Keeper of the Light

  “Don’t they have a wonderful view?” Nola was still at his elbow, pointing toward the huge window that looked out over the sound. The sunset was beginning to paint the sky, but Paul’s attention was drawn to the adjacent wall where ten small, oval windows were scattered from floor to ceiling, each filled with an intricately detailed scene of a woman in a flowing dress. One held a parasol, another walked a greyhound, a third held a bloodred rose to her nose.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. He had not known, she had never told him, that these windows existed. “These are extraordinary.”

  “Mmm,” Nola agreed. “She was a very talented lady.”

  He could have spent the rest of the evening in front of those ovals of glass, but Nola took his arm and steered him toward the kitchen.

  “Let’s say hello to Alec,” she said.

  The kitchen was again pure Annie. The floor and cabinets and countertops were white, but the walls were nearly entirely made up of windows, and the windows were filled with stained glass, so that even in the muted evening light, the room was awash in soft pastels.

  Alec leaned against the counter by the sink, uncorking a bottle of wine. He smiled when he saw them. “Hi, Nola, Paul.” He rested his hand briefly on Paul’s shoulder.

  “The bluefish was divine,” Nola said. She kissed Alec on the cheek, touching his chest lightly with her hand in a way that gave Paul gooseflesh. Was there something between them? How could Alec have lost Annie such a short time ago and even let another woman near him? Nola, though, was looking at Alec with clear adoration that Alec seemed not to notice. Paul supposed he was the type of man some women would find attractive, with his piercing blue eyes and dark hair, and the smile that came as a surprise just when you thought he was incapable of any levity whatsoever.

  He’s so sexy, Annie had said during the first interview. Paul had taken her words as a warning, an indication that he didn’t stand a chance with her this time around. He wondered later if she had only been trying to warn herself.

  Alec arranged some wineglasses on a tray and handed the bottle to Paul. “Want to pour for me?”

  “Sure.” Paul tried to get the same level of energy into his voice that Alec had in his, but failed. He took the bottle from Alec’s hand and began to pour, but his eyes were drawn to the decorative white shelves between the counter top and the cabinets. There, directly in front of him, was the small blue cloisonné horse he had bought Annie in New Hope. He spilled some of the wine on the tray and set the bottle down until he could pour it without his hand shaking.

  Baby Blue. She had kept it all these years.

  “Can you bring the tray out?” Alec asked, as he and Nola carried corn chips and salsa into the living room.

  “Sure,” Paul said again. He separated the glasses on the tray so they wouldn’t rattle against each other when he lifted them.

  He took a seat facing the wall of oval windows, but the light outside was quickly fading and from this distance he could not make out the scenes. Besides, he had to pay attention to what the others were saying. He had suddenly become the topic of their conversation.

  Alec took a swallow of wine and lifted the file of material Paul had put together on the history of the lighthouse.

  “Great work, Paul,” he said. “You’ve more than earned your keep on this committee.”

  The others agreed, Brian Cass adding that they just needed a bit more information on Mary Poor to make it complete.

  “I have a few things I need to get done for the Gazette,” Paul said. “But I’m hoping to get over to Manteo one day in the next week or so.”

  “No rush,” Alec said. He took a deep breath and set down his glass. “Well, maybe I’d better wait till you’ve all had a bit more to drink before I move on to the next topic.” He picked up another file. “I’m afraid this is it, folks. The Park Service has made their final decision.”

  “Oh, God,” said Sondra. “They’re going to move it.”

  Alec nodded, and Walter Liscott groaned and buried his head in his hands.

  “Read it, Alec,” Nola said.

  Alec opened the file. A track would be built, he read, the work to begin in late August and completed next spring. The lighthouse would be lifted up and onto the track and moved a quarter mile inland. Paul could not picture it. He could not imagine the spit of land at Kiss River in unrelenting darkness.

  Walter stood up. “It’s insanity!” he said. “It’s a godawful jackass scheme!”

  “It does sound impossible,” Sondra said.

