Keeper of the Light

as you are.”

“Shh, Mary. Don’t talk about guilt.” Annie shook her head, kneading her hands together in her lap. There was no color at all in her face. “It hurt so much,” she said. “They said it wouldn’t be bad, but it was horrendous, and I deserved every single solitary ounce of the pain.”

“No, you didn’t,” Mary said. “You…”

Something crashed against the outside wall of the house and Annie jumped. “I don’t like this,” she said. She drew the blanket tighter around her shoulders as the wind whistled eerily through the room.

“We should go upstairs,” Mary said.

Annie was slow on the stairs, in more pain than seemed normal for such a thing. Mary settled her into the small bedroom she had come to think of as Annie’s. She watched as her young friend climbed into the bed, fully clothed and still shaking, covering her ears against the sound of the wind as it screamed through the upstairs rooms. She was beginning to babble, not making much sense at all, and her skin felt hot to the touch. Mary soaked a washcloth in cool water and bathed Annie’s face and hands. She would lace her next cup of tea with Southern Comfort.

“It’s stopped,” Annie said suddenly, sitting up in the bed to listen. Indeed, the rain had stopped. The wind was still, and when Mary looked out the window, she could see stars.

“Yes,” Mary said, shivering herself. She would let Annie believe what she wanted, although she knew it was only the eye of the storm passing over them. Soon it would all begin again.

By that time, though, Annie was asleep. Mary kept watch by her bed, sitting up the entire night, listening to the house strain at its roots.

Annie’s color was better in the morning, and the fever had broken. Mary left her sleeping while she surveyed the damage. Rain had swept under the doors and through the cracked windows, but otherwise everything inside was in one piece. The electricity was still out, and her phone had died sometime during the night. Outside, she found the crushed metal lid to a garbage can resting against her front porch. The shape of the beach had changed overnight, the sea oats closer to the water, the pitch of the sand steeper. The lighthouse looked unscathed, although she would have to check the lantern room later.

When she returned to the kitchen, she found Annie mopping the rainwater from the floor.

“Here,” Mary said, taking the mop from Annie’s hand. “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

Annie sat down weakly at the kitchen table, folding her white hands in her lap. “I dreamt last night it was Alec’s,” she said quietly.

Mary stopped mopping to look down at her. “Annie, you felt very certain it was Paul’s.”

Annie closed her eyes, nodded.

“Now, I admit I don’t know much about this topic,” Mary said, leaning on the mop, “but that diaphragm you’re using to keep from having babies just isn’t fail-proof enough for—” she hesitated, hunting for the words “—for someone like you.”

Annie ignored her. “I’m going to get pregnant again as soon as I can.”

Mary looked at her squarely. “You can’t bring that baby back.”

“I know,” Annie said in a small voice. “But I’m going to try. And this one will be Alec’s for sure.” She must have seen the doubt in Mary’s eyes, because she added, “I swear it, Mary. This one will be his.”

The crossword puzzle had fallen from Mary’s knees to the porch, and she did not bother to pick it up. She thought about Paul Macelli, still burdened by things that had happened so long ago. She thought of Annie, and of herself, and she knew that whatever lesson the three of them had learned back then had been all too quickly forgotten.

CHAPTER FORTY- SIX

There were a dozen yellow roses waiting for Olivia in the emergency room when she arrived for work Friday morning.

“Are they from Paul?” Kathy asked her, as Olivia opened the card.

You were right, and I was wrong—Alec.

Olivia smiled. “No,” she said, slipping the card into the pocket of her white coat. “They’re not.”

It had been just twenty-four hours since she’d left Alec and Lacey alone to hash out their differences without her. And without Annie. When Alec didn’t call her last night, she figured that either things had not gone well or he was angry with her for her tirade. It relieved her to see that neither was the case.

Mike Shelley called her later that afternoon. He wanted to take her out to dinner after her shift, he said. “Not a date,” he added, laughing. “My wife’s standing right here, ready to intervene. I just have something I want to talk with you about. Is seven okay?”

“Fine,” she said, wondering exactly what she was agreeing to.

He took her to a small seafood restaurant in Kitty Hawk and waited until their entrees were served before satisfying her curiosity.

“The personnel committee’s made its decision,” he said.

“Oh?” She could not tell from the tone of his voice whether she should smile or frown.

“It was hairy there for a while, but I think deep down each of us knew who we wanted. We held off making a decision until the whole Annie O’Neill fiasco had died down. We were all impressed with the way you handled that situation, Olivia. As Pat Robbins on the committee said, Olivia Simon knows how to keep her wits about her in and out of the ER.”

She smiled at him. “You’re saying I’ve got it if I want it?”

“Yes,” Mike said. He looked at her quizzically. “Do you have some doubts about taking it?”

Olivia looked down at her plate. “I’ve appreciated how you’ve stuck by me through everything, Mike. I want to