Lightkeeper's Wife

by Sarah Anne Johnson

  When a snap in the wind woke her, she leapt from the tangle of quilts to stand at the window. Sails like broken wings in the soft gray air. Surf battered the hull, the keel caught in the shoals. The sounds were as familiar as her own quickening breath.

  There was Billy standing in the doorway to her room. Panic held his eyes open wide. She wanted to press herself against him to quell the raft of her loneliness and quiet his fear. She stepped toward him, aware of his fear. He was thinking of his own shipwreck. “You can do this, Billy. I need you to help me.”

  “Everything’s in the cart ready to go,” he said.

  Hannah went into the kitchen and peered through the window. “Rain’s fallen off, that’s good.” Her voice was calm as she pushed the front door open against the wind. The storm felt good on her face, the cold air a relief.

  Once outside, Hannah pushed through the wind toward the tops of the stairs and descended in the flourish of her green scarf and trailing wool coat. Billy fastened his cart to the rope they’d used to haul him up the dunes a few months ago. He lowered the gear, let the rope out slowly, and felt the cart as it bounced over beach plum and scrub to land on the beach.

  By the time he reached the beach, Hannah had already flipped the surfboat, so much lighter than the old skiff, and loaded it with the extra-long rope and life ring. The wreck tilted in the waves not more than a hundred yards from shore, the sails shredded like thin cotton sheets, the masts like winter trees stripped bare. The surf tapered off as the wind died down. They said nothing as they pushed the boat to water’s edge where it bobbed in the shallows. Hannah settled herself on the middle seat while Billy held the boat steady. With the oars set, Hannah sighted the wreck, then turned to Billy. She knew with certainty that she could trust him. “You’ll get that fire going and set the tarp.”

  “I got it. Be quick, Hannah.” When she gave him a final nod, he rushed the boat through the surf and shoved off toward the wreck. The surfboat rode up on a cresting wave, tilting toward vertical. The length of Hannah’s body, her feet against the stern seat for leverage, her arms down and pulling back on the oars, with the bow of the boat rising above her, appeared to him then as an angel rising up from the sea. But there was no ether to her presence, no heavenly wings to carry her, only the strength of her arms and a determination that frightened him in its pursuit of survivors.

  She rowed hard against the breakers, checking over her right shoulder now and again to make sure that she was on course. The bow of the boat lifted and held itself high in the waves. Hannah felt powerful in the knowledge of her own stamina as the boat responded to the slightest shift of her oars, and she began to close in on the wreck. Billy’s fire flared on the shore, and above, the white column of the lighthouse. Flotsam knocked against the hull and caught her oars. She listened for the telltale noise, water sloshing over decks or calls for help, but heard nothing, and so rowed harder, throwing her back into each pull upon the oars, hauling against the weight of the ocean to send the boat forward until she heard sails flapping. Above the wash of water over the ship’s decks, a loud thumping racket caught Hannah’s attention. As she approached, she heard muffled cries from the cabin.

  “Hallooo! Anybody there?”

  More muffled cries, louder this time. In that instant, she dismissed every warning she’d heard from John. Never get close to a wreck, Hannah. The masts crack in the wind, and when the hull fills with water, it can suck you and everything else down with it to the bottom. I have to keep my distance if I’ve any hope of saving anyone. She turned and sought out Billy’s fire on the beach, the black smoke a thin trail winding up. The pounding started again, a desperate racket that drove her alongside the wreck. No, Hannah, John’s voice warned from the back of her mind, but she couldn’t stop herself. There were men onboard.

  The gunwale was underwater, and the waves lifted and dropped the skiff so that it rose above the sinking ship then slammed down below it, lifted up, then slammed down again. The breakers crashed over the decks. Hannah held on, ducked her head, and peered through the salt spray. If she tied the skiff to the rail and the ship went down, it would take the skiff with it. She stood with her legs straddling the center seat, feeling the sea in her knees, and keeping her eye on the ship’s rail that rose as the skiff dropped. When the rail rose to meet the skiff, she quickly looped the rope through it and tied a slipknot with nervous hands.

