Lightkeeper's Wife

by Sarah Anne Johnson

  ***

  Jack stood with Nate at the helm. He had a matchstick in his mouth that he chewed between his back teeth, and he pointed one rough finger at the compass, then out toward the bow of the boat. When he spied Blue, he leaned in to give Nate a series of orders, and then slapped him on the back and spun on his heel to face the stern.

  He joined Blue where she stood looking into the ship’s wake, then up to the sky at wispy clouds elongated over the horizon. Jack didn’t say anything about her hair even as he took it in. “You drunk?”

  “Not yet.”

  He nodded and spat over the side. He walked away, his coat loose and flapping, brass buttons clattering in the wind. Blue listened to the musical sound of his retreat. Then her gaze drifted up to the rigging and the crow’s nest atop the mast. She swung herself onto the ratlines and climbed up, the rough-hewn rope scraping her palms, her legs swinging with the sway of the rope ladder. Near the top of the mast, she pulled herself to the crow’s nest and stepped onto the small platform with nothing but the metal rail at her waist to keep her safe. As far as she could see, waves foamed and rolled in white arcs. Not a ship in sight or any land, only the boat and wind and water and sky. She couldn’t stay aboard the Alice K. Not after stealing the gold, which she stashed in the false bottom of her sea chest. Not after letting the young captain go. She had to get off this ship.

  The only way to escape was when Jack and the crew went ashore with Therese and her women. They would be drunk and distracted; they’d expect her to stay on the ship as she had in the past. The wind swept the thoughts from her mind until she couldn’t think beyond the pressure of air and the rocking motion of the ship and the sturdy rail at her waist that held her close as a lover.

  14

  In the early morning, wrapped tight in a jacket buttoned over her white flannel nightgown, Hannah bent her torso into the wind and walked to the lip of the dune where she stood amid withered scrub brush and vines. A tangled knot of air writhed and tumbled between her and the ocean. Eight-foot swells the color of cracked glass crashed onto the beach in a milky froth, spraying the air with mist. Hannah’s breath quickened, and her pulse throbbed with the violence of it. She squatted down out of the wind and poked at the frozen earth with the broken end of a stick, and she found herself digging viciously, digging and digging until she became aware of herself and stopped. In the surfboat, she felt her own power lifted and enhanced. She wanted to put the boat to work, but she needed to be able to rely on Billy staying away from the bottle.

  On her way back into the house, she looked toward Tom’s yard, but he wasn’t there. She felt lonely for him then. Was she foolish not to marry him, though he hadn’t said anything about marriage? Hadn’t she thought about him often since that day on the beach? Hadn’t she watched the graceful way he moved across a room? Hadn’t she noticed his hands, strong from working wood, and imagined them on her body? She wanted someone she could rely on.

  Inside, Billy had made a pot of coffee and looked to be pouring his first cup. The hair on one side of his head pressed straight up with sleep.

  She dropped her jacket on a chair, pulled her cardigan close, and stifled a shiver that ran through her entire being.

  “You’ve got to lay off the drinking,” Hannah said, with more anger than she intended.

  He squinted against the pain in his head. His surly expression, watery eyes, and puffy face all made her want to slap him. He reminded her of her father. But she waited until the feeling settled down. “There’s only so much you can do around here if you’re drinking. These are people’s lives we’re looking after. How can I count on you if you’re drunk or suffering the day after?”

  He was silent, his lips a tight crease.

  “I’m talking about you being someone I can trust. You have to take responsibility for your post.” Hannah turned away from him. “Otherwise you can leave.”

  His face filled with surprise, then despair, his eyes boring into her, then away. Hannah was afraid. She didn’t know what he was capable of. She went to the kitchen counter and eyed the rolling pin. If he came at her, she could swing the pin right at his head. She was strong enough to hurt him. She’d seen a man’s rage. She’d seen how her father taking a drink here and there could turn into pitchers of milk thrown against the wall. Seen how a man could turn his anger into a machine that worked without stopping, hammering against anything that got in its way.

  She turned from the counter and took in his stricken face. Billy saw that he’d frightened her, and his rage looked to have turned in on himself. His shame drove him to a far chair where he sat opening and closing his fists as if to exorcise some fiendish impulse. Then he sat with his head in his hands, as if everything bad about him had collected in the orb of his skull and he couldn’t bear the weight of it.

  “I don’t want you to have to leave,” Hannah said.

  “I said I’d quit last night. It’s not like I never thought of quitting,” he said. “Nothing good ever came of it.” He ran his charcoaled fingers back and forth across the tops of his trousers to rub the stains out but they persisted. He looked up, waited for Hannah to say something, but she didn’t speak. “Onboard, we drank to break the monotony. Then it was because I couldn’t stand the life and I needed to take the edge off. I drank and drank until after a while it didn’t do anything for me. I could drink all I wanted and I still felt the same as I did before I drank a sip,” he said.

  Still, she wasn’t in the mood to feel sorry for him. “You have to lay off.”

