“I’ll do what you ask, Mangus,” Dathan told him softly, reluctantly.
The smile increased on the older man’s face, the stress lines around his mouth easing, and he closed his eyes. “Thank you, Dathan. God bless.”
Dathan was riddled with guilt at his deception but he didn’t know what else to do. He had hoped never to be in this position again. The exact reason he had left the medical profession. Too often he had lied to give peace to a dying man, bloody from wounds inflicted by other men. Even then the guilt had gnawed away at him, the helplessness of knowing he could do nothing to give them their last wishes.
Mangus’s eyelids slowly lifted. “Now...send me colleen back in here...and let me tell her goodbye.”
* * *
Adrella leaned against the counter in the kitchen, her thoughts as turbulent as the weather outside.
Why had her da made her leave the room? What had he to say to Dathan that he couldn’t say in her presence?
She pushed the coffeepot to the back of the stove and set the kettle to boil for tea. She had no desire for the beverage, but it gave her something to do.
The wind and rain rattled against the panes in the window over the sink. She could hear the shingles being torn from the roof. It wouldn’t be long before the rain would penetrate through the bare places. She pulled pans from the cupboard to set up for the ensuing drips.
Time seemed to drag as she waited for some kind of word from the other room.
The kettle began to whistle and she took it off the stove and placed it on a hot pad on the wooden kitchen table. Taking a cup from the cupboard, she poured the steaming water into it and then added the loose tea, all the while wondering what was happening in the next room.
Could it be true that Dathan was really a doctor? Would he be able to do something, anything, to help her da? He had said that there was nothing to be done, but surely there was something. Da couldn’t die. He just couldn’t! What would she do without her da? He was her whole existence.
She added cream to her tea, slowly stirring the contents while straining to hear what was going on in the bedroom. Taking a sip of the hot brew, she felt the warmth spread through and warm her from inside out, yet her heart still felt frozen.
Dathan eventually called and Adrella hurried back into the room. She passed Dathan in the doorway giving him a superficial glance as she went by.
Taking her place on the bed, Adrella took her father’s hand and began to rub softly. “Da, I love you,” she told him, and the tears she had held back at the first sign of wakefulness now slipped silently down her cheeks in an unceasing river.
“Ah, my little colleen,” he breathed softly, lifting his other hand and stroking away the tears. “I love you, too, lass. Now...do your old da a favor.”
“Anything, Da.”
He held out a shaking hand to her. “Take me wedding ring off me finger.”
Adrella’s eyes widened in surprise. “No, Da. You have never taken off your ring. It belongs to you. It will be...” She didn’t finish the sentence, for it hinted of her acceptance of the inevitable. She had been about to say that it would be buried with him.
For a second Mangus’s eyes flashed fire. “I said take it,” he said, his voice weak but still full of command.
Used to obeying, Adrella did as he asked. She carefully slid it from his large finger, curling her hand around the warm gold metal.
“It’s for your husband,” he rattled. “I’ve taken care of everything else, now this is for you. You and...”
Adrella saw her father’s eyes grow wide as he stared past her shoulder. Turning, she saw nothing there.
“Faith,” Mangus’s voice filled the room with awe. “I can see them.”
Dathan and Adrella exchanged worried glances.
“Who? Who do you see, Da?”
“They’re beautiful,” he intoned with reverence. He smiled, nodding his head. “Aye, I’m ready.”
“No!” Adrella clutched his hands tightly. “No, Da. Don’t leave me!”
Mangus turned blank eyes to Adrella. “Goodbye, me little girl,” he breathed softly.
His eyes fluttered closed, his breath expired on a slow sigh and he was gone.
* * *
The little house creaked and groaned as the wind intensified. The panes of glass continued to shake in their frames.
Dathan stared out the window, his thoughts far away. He had always been a man of his word, and now he had promised to care for Adrella. The thought discomfited him.
“Here’s your tea.”
He turned to find Adrella setting his cup on the table, her tear-drenched features leaving her wan, the freckles standing out prominently against her white face. He had always considered her to be a rather plain little thing, but now she looked positively homely. There was nothing about her looks that would instantly snag a man’s attention, and yet he couldn’t think of anyone he would rather be stranded with at such a time.
“Thanks.”
He seated himself across from her, turning the cup round and round in its saucer. His eyes lifted to her, and he found her watching him.
“What did me da mean when he said he had arranged everything?” she asked dully.
He noticed that she had placed her father’s wedding band on her thumb. He smiled slightly, noting that it was even too large for that appendage. Somehow he didn’t think now was the time to discuss it. He had some decisions to make quickly, and he was afraid that Adrella wasn’t going to like some of them.
“We can discuss that later,” he told her softly. “Right now, I think we need to make preparations to move to the lighthouse.”
“Why?” she asked him, the surprise evident in her voice.
