“Ah, yes,” Mary said. She sounded like one of the Kennedys, the way she strangled most of her words.
“My family has a lot of money.” Annie rolled a berry between her thumb and forefinger. “My father is a heart surgeon. People come from all over the world to see him.”
There was pride in her voice. And something else. A wistfulness, perhaps.
“I haven’t seen him or my mother for a while, though.”
“Why is that?”
Annie shrugged. “Well, they’re incredibly busy. My father with his practice, my mother with her volunteer stuff and garden club and things. They never had much time for a kid. I was the only one, but even so, I think I was an afterthought. They just threw money my way from time to time. They had so much money they didn’t know what to do with it. I could have anything I wanted. Anything material, at any rate.” She looked out at the horizon. “I’m not going to raise my son that way. Not on your life.”
Annie visited Mary often after that first meeting, sometimes bringing her adorable baby son along with her, sometimes not. Mary looked forward to her visits, and she found herself listening for the sound of Annie’s little red Volkswagen out on the dirt road, or searching for it when she was high up in the tower. Annie brought her things— bread or cookies she’d baked, or sometimes full meals that she’d make for Mary while cooking for her own family. Mary chided her. “You shouldn’t spend your money on me, child,” she’d say, but Annie said it wasn’t polite to turn down a gift or mention what it might have cost the giver. Although Annie had come from money, she didn’t seem to have it now. Her husband had to work long hours, she said, often at night, driving out to the mainland farms to doctor cows and horses and goats. There was little work to keep him gainfully employed on the Outer Banks themselves.
It was only a few weeks after Mary first met Annie that the Park Service started talking about taking over the operation of the Kiss River Lighthouse. Rumors flew around Kiss River. They would pave the little sand road, people said. They would turn the keeper’s house into a tourist attraction.
For the first time in her life, Mary had trouble sleeping. She knew what was coming, and she wasn’t surprised when someone from the Park Service came to tell her that her services would no longer be needed. As a matter of fact, the man said, Mary would have to leave. They would help her relocate, he continued, but by that time Mary had shut the door in his face.
Annie got wind of it and was off and running before Mary knew she was involved. She had petitions signed, and dragged the newspapers into the fracas. She even showed up on Mary’s doorstep one day with a television crew. She left no stone unturned, no politician unharassed in her rigorous, though often disorganized, crusade. By the time it was all over and Mary was granted permission to stay in one half of the keeper’s house, everyone in the Outer Banks knew Annie’s name as well as hers.
“Come on, now, Mary. Into your chair. Time for dinner.”
Mary felt someone tugging at her arm. She opened her eyes to see Gale, one of the young girls on the retirement home staff, holding her cane in front of her. She looked out at the street.
“Is the young man still here?” she asked. Then she remembered watching him get into his car and drive away.
“No, Mary. Your visitor left an hour ago.”
“He’ll be back,” Mary said, rising to her feet, wincing as her left foot hit the floor and sent the pain up into her hip. “He’ll be back, all right.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alec could have taken his film into the studio anytime that week, but he waited until Saturday. It wasn’t until he’d pulled into the parking lot that he admitted to himself the reason for his delay: he wanted to see Olivia Simon again. He’d found himself talking to her in his head all week, telling her things about Annie other people were no longer interested in hearing. He could always talk to Tom Nestor, but Tom’s grief was still as real as his own, and that bothered Alec. He had never particularly liked sharing Annie with Tom.
Olivia was at the work table where he was accustomed to seeing Annie. Her head was bent low, and she was wearing Annie’s old green safety glasses. It had given him something of a jolt, seeing her in those glasses for the first time last week, but he could think of no good reason why she shouldn’t use them.
She was holding the soldering iron and a coil of solder. Tom leaned close to her, guiding her fingers, giving her encouragement. Cigarette smoke snaked into the air above Tom’s head. He had never smoked in here when Annie was alive.
Tom looked up as Alec closed the front door.
“Howdy, Alec,” he said.
Olivia lifted her head from her work and smiled.
“Hi.” Alec walked over to the table and peered down at the pieces of glass. “What are you working on?” he asked Olivia.
She handed him a sheet of graph paper, and he studied the design drawn in felt tip pen—a rectangle with a crazy quilt of shapes inside it, each labeled a different color. He smiled at its simplicity, and at the pleasure in her face.
“She’s a natural,” Tom said, nodding toward her, as Alec placed the paper on the table again.
“I’m a
Alec tapped her lightly on the shoulder and she looked up at him, the green of the oversized glasses a near match for her eyes. “Let me buy you lunch,” he said. “A real one. No indigestion this time.”
She seemed to weigh the invitation for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”
Alec went into the darkroom and began developing the black and white film he’d used the Sunday before. He thought of the little stained glass panel Olivia was working on. Annie’s first panel had been large and elaborate— two sheep standing in a meadow composed of five different greens. She had always refused to waste her time on anything just for the practice. If her first