  “It won’t feel good to quit.”

  Hannah sat down in a chair opposite him. She wanted to understand why he drank. Her father said he drank to ease the pain in his back, but she knew it was something deeper; his drinking had started long before he hurt himself. When had Billy started drinking? “You said you sailed in the Caribbean. What were you doing there?”

  He slouched down into his chair as if he could disappear into it.

  “You’re always going to be a stranger here if you don’t let me know you.”

  He looked out the window toward nothing, his jaw clenched tight. Then he fixed his gray eyes on her. “There’s things I don’t know how to say. If I could tell you—” He shook his head and rose from the chair, slump-shouldered and frowning. He went outside to the barn, no jacket or hat, nothing to protect him.

  ***

  Tom appeared that afternoon carrying a package under one arm, his green eyes flashing happiness when Hannah opened the door. He was handsome in his seaman’s jacket, his ruddy cheeks flushed with cold.

  He placed the package on the table and dropped his coat onto a chair. “Where’s Billy?”

  “He went out to the barn hours ago.”

  “I’ve brought you something,” Tom said, and he sat at the table. “Come, sit.”

  Hannah sat in the chair at the head of the table and received the gift Tom slid in front of her. It was wrapped in newspaper from Barnstable.

  “You don’t have to buy me presents. That’s ridiculous,” she said.

  “Just open it, will you?”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, running one finger under the seam between layers, then carefully folding back the paper. Inside, was a maple box, finished to a high shine, with brass hinges on one side.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “Open it up,” Tom said, a look of mischief on his face.

  The compass inside tilted to remain parallel to the earth so that even when you carried it in the boat that rose and fell in the surf, the compass would remain readable and true to course.

  “That should help you in the storms and fog.”

  “It’s the most thoughtful gift. Did you make it?”

  “Just the box, the compass I found. I also made a cubby for it in the bilge of the surfboat so that you can read it from your position at the oars.”

  “When on earth—”<
br />
  “You’re not always down there. I found the time.”

  Hannah was moved not only that he would give her a gift, but also that the gift acknowledged she wouldn’t stop the rescues. She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned his lips toward her. She let her lips hover near his, taking in his salty scent before she kissed him on the mouth. His kiss moved through her body, strange and familiar. When he pulled away from her, he held her by the shoulders and looked into her face. “It should be me here with you,” he said.

  ***

  The next morning, the wind drove itself hard upon the house; it jangled the blue glass bottles on the sills and thrashed the shutters. Hannah felt a hot rush of excitement at the prospect of a storm. She had been rowing the surfboat for weeks now and developed a familiarity and ease with the boat as her arms and legs built muscle.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Billy shouted in the loft, rousing himself from bed. “What in the hell was that?”

  “We got a nor’easter coming in. Not for a while, but it’s coming,” Hannah said. “I’m going up to check the lights, you batten down the hatches.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  As she passed through the kitchen, she heard him swearing and struggling in the dark to find the ladder leading down from the loft. “Don’t land on your rump in my kitchen,” she said.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, caught up by the tone in her voice.

  Hannah hurried through the passageway toward the spiral stairs leading up to the lights. She climbed quickly. The howl of wind trembled in the sturdy column of the lighthouse. On the landing, all but one lantern burned, and the effect dazzled the lenses with a fierce light. Hannah squinted and turned her head to the side as she struck a match. The windows shivered in their frames as she cupped her hand around the flame, feeling the heat of the fire that would magnify and gather to cast a beam far across the water. This was the first thing she could do to save a man. Keep the lights going through the storm. Once the nor’easter hit, it wouldn’t let up until it had blown itself out.

  With all the lanterns aflame, Hannah checked the level of the whale oil and used a long-handled scissor to trim the wicks. What an exhilarating feeling, knowing that she could help a floundering ship navigate these waters. She wiped the windows with clean rags and vinegar, reaching every corner, clearing the soot and dust. One last glance at the lights, then she went down.

  Billy stood sopping wet in the kitchen, a pool of water collecting at his feet. “I’ve wrapped us in pretty tight,” he said. “Got the shutters closed, the barn door locked, and the storm doors fastened and bolted. Stoked the fire.”

  “Good,” Hannah said, rubbing her hands together and stepping in front of the fire that Billy had nurtured into flames.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “We wait, and we watch.” Hannah sat by the fire while Billy paced, then leaned back against the kitchen counter and picked at his nails. “You can wipe up that puddle. Then come over here. I want to hear about what happened when your ship went aground.”

  Billy used a rag from the kitchen to clean the floor then sat in a chair near Hannah. “You want me to tell you about it?”

  Hannah nodded.

  “The captain was holding our course and watching this lighthouse. I could see the flash of light when it was only a pinprick out the porthole of my berth. Then it got bigger and bigger and closer and closer, and word was that if we stayed close to shore, but not too close, we’d be safe. I nearly fell asleep because the boat wasn’t pitching so much as when we were out in deep water. I was in that part of sleep where you’re dreaming, but you’re still awake, when I heard a crash, like the world getting ripped open. Water rushed into the bilge and the whole ship started shaking.