His brow furrowed in consternation and he stared into the contents of his cup as though it held the answer to all the questions churning through his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her because he knew she was going to balk at what he had to say.
The kitchen window was shaken by another gust of wind, the rain peppering against it in an ever-increasing downpour. Dathan tensed.
“The gulf is much higher than I have ever seen it. I’m afraid when the eyewall hits, the storm surge is going to cover this house.”
Shocked, Adrella stared at him, her lips parted slightly. If anything, her face grew more ashen. “What will we do?”
“We need to take some supplies and move them to the top of the light tower.”
Biting her bottom lip, her glance went to the back bedroom. “What about Da?”
Dathan took a deep breath, fixing Adrella with a steely look. “If I have time, I will wrap the body and take it with us.”
“If you have time!” she choked. “Well, I won’t leave without him.”
“Adrella.” He tried to reason with her. “I have never seen a storm of such magnitude. Parts of the outbuilding are already being damaged, as well as this house. If this storm is as destructive as I think it’s going to be, we could be in for a long period of confinement.”
“I don’t care! I want to bury me da with a proper funeral!” she said in desperation.
“It may not be possible,” he argued. “The heat and humidity could cause the body to decompose rapidly. It wouldn’t be very pleasant.”
* * *
Adrella slumped down in her chair. Such thoughts were beyond her right now. It was hard enough to take in that her father had died, much less talking about decomposing bodies. She gave a little sniff.
“I need your help,” Dathan told her, jerking her thoughts to the present.
His words registered, but her mind was too numb to comprehend them for several seconds. She hesitated but a moment before getting slowly to her feet. “What do you need me to do?”
She saw surprise flash briefly through hi
s eyes as she struggled to maintain a composure that was fast disintegrating. She was Mangus Murphy’s daughter; she would not fall apart when she was needed most.
“I think we’ll only have time for one trip,” he told her quietly. “I’ve bagged as much as I can of the supplies, but we’ll need to take them together.”
If there was only time for one trip, then by default he was saying that they couldn’t take her father with them. Could she really bring herself to leave him?
As Adrella stood hesitating, a heavy burst of wind shook the house sending a piece of debris crashing through the kitchen window. Adrella screamed, and Dathan jumped to his feet.
The wind and rain blew in through the broken pane, whistling eerily through the room.
“We have to go now,” he told her. He grabbed his dripping Macintosh from beside the door and helped Adrella put it on. The garment, made for a man, swallowed her whole.
Handing Adrella the smaller sack, he told her roughly, “Stay behind me. Hold on to my belt, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”
He opened the door and it slammed inward with the force of the wind. Taking a deep breath, Dathan plunged outside, dragging Adrella along behind him.
They fought their way through the storm, the winds making any debris a lethal weapon. Had they waited any longer, they would have never made it past the front yard. Already the churning gulf waters were lapping at the base of the towering light.
Although Adrella was somewhat protected from the pelting rain by the India Rubber coat, it hit Dathan with increasing ferocity. They were blinded by the pounding fury of the drenching rain and hurricane-force winds. Dathan held up an arm to protect his face from the onslaught.
He found his way unerringly to the huge stone edifice of the light. He dragged Adrella inside, fighting to shut the door behind them.
Both were panting with the exertion. Adrella bent over to get her breath, her sides heaving with the effort. “What about...what about Da?”
There was dread in Dathan’s voice when he answered her. “It’s too late. I can’t go back outside.”
Adrella jerked her head up to argue, but stopped short at the sight of the blood on Dathan’s face. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“What happened?”
Dathan dotted a finger against the dripping blood. “The pebbles are like bullets,” he told her in awe. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” He took the lantern he had left lit and began to climb the stairs to the top. “Come on. It’ll be safer farther up.”
Adrella followed slowly, her strength already exhausted. She glanced at the whitewashed stone walls surrounding her, so close it felt as though they were closing in. She sat down on the stairs, and pushed her palms against her eyes. Her father’s burial lay heavily on her mind.
Dathan brought the light back to her. “What is it?”
“Da,” she answered dully.
Eyes dark with compassion, Dathan sat down next to her on the steps.
“Adrella, your father loved the sea. If something does happen, and the island is flooded...”
She turned to him slowly, catching his unspoken message. “A burial at sea?”
He shrugged, not knowing what else to say.
“Is there no way?” she asked him, her bottom lip trembling.
Dathan lifted the lantern higher to push back the darkness. Adrella heard his swiftly indrawn breath.
“What is it?” she asked fearfully.
Dathan motioned with his free hand to the floor below. Water was pouring rapidly through the small bottom window aperture in the wall. Since the window was several feet off the ground, it gave Adrella and Dathan an idea of how far the gulf had risen with the storm tides.
Adrella scrambled upward on the iron stairs, bumping into Dathan. Terror filled eyes lifted to his face. He met her look with one of extreme resolution.
“There’s no going back now.”