  Brian Cass shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, the historical significance of the lighthouse is down the tubes if they move it.”

  “What about the sea wall?” Walter gestured wildly. “Why the hell…”

  “Walter.” Alec’s voice was calm, reasonable. “That argument’s moot. This is what we have to live with.”

  Walter stared at Alec for a moment. “I’m sorry, Alec. I’m going to have to take myself off this committee. I can’t be a party to that lunatic idea.”

  He started toward the door, but Nola stood up and grabbed his arm. “The engineers have been working on this for years, now, Walter. You know that. You know they wouldn’t recommend moving it if they had the slightest doubt it would…”

  “A bunch of little boys with a great big erector set,” Walter said. “They’re just playing. They’re experimenting with something they have no right to tamper with.” He turned to leave.

  “Walter,” Alec said. “We don’t want to lose you. If you have a change of heart, please don’t let pride get in the way of coming back.”

  Walter muttered something to himself and walked out the door.

  The room was suddenly very still. An outboard motor started up somewhere on the sound, and the three-legged shepherd yawned and rolled over at Alec’s feet.

  “Well,” Alec said finally. “Anybody else want to leave?”

  Sondra Carter folded her arms across her chest. “I want to, but I won’t.”

  Alec continued the meeting, talking about a few speaking engagements he had lined up. Then the committee went over a couple of fund-raising ideas, but energy lagged as the reality of the Park Service report settled over them like a lead blanket.

  The meeting ended abruptly at nine, and Paul found himself reluctant to leave. He hung back from the rest of the group, cleaning up a salsa spill from the coffee table, carrying the wineglasses into the kitchen. He set them carefully in the sink, his eyes fastened on the blue horse, as he listened to Alec bidding good-night to his other guests. Paul walked back into the living room, getting as close as he could to the oval windows, but it was too dark outside. It was nearly impossible to make out the designs.

  “Annie finished them even before the house was built.”

  Paul turned to see Alec in the doorway. “It must have taken her forever,” he said.

  “Not really. Once she got a design down, she was pretty fast. Come outside. You can see them much better from there this time of night.”

  Paul followed Alec out the front door and around to the side of the house. They stood next to each other in the sand, Paul shaking his head in spellbound wonder. The windows were breathtaking.

  “The thing that strikes me about her work is the realism,” he said. “You’d swear these women were real, that their dresses would feel soft and silky if you touched them.”

  “That was her specialty,” Alec said. “I don’t think that even Tom, the guy she worked with, ever mastered the technique she used.”

  Paul looked over at Alec, whose cheeks were splashed violet and gold from the window closest to his face. “Does it bother you to talk about her?” he asked.

  “Not at all. She’s one of my favorite topics.”

  Paul ran his fingertips over one of the windows, watching the color bleed onto his skin. “The night Olivia came home and told me Annie O’Neill was dead…I just couldn’t believe it. She was so alive. She was wonderful to interview.” He thought of the tapes he could no
t bring himself to listen to.

  “It was unbelievable all right,” Alec said.

  “I guess you know Olivia and I are separated.”

  “Yes, she told me.” He glanced at Paul. “Do you know that’s not what she wants?”

  “I know.” Paul stared at the image of a white-gowned, raven-haired woman about to take a bite from an apple. “It was completely my fault, what went wrong. Completely my doing. I felt certain when I left that it was the right thing to do, but now…I miss her sometimes, although I still have my doubts we could ever make it work again.”

  “At least you have the choice. I envy you for that.” Alec gazed down at the sand for a few seconds. Then he chuckled and looked up at Paul. “I have this almost uncontrollable urge to lecture you,” he said. “You have a wife who’s pretty and smart and alive and I get the feeling you don’t realize how lucky you are and how quickly you could lose her…and I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to tell you your business.”

  “Its okay,” Paul said. “I guess I’d feel the same way in your shoes.”

  Alec slapped at a mosquito on his arm. “Let’s go in,” he said.