  Satisfied that if the ship began to sink, a quick tug on the rope would free the skiff so that she could pull it back to her, she climbed onto the submerged deck of the wreck. The frigid water filled her boots as she made her way toward the hatch cover where the pounding continued, louder now. Even pushing with all her weight didn’t budge the hatch cover. It was locked from the inside. Unlock it. Find the latch.

  “Help!” Voices hysterical and desperate came through the hatch.

  Hannah turned around and searched the deck for anything she could use to bash the hatch open. The water inched up her shins. She couldn’t let herself think about the cold. She had to keep moving. Think, Hannah, think! She found a heavy belaying pin and swung it viciously at the hatch. Each blow against hard wood reverberated painfully up her arm, but she kept at it until a sharp pain overtook her elbow and she had to rest. The boat shifted and threw her off balance, until she gripped a handrail along the cabin. Her heart battered the cage of her ribs as she beat more violently at the hatch. “Hold on, hold on, I’ll be right back.”

  She dragged the skiff’s line to a cleat on the deck and tied it against her better judgment. Slogging her way aft, she held on to the cabin rail for balance and searched for anything that would free the hatch cover. Her feet had gone from numb to unbearable pain. A hatchet caught her eye. It was lashed to a bulwark underwater. She plunged her arm down to release it from its leather holster, and made her way back to the voices. “Step back. I’ve got it now. Step back!”

  Beneath the blows from the ax, the hatch splintered and then she went at it more brutally. The ship tilted once again, groaned, and trembled. She eyed her skiff and continued heaving her arm back and thrashing it forward. Some terrified violence drove her. As the ship pitched hard to starboard, the hatch split wide open. Water rushed over the decks and rose from inside the ship to fill the cabin. She clutched the handrail once again, and this time the water was so high she let her legs float back while she peered inside. She took a deep breath and pulled herself under using the brass handrail that led down. Her clothes ballooned as they filled with water. The blur of a girl’s dress billowed and she reached out, caught the fabric in her frozen hand. The boat shifted and the girl, her ghostly blue skin and frail limbs, spun away like an apparition. Hannah was out of breath now and dragged herself up by the railing until she broke the surface. One suck of breath and she went under again. Books floated past, a woman’s scarf, a wooden spoon. Where was the girl? Into the depths of the cabin, past the chart table and benches, Hannah ventured, but there was no one. The pain in her chest exploded in a rush of air and she kicked against the anchor of her clothing, pulled hard on the railing, and kicked again until she broke through the surface to suck in the air.

  The surfboat was still tied alongside the wreck, pitching in the waves. Hannah struggled to pull the skiff close enough to climb aboard, but she lost her footing and fell backward. The rope fell from her fingers; the boat drifted. She dove after the rope, caught it in one hand, and pulled herself toward the skiff. With her hands on the gunwale, she worked her way to the middle of the boat. When a wave lifted her, she swung her leg over the side and dropped into the bilge, now six inches deep with water. Her mind reeled. The ship was going to plummet. Her jaw rattled, limbs quivered as she set to rowing toward shore. Rowing hard was the only way to warm up. The surf continued to batter the disintegrating hull, and the masts and crossbeams strained like the sound of terror itself. The air vibrated with warning as the ship caved in. Masts thick as tree trunks snapped like skinny branches. From only
fifty feet away, the sinking ship mesmerized and horrified her. Hannah heard the suck of water as the ocean pulled the wreck to the bottom. She stared until nothing was left but a foamy wash that faded across the ocean. The world went quiet, almost silent. Water swirled and rippled where the ship had been, and broken spars and shreds of sail and random bits of debris floated to the surface and knocked against the skiff.

  Hannah trembled but rowed as hard as she could, using her breath to pull through each stroke. The air chambers Everett had built in the bow held it above the waves, and the boat sailed through the water. The lighthouse beam beckoned and she followed like a child called in from the cold.