Chapter 3
All the rest of the day Dathan and Adrella clung to their perch in the lighthouse tower. They divided the food between them when either, or both, got hungry, which wasn’t very often. The howling wind outside and the rising water level below them robbed them of much of their appetite. That and not knowing what was happening to the world outside. To Mangus’s body, more precisely.
Periodically throughout the day, the lighthouse would shake when some large object was hurled into its side by the fierce wind, but the brick tower held. It was terrifying to think that something large enough to rattle the lighthouse could be thrown about by a mere wind.
During the long hours Dathan tended the light. Normally the light would be cared for in the morning and lit in the evening but the storm made it necessary to keep the light burning continuously. Adrella pitied any of the men aboard ships that were caught in this gale.
Fortunately Dathan had been able to move several drums of oil farther up the stairway out of the rising floodwater. The others sat on the floor of the lighthouse, buried beneath at least ten feet of water, along with the door to the outside world. There was no way he could reach the oil house to get more, if there was still an oil house left.
She had offered to help Dathan, but there was nothing she could really do. Often she was merely in the way. He never said so, but she could tell.
Dathan sat down on the step above her head, interrupting Adrella’s pensive musings.
“Well there’s one good thing about this storm. It keeps the mosquitoes away,” he told her, the seriousness of his eyes belying his cheerful voice.
Adrella barely acknowledged his words. The air in the tower had grown stale, but there was no way to really relieve them of their problem short of going outside. And that was out of the question. The wind was still sending debris flying, making it a lethal projection. Frankly, to be free of the tower, she would have welcomed even those horrendous little pests.
Dathan shifted slightly, bringing Adrella’s attention around to him. He was studying her as though she were a bug under a microscope. She felt the color rise to her cheeks. She could only imagine what she must look like, and even then, she was afraid her imagination wouldn’t do it justice. Her hair had always looked like a frizzy mess whenever it got wet and tangled, and the dress she had been so proud of now hung limply on her tired body.
Although Dathan had gone through the same things she had, he wasn’t nearly as disheveled. In fact he looked as handsome as ever, even with the small cuts on his face from flying objects.
Her look was suddenly caught by dimples peeking forth when he gave her one of his rare smiles. Their eyes met and the smile slowly slid from his face. He glanced away, releasing her from the spell his intense look had generated. They once again retreated into a morose silence.
After a time the winds seemed to stop as suddenly as they had arrived. Adrella fearfully listened for the sound of rain, but everything was unusually quiet.
“The eye,” she pronounced solemnly.
Dathan lifted his head, listening as well. “You’re right. The worst should be over. As the eyewall moves over land it should diminish in intensity. I’m afraid, though, that we still have a lot more rain to come.”
Adrella knew he was right. Having lived in Florida for the past several years, hurricanes were no new thing to her. But there had never been one of this intensity.
“Do you think I could go up to the parapet?”
Dathan started to get up, but she placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Alone,” she told him, her face coloring hotly. He stared at her as though she had suddenly grown horns. She could read the thoughts flashing across his countenance and realized the exact moment he knew what she was asking.
“Ah. Of course. I’ll wait and go up after you.”
Adrella climbed the stairs and pushed her way through the small d
oor leading to the outside. She had needed to relieve herself for some time now, but the thought of doing so was embarrassing. She had been hoping against hope that they would be free from the lighthouse a lot sooner than she now realized they would.
Night had fallen. Pinpricks of light spangled the dark sky through the break in the storm clouds. There was no moon to see by so she could not tell if the keeper’s house was still standing. She could still hear water lapping against the side of the lighthouse. She finished what she needed to do and hurried below to tell Dathan.
* * *
“How do you think Apalachicola fared?” she asked after Dathan had returned.
Apalachicola was situated close to the water. Most of the people in Apalach, as the locals called it, made their living oystering and shrimping. Before the War Between the States cotton had been king, but the blockades had put a stop to that. Although their town had weathered many storms in the past there had been nothing of this magnitude.
Dathan shrugged. “I hate to think,” he told her, his voice darkly foreboding.
They fell into an uncomfortable silence. That’s how it had been all day. Silence, with intermittent spurts of conversation. That they were both uncomfortable with the situation was obvious, but Adrella had the feeling that there was something more than the storm on Dathan’s mind. She wondered if it had anything to do with her father’s parting words. She turned to ask him but Dathan was already climbing the tower stairs once again, his broad back as imposing as the stone structure they were protected by.
Glancing down at her hand, she curled her thumb around her father’s wedding band. Looking at it now brought a lump to her throat. Her father had never taken the ring from his finger, even after being fifteen years a widower. How could such a love last so long beyond the grave?
Her gaze went to Dathan at the top of the stairway where he was tending the light. Dathan was very much like her own da, every bit the gentleman. The thought brought her a small measure of comfort. She knew without a doubt that she was completely safe with him.
There's Always Tomorrow Page 3