  “Well, I should really get going.” Paul’s tone was unconvincing. As much as he hadn’t wanted to walk into Alec’s house earlier that evening, now he didn’t want to leave.

  “Come on in for a while,” Alec said. “It’s not that late and my kids are out. I can use the company.”

  “I saw pictures of your kids at Annie’s studio,” Paul said, as they walked into the house. “Your daughter looks practically identical to her.”

  Alec laughed. “Not anymore. She cut off her hair and dyed it black.” He stepped into a room off the living room. “Come in here,” he said.

  Paul walked into a small den. A computer rested on the desk facing the front window, and a broad work table like the one at Annie’s studio took up half the opposite wall. The walls were covered with photographs, most of them family shots, taken on the pier, on the deck of the house, on the beach. Annie looked happy in every one of them without exception, the core of her family, and Paul felt a sudden self-loathing for trying to hurt that, for playing to her weakness.

  He stared at a picture of Annie’s children. Lacey and Clay. “She cut off that beautiful hair?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “’Fraid so.”

  Paul moved to another picture and this one gave him a start. A tanned white-haired man in tennis clothes standing next to a homely red-headed woman. “And who are these people?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

  The phone on the desk rang. “Annie’s parents,” Alec answered, as he picked up the receiver. He said a few words into the phone and Paul began to feel intrusive. He waved to Alec and mouthed the word thanks as he headed toward the door of the den, but Alec held up a hand to stop him.

  “Wait a sec,” he said, and then into the phone, “I’m leaving now.” He hung up the phone and looked at Paul. “Are you squeamish?”

  “Uh…no. I don’t think so.”

  “Come with me, then.” Alec picked up a set of keys from the top of his desk and started toward the door. “One of the wild horses was hit by a car near Kiss River. We might be able to use your help.”

  Paul followed him outside. They stopped in the garage, where Alec unlocked a cabinet and removed what looked like a tool chest and what was most definitely a shotgun.

  Paul stared at the gun. “Are you going to… Do you think you’ll have to shoot it?”

  Alec looked at him, puzzled, before breaking into a smile. “With a tranquilizer dart,” he said. “I’d use an injection if the horse needs to be put down, and that will most likely be the case, if it’s not dead already by the time we get there. I haven’t seen one of them survive a run-in with a car yet.”

  Paul got into the Bronco, next to Alec and the gun. “Annie told me the horses stay close to the road now that it’s more developed around Kiss River,” he said.

  Alec backed the Bronco out into the street. “They think the grass has been planted just for them.” He shook his head. “There are only ten horses left. Maybe nine, after tonight. We’ve plastered the road with warning signs, but some people still get behind the wheel with their brains in neutral.”

  They were quiet as they drove out of Southern Shores. What would Annie think if she could see this scene, Paul wondered, he and Alec cruising up to Kiss River like old buddies, a shotgun resting on the seat between them?

  “You were starting to tell me about Annie’s parents,” Paul said.

  “Oh, right.” Alec turned on the air conditioner. Nightfall had done nothing to ease the heat of the day. “Her dad’s dead now, but her mother still lives in Boston, where Annie grew up. I don’t know why I have that picture of them hanging in the den. Annie insisted we put it up, but as far as I’m concerned we could have dropped it in the sound.”

  Even in the darkness, Paul could see the tension in Alec’s jaw. “She mentioned that she came from a very wealthy family,” he prompted.

  Alec glanced over at him. “She said that?” He shook his head. “They had money, all right, but Annie never saw a dime of it once we were married. They cut her off.”

  Paul was beginning to perspire. He turned one of the air conditioning vents toward his face. “Why would they do that?” he asked.

  “My parents owned a little Irish pub in Arlington—not much of a moneymaking enterprise—and I guess the son of a bartender wasn’t good enough for their blue-blooded daughter.” Alec’s tone was quiet, confidential, and Paul could feel his hurt. “They said I was white trash.”

  Paul turned his head to the window. Annie had not married Alec to please her parents. She had left Paul for a man who was no more to their liking than he had been.