  “Everything happened fast, no time to do anything. All hands ran to the upper decks. The ship tilted hard to port and you could feel the weight of water pulling her over. Something takes hold of you in a storm like that. On deck, the crew was frantic to loosen the sails because the wind was driving us hard onto the shoals. The captain was shouting orders to loosen sail, but no one would climb up the rigging. We were too heeled over and the masts were creaking, about to break. I worked my way along the gunwale, holding on against the surf, until I got to the lifeboats. One of the mates, Tomas, helped me lower the first boat, but it capsized and sank. He looked so young right then. I thought he might cry. I led him to the second lifeboat, and we held firm while more of the crew and passengers piled in and the first mate, James, manned the oars. The ship listed in the breakers as we rowed away. A sailor called Brennan, he was the one you found on the beach, leapt over the side hoping to swim for shore. He swam toward the lifeboat but went under pretty quick. We all turned away then, from him, the wreck, everything that was death. Next thing I remember I was getting yanked out of the water into your boat.”

  “If I’d gotten there earlier maybe some of your shipmates would’ve made it,” Hannah said.

  “No one can survive a storm like that. Not even you with that fancy boat of yours,” Billy said. He got up abruptly and climbed the ladder to the loft. “I’ve got something to show you,” he said, and he climbed back down the ladder, a roll of paper under his arm. He spread his drawings out across the dining table while Hannah moved the candlesticks and butter crock. “There’s a way to make a rig, like you wanted. I’m thinking you set an anchor in the sand to make a lifeline secure on shore. Maybe get me and your friend Tom to bury you a post six feet deep with only the top exposed to show the fastening ring. You’ll have to row out to the ship with the other end of the lifeline so the crew can fasten the line to the mast. Once I get the signal from the ship, I run this life seat out to them.”

  The next drawing was of a ship’s life ring with a seat sewn in the center. It hung within a tripod of ropes gathered above at a block and tackle system. “The life seat runs along the lifeline, and I pull it to and from the ship with a hawser line from shore.”

  “That’s all well and good, but what kind of a seat is going to withstand a storm wind?”

  “I’m thinking it’s sewn from heavy canvas sailcloth, stitched with waxed marlin strong enough to hold the heaviest man, like what they use for sails.”

  Hannah was silent, scanning the drawings. He’d thought things through pretty well. She followed each line in his sketches, surprised at the detail and intelligence of the system Billy had worked out. His drawings were crisp and clear, full of ideas they could really work with. “Seems possible,” she said finally.

  “Wait here,” Billy said, and followed the passageway that ran from the house to the barn. Hannah sat in front of the stove listening to the rain. The wind had picked up and gusted against the northeast corner of the house. She traced the lines in her palm and thought about the last sinking hours aboard that ship, but she’d never been close enough to death to understand those last moments.

  Billy came back carrying a huge lifesaving ring. It was one that John had collected from a wreck and stored in the barn. Billy hefted the life ring onto the table. He’d already stitched a seat out of sailcloth in the center, with two holes for legs so that a man could sit in it with his arms over the side of the ring. The edges of canvas were double-stitched to keep from fraying. If the rope running to shore collapsed and the ring hit the water, it would float and with the attached safety line, the sailor could be pulled to shore. The ring was designed to hang from a block and tackle that ran along a rope to the ship, just as he’d drawn it. “You send the ring out to the ship. Then you pull them to shore with this extra line here. It looks strange, but it might work, depending on the wind and how it’s secured to the ship. Of course, you have to reach the ship before it’s sunk too far.” Billy held the rig up so that Hannah could examine it from every angle.

  “Able-bodied sailors won’t have any trouble climbing into the thing,” Hannah said.

  “If the wind is too
heavy, no one will be able to maneuver it,” Billy said. “If the ship is falling apart, or the masts snap, this would be far too dangerous. Anyone with serious injuries won’t be able to use it. But it’s better than nothing, which is what you have now. And better than you alone in the surfboat. If you want, and weather permits, you can even tow the old skiff behind you out to the wreck and carry in survivors that way as well. But there are risks.”

  “Anything we can do to improve a man’s chances will be good news, don’t you think?”

  “I built a test rig in the barn. If you want to see it—”

  “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this.”

  “I haven’t been hiding it. I’ve been working on it.”

  “So show me.”

  She followed him along the passageway into the barn, which he’d transformed into a testing area. He’d rigged a rope from a cleat on the wall stud up to a ceiling beam at the loft about forty feet off the ground so that the rope triangulated the barn. A system of block and tackle hung from the rope, and Billy hooked the life ring to it. Wind rattled the roof shingles and seeped through the barn boards; rain pattered the walls.

  “Show me how it works,” Hannah said, her face flushed with excitement.

  “I’ve only tried pulling the life ring up and down from the loft with this hawser line. I’ve experimented with bags of grain in the seat, and I worked out a few kinks in the block and tackle.”