Keeper of the Light

caution, despite the lightness of her touch, the glass splintered raggedly in pieces beneath her multicolored hands.

The tiny deli was crowded. People in bathing suits pressed up against the counter, and the smell of cold cuts and pickles mingled with the scent of sunscreen. Olivia felt overdressed in her flowered skirt and green blouse. She stood against the wall by the door, searching the crowd for Alec’s face.

“Dr. Simon.”

She followed the voice with her eyes, peering around the back of a woman standing next to her to see Alec at one of the four small tables near the windows. She squeezed her way through the crowd. Alec stood up and leaned across the little table to pull the chair out for her.

“Thanks.” She sat down, catching her reflection in the window. Her straight, dark hair brushed the tops of her shoulders, and her bangs had grown long enough to sweep to the side. She remembered the black and white photograph of Annie, with her wide smile and glittering hair.

“It’s crowded, but they’re fast here.” Alec turned to look up at the menu, written in chalk on a black slate board hanging above the counter. “What would you like?”

“Turkey on whole wheat,” she said. “And lemonade.”

Alec got up—sprang up—and walked behind the counter where he spoke to one of the young women who was making sandwiches, his hand on her shoulder. Olivia studied him from the safety of her chair by the window. He looked about forty and a little too thin, thinner than he had been that night in the ER. He was tan, but there were circles beneath his eyes she did not remember from that night, and hollows in his cheeks. His hair was very dark, yet even from this distance she could see the gray creeping into it at his temples. He moved with an athletic grace and she imagined he worked construction, something that put him outside all the time, that allowed him to use up his wired energy and kept him in shape.

The woman behind the counter handed him their drinks and he nodded his thanks to her before turning to work his way back to the table. Olivia wondered if he ever smiled.

He put her lemonade in front of her and took a long drink from his own cup before sitting down again. She had the feeling he did not sit often.

He looked at her across the table. The sunlight hit his eyes and sharpened the contrast between the translucent blue and the small black pupils. “I asked you to meet me because I need some answers about what happened to my wife that night,” he said. She felt his denim-covered knees touch her bare ones and drew her chair back a little. “It didn’t seem important then, but I can’t seem to… I keep wondering…” He rubbed his temples with his long tanned fingers. “There are these gaps for me. I mean, I said good-bye to her on Christmas morning and that was it.” He dropped his eyes and leaned back as the waitress set their sandwiches down in front of them. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and Olivia knew he was very close to the edge.

“Mr. O’Neill,” she said after the waitress had left.

“Alec.”

“Alec. I’ll answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, but some of the answers might be hard to hear. Maybe this isn’t the right place.”

He looked around him at the press of bodies. “I have an office near here,” he said. “I’m not working these days, but it’s open. We could take our sandwiches over there. Would you mind? Do you have time?”

She nodded. “That would be fine.”

Alec got a bag for their sandwiches, and they walked outside and across the street to the studio parking lot.

“You can follow me,” he said, opening the door of a navy-blue Bronco.

She got into her Volvo and followed him out to Croatan Highway, where he turned left towards Nags Head. He had an office, he’d said. Maybe he managed a construction crew. What did he mean he wasn’t working? She realized she knew nothing about him, other than the fact that he’d been married to the woman she both idolized and detested.

They pulled into the parking lot of the Beacon Animal Hospital and she frowned when she saw the shingles hanging below the sign: Alec O’Neill, DVM and Randall Allwood, DVM. He was a vet. She had to quickly reorganize her thinking about him.

Alec got out of his car, carrying the bag with their sandwiches. “Let’s sneak in the back way,” he said.

Olivia felt oddly criminal, as though she should tiptoe across the pea gravel that crunched beneath their feet as they walked around to the back of the building. Alec opened the door and they stepped into a cool, vinyl-tiled hallway. Frantic yapping filled the air. He unlocked the first door on the left and let Olivia in ahead of him. It was a small office, the walls paneled a pale, ashy color. The air was warm and stale, and Alec reached up to turn the knob of the air conditioning vent in the ceiling.

“Sorry it’s so stuffy,” he said. “Should be better in a minute.”

“You’re a vet,” she said, taking a seat in the red leather chair he gestured toward.

“Uh-huh.” He handed her the wrapped turkey sandwich and sat down behind his desk. The paneling was covered with photographs, many of the Kiss River Lighthouse. There were also a few pictures of windsurfers, and a portrait of a tawny-colored cocker puppy sitting next to a gray Persian cat that reminded her of Sylvie. She considered mentioning that to him, but he seemed so preoccupied with his own thoughts that she let it go.

Hanging in the window above his desk was a stained glass panel, the letters DVM in blue nestled between the tail of a black cat and the outstretched wings of a gull. Olivia had a sudden image of Annie presenting it to him—a surprise, a symbol of her pride in him.

He opened the wrapping on his sandwich and pressed the paper flat against his desk. “I can’t say that I feel much like a vet these days, though. I was going to take a month off when Annie died, but…” He shrugged. “It’s been a little longer than a month.”

Olivia nodded. She knew exactly how long it had been. The night he’d lost his wife was the night she’d lost her husband.

“So.” He looked up at her expectantly.