  “There’s the Kiss River Light,” Alec said.

  Paul looked ahead of them into the black night, and in a few seconds he saw it, too. One, one-hundred… So familiar. So constant. So… “Oh my God,” he said.

  “What?”

  “What will happen to the light while they’re in the process of moving it?”

  Alec smiled. “I’ve thought of that myself. Doesn’t feel too good, does it?” He turned the Bronco onto the narrow road leading out to Kiss River, and leaned forward, peering into the darkness. “There they are,” he said.

  Paul spotted two women on the side of the road, waving them over with their flashlights. Alec pulled the Bronco onto the sandy shoulder. He handed the shotgun to Paul, and they got out of the car, Alec carrying the tool chest and flashlight.

  The women walked over to them.

  “It’s one of the colts, Alec,” the taller woman said. “He was on the ground when we called you. He’s up now, but he’s limping badly.” She pointed into the wooded area at the side of the road and Paul could make out the dark silhouette of a young horse.

  Alec set the tool chest down and put his hands on his hips, assessing the situation. “Where’s the herd?” he asked.

  “Across the street.” The taller woman looked at Paul. “I’m Julie,” she said.

  “Paul Macelli,” Paul said.

  Alec touched the second woman on the shoulder. “And this is Karen.”

  “He was broadsided,” Karen said. “The guy who hit him—with a Mercedes, no less—said the colt flipped up on the hood of the car and broke the windshield. He’s got a right good gash on his left hindquarter.”

  Alec looked toward the horse. “Okay, fella,” he said quietly, “let’s see you walk.”

  The four of them stood waiting for some movement from the colt, but he seemed frozen in one spot. He lifted his head to look across the road, where a group of horses milled skittishly in the darkness, the light from the beacon brushing over them every few seconds. They were huge, Paul thought with a shudder. Menacing. He remembered Annie warning him to steer clear of them. “They’re wild,” she’d said. “They can be nasty.”

  Finally, the colt took a few tentative steps, obviously favoring his left front le
g. Then he stood still, alone in the woods, neighing—crying, really—a sound that hurt to listen to.

  Alec took the shotgun from Paul’s hand and gave him the flashlight. “Could you hold the light down here, Paul?” he asked as he knelt down to load the gun with something he took from the chest. Then he stood up. “Hold the light on him,” he said, and Paul and the women trained the beams of their flashlights on the animal’s bloody hindquarters as Alec moved quietly toward him.

  Paul glanced over his shoulder at the enormous horses just across the road from where they stood. He felt somehow more exposed without Alec next to him.

  Alec lifted the shotgun slowly to his shoulder and fired. The colt bucked and let out a cry. There was an answering whinny from the other side of the road, and Julie and Karen looked over at the herd.

  “I’d better keep an eye on them,” Karen said, walking back toward the road. “You two can help Alec.”

  There was not much to do as they waited for the tranquilizer to take effect. The three of them stood abreast, watching the frightened little colt stare back at them.

  “How are you, Alec?” Julie broke the silence after a minute or two. Her question sounded loaded, one of those simple questions that took on greater meaning between old friends.

  “I’m all right,” Alec said. “Hanging in there.”

  After another few minutes of silence, the colt dropped abruptly to his knees, then rolled over on his side.

  Alec lifted the tool chest. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said, as they started walking toward him.

  Julie sat on the ground and pulled the colt’s head into her lap, while Paul stood above them, holding the flashlight so that Alec could see what he was doing. He glanced nervously toward the road. How was Karen going to hold those horses back if they decided to protect one of their own?

  Alec ran his hands carefully over the colt’s legs, spending a long time on the leg the colt had favored. “Amazing,” he said. “Nothing’s broken. He’s going to be sore for a while, though.” He moved his hands slowly over the trunk of the horse. “No broken ribs. Hopefully no internal injuries, either. Looks like this is the worst problem.” He turned his attention to the gash. “Come a little closer with the light, Paul.”