hadn’t come back, hadn’t come walking over the hill at the last moment, I lost all hope that he would ever come home again.
“It’s okay, Jacob.”
But Father was still alive! It was only a dream that he had gone into the woods behind our house on that cold winter morning, a dark figure disappearing in a flurry of white. He was still alive and he still needed me to succeed, to succeed where David had failed.
I should have still been sleeping, but the way Father stood watching me from the hallway had awoken me. I couldn’t fall back asleep, staring for some time at the exposed beams of the ceiling. I got up just after he left the house. It was so cold following his tracks through the snow.
He still needed me. He needed me now more than ever.
The noise that came ringing through the trees and sent the crows flying into the air sounded nothing at all like a gunshot. I had never run so fast in my life. But if I had only been a little quicker … if I had only called out to him as I watched him leave the house. But the snow had been so deep, nearly up to my knees. If he had only known I was behind him, following his footprints through the snow, then it would have turned out okay. It would have all been so much better. But I was too late. And when I finally caught up to him—all that snow, stained red, melting in the cold winter air.
The past is a nice place to visit, but it’s not somewhere I’d ever want to live.
I no longer clung to the railing, but was somehow in Mr. O’Leary’s arms.
“He’s dead,” I said, my voice choked with tears. “My father … is dead. It happened last winter. He went off into the woods and … and …”
“It’s okay,” Mr. O’Leary kept repeating. “It’s going to be okay.”
I closed my eyes. I was only aware of the nearness of Mr. O’Leary, his soothing words that I struggled to understand, and that horrible scene in the woods that now lay frozen in my mind. The very image that I had forced myself to forget returned with such clarity that it became an unshakeable bedrock of truth.
“I found him lying in the snow,” I said finally. “He … he …”
“It’s okay.”
“He killed himself!”
I hid my face in Mr. O’Leary’s shoulder. My words burrowed beneath my grief and humiliated me. When I finally pulled away, I blinked away the last of my tears. We were both quiet for some time. The wind had picked up, and the sun was half-gone, an orange disc sliding into the ocean.
“My father is dead,” I said without emotion.
Mr. O’Leary stood with his head bowed. My admission failed to elicit a response. Even he, the eloquent orator who had won over the most obstinate student, seemed resigned to the fact that anything he could have said would have fallen short.
I turned to the courtyard. Though the catwalk blocked most of the view, I could see the edge of the fountain, and the dinner lights of the cafeteria turning on.
“The reason I came up here was to read a letter from my grandpa. I didn’t get it until after the funeral. I’ve kept putting it off.”
“There’s no better time than the present,” Mr. O’Leary said. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
When the catwalk door clanged shut behind him, I reached into my jacket and pulled out a half-opened envelope. I passed it beneath my nose.
“Musty, from Brooklyn.”
Without further delay, I opened the letter.
Frustrated! Frustrated! The neighbors blasted their music till all hours last night. I even called the police, though it did little good. Silence is such a rare commodity these days. It seems that something is always ringing or rattling. Slept until 8 AM, which I haven’t done in years.
Spoke with your brother the other day (he is persistent with that telephone!) He called from somewhere in Africa. Who knows where he’ll call from next. Maybe the moon (collect, of course).
I sat in our chair while eating breakfast this morning. Nearly fell face first into my cereal! Have you thought any more about that day? You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve talked myself into buying a new fan. As you know, it’s long overdue.
I’ve spent the better part of today going down memory lane, looking through albums of when your grandma was still alive. Remind me to get them out when you’re over next. She was one of those rare individuals who could always make you smile, even in the worst of circumstances. Shortly before the cancer took her, she told me that she believed when a person dies, their spirit comes to inhabit the place where they spent the happiest days of their life. She told me that if she had any choice in the matter, she would choose the back bedroom to “haunt.” This was your father and Uncle Larry’s bedroom when they were growing up, and, as you know, where she kept her bonsai. That room was where her children were, in one form or another, and it came to contain her fondest memori
es over the years. Perhaps she told me this just to cheer me up, but after her death, it helped to think of her being in the room with me while I tended to her trees.
Over the summer, I couldn’t help but notice how we no longer discuss your father. It is a topic that causes both of us a great deal of pain, and will always do so. Death can be very difficult to accept, whether you’re young or old. So allow me the liberty of writing what has gone unsaid.
Your father once told me that his most cherished memories were of when he and your mother vacationed on Raker Island. Though they were already married, he said that it was there where they fell in love. And this coming from a man who, as you know, rarely spoke of his feelings. When I first heard you were going to school there, I recalled what your grandma told me, and then I thought of how few coincidences there truly are in this world.
Thanksgiving will be upon us soon. Until our next visit.
Grandpa
I would read the letter three more times by the end of the night. When I returned it to my jacket, my hand reached for Father’s picture, but I stopped upon feeling the edge of the photograph. I had looked at it enough to remember every detail, every facet of the expression of a young man falling in love.
Feeling the cold onset of dusk, I looked at the island one final time. When I reached for the stairwell door, a quick movement caught my eye. Above me, in the window of the lantern room, a face flashed in the final glare of the sun and was gone.
EPILOGUE
When the boy at the prow of the boat dipped his outstretched hand into the water, a band of sunburned skin protruded from his shirt collar. He remained like this, with one hand gripping the silver railing for balance and the other passing through the kicked up water, his laughter rising above the wind. When the engine revved, the boat’s nose lifted in the air, and the boy shifted forward as if leaning into the neck of a galloping stallion.
The boat passed the cruisers and sailboats along the pier, veering south into open water. As the excitement of getting started wore off, the boy settled into a more comfortable position, resting his elbows on his crossed legs. The only time he broke his stare from the empty horizon was to glance behind him, not because the diminishing shoreline held any interest, but because it was the only way to measure the distance traveled. The boy’s vigilant watch was tested when a dolphin leapt from the water on the starboard side. It was while he searched for a second sighting that a smudge of land took shape on the horizon.
The Keeper of Dawn Page 31