  On the beach, she staggered out of the boat. Billy grabbed her beneath her shoulders as she fell forward. He lifted her upright, then slung her arm over his shoulder. She let his strength take over where hers had succumbed. Her left side rested against him as he carried her to the fire and settled her on an overturned crate. From the bottle kept in the locker beneath the stairs, he poured a mug full of whiskey. “You gotta get warm, Hannah. I’ll see to the boat.”

  Hannah knelt at the fire and gasped for air, just as she had when she’d come up from underwater, but she was sobbing now and pulling at her wet clothes. She stripped off her gloves, wool sweater, and boots, and leaned in close to the fire to absorb the heat. She couldn’t contain the sobs that rattled her rib cage. In her delirium, she tore off her trousers and shirt, until she stood in her underthings, as if the heat could assuage her grief.

  She didn’t hear Billy approach amid the sound of her crying and the crackling fire, and she didn’t care enough to pull herself together, couldn’t even if she wanted to. “It was a child,” she sobbed. “I tried…they were right there, then the wreck shifted and started to go down and I almost…but they floated away…I couldn’t—”

  Billy wrapped her in heavy wool blankets and positioned her in the lee of the tarp out of the wind. He sat in the sand beside her, pulling the blankets tight in front of her, swaddling her like a child. “You’re slurring your words. You’ve got chilled to the bone, Hannah. We have to get you up to the house before you catch a fever.” He shook her by the shoulders to focus her attention. “Get hold of yourself. We have to go.” He gathered Hannah’s clothing, packed the rest of the gear back into the cart, and kicked sand over the fire. Hannah stood near the bottom of the stairs wrapped in blankets. “Up we go,” he said, helping Hannah to her feet. “Can you make it up the steps?”

  “Yes, yes.” She tried to stand, but she was light-headed. There had to be a better way to do the rescues. With one arm over Billy’s shoulder, Hannah let him lead her up.

  Jan 22: Winds > 15, NE, schooner Neptune’s Daughter of Boston total loss.

  Hannah didn’t mention the little girl again. She slept and slept, and when the lights needed tending, Billy shook her awake and followed her to watch how she trimmed the wicks and filled the oil and lit the tiny fires. Mostly, he was afraid she’d fall down the stairs or burn herself in her half sleep. One morning, she said, “I’ll show you in case something happens to me.”

  “Those are the first words you’ve spoken in days,” he said. “I want no part. It’s the only thing getting you out of that bed.”

  She stopped talking after that.

  In between trips to the lights, Hannah slept the dreamless sleep of the dead, a sleep in which she did not worry about the lights or the fog that rolled in on the wake of the nor’easter, or the bodies held captive in their watery deaths. When the sun crept through her windows and lit dusty bands of air, she pulled the quilts over her head. She couldn’t get the image of the little girl’s billowing dress from her head. The only feeling she could imagine upon waking was an inescapable darkness. She slept, and occasionally heard pots clanging on the stove, or the gentle stream of water from the pump at the kitchen sink, but never a voice until one afternoon when Tom stood by her bed. When she stirred, he retreated to the kitchen.

  “How’s she doing?” Tom asked. “I brought some beef from Hallet’s. Maybe it’ll help her get on her feet.”

  “She’s had a terrible fever,” Billy said. “She just gets up to tend the lights and doesn’t say a word. Like walking in her sleep. She ought to be turning the corner, don’t you think?”

  Hannah heard them talking in the kitchen now, two grown men, worried and helpless. Her body ached from lying in bed. She had to get up, stretch, move. When she pushed back the covers and sat up, a fog rolled through her head. She stood slowly, her legs wobbly as she made her way out of her familiar, curtained room.

  “I’m not dead, you know,” Hannah said, shuffling into the kitchen.

  “Well, I came to see for myself,” Tom said. He gave Billy a look meant to drive him away, and Billy removed himself to the barn.

  “I know what you’re going to say, Tom, so don’t even bother.”

  “I’m going to bother.”

  “Well don’t. I went too far, I know that. But it was a young girl. I heard her calling out, and then I finally got down the hatch. She was so close.” Hannah began to cry, but hardened herself. “I don’t regret it. I’d do it again.”

  “But the girl’s drowned. You nearly killed yourself for nothing,” Tom said, angry. “It was a reckless thing to do.”

  “If I’d gotten out there faster, I might have saved her.”

  “Hannah, you know you should never board a sinking ship. You shouldn’t even be out there.”

  “I can’t talk about it anymore,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  Tom leaned forward on his chair and pushed himself up, as if exhausted by trying to talk sense to Hannah. “You know I care for you, Hannah. I should be the one here with you, not this stranger. Let me take care of you. It’s what John would want.”

  His love was familiar and complete and she wanted to relax into it, but she said, “I can’t right now, and it’s not fair to bring John into it.”

  “You must know I love you. I’ve loved you since…”

  He watched her closely, but she didn’t move or give away any feeling. At the door, he turned, as if to say one last thing but thinking better of it, he left her to her silence.

  ***

  After Tom’s visit, Billy returned and Hannah read out loud last week’s marine list for notice of Neptune’s Daughter.

  MARINE LIST

  Disasters, &c.

  Sloop Connecticut, (of New Bedford or vicinity), Gibbs, with rough rice and cotton, fm New River, NC for Charleston, is stated in a slip from the Charleston Courier of 21st inst, to have gone ashore on Pumpkin Island. Breakers night before, about 23 o’clock. Capt and crew remained in the rigging until next morning when they were providentially taken off, saving nothing but what they stood in. About ten minutes after they were taken off, the mast, to the rigging of which they had been clinging, went by the board, carrying with it everything attached, and had not they been rescued then, all must have met with a watery grave, as the vessel was full of water, and a tremendous sea running. Vessel and cargo total loss.

  Sch Convert, (of Bath) Austin, fm Wilmington NC for Boston, struck on Cohasset Rocks early this morning, was got off leaking badly, and to prevent her sinking was run on Peddocks Island. She is full of water; cargo of naval stores, and 50 hhds of molasses—latter on deck.

  Sch Neptune’s Daughter, of and fm Wilmington D with 4800 bu corn, for Boston, even of 25th inst, went aground off Dangerfield: cargo fully insured in Boston. Total wreck. No salvage. All lives lost inc Captain Jones Silva of Delaware, wife Hester, daughter Ella 8 yrs old.

  “Here it is,” she said, defeated.

  Billy looked up from his drawing. “Did your husband row into the storms?”

  “No, he stayed ashore to watch the lights. Sometimes after the storm, he rowed out.”

  “You did what your husband wouldn’t do. You went aboard that ship.”

  “It didn’
t help.”

  “You think you’d be doing any of this if he was here? Any of this lifesaving?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Billy took a gulp of water and drank it down like the hair of the dog. “Were you helping him when he was here?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “You were certainly willing and able, more than anyone I suppose.”

  Hannah stood from her chair and ran her hands down the front of her trousers as if they were a skirt she was trying to flatten. Why was she letting him upset her? He’d never even met John.

  “Go ahead, think on it, Hannah. Look at it close up.” Billy wiped his chin on his sleeve. His eyes were not unkind.

  Hannah spun around and glared into his face. “You think you know what it means to lose your husband? Your longest relationship has been with a bottle. You’ve never committed yourself to anything.”

  He only nodded as if she were right and he understood her anger—and this, his understanding, infuriated her. She closed her eyes and tried to deny the possibility that he was right. She told herself that if John had returned, he would’ve let her row into the surf. He would see how good she was. But the other, deeper truth continued to rear itself up, like a buoy shoved under the waves that bounces to the surface. John had a need to protect her that would always keep her ashore.

  In her confusion she fled the house and Billy’s pestering question. Tom would’ve discouraged her from rowing into the surf, but he wouldn’t have tried to stop her. She walked along the edge of the cliff and counted ships along the horizon, a series of light gray wings against the sky.

  13

  “Ship ahoy!” The call rang out from aloft. The morning mist had burned off, and only wisps of clouds streaked the azure skies. The first mate rang the bell, and the crew of the Alice K went belowdecks to gather arms. They fell into a loose formation on the leeward rail, waiting for Jack to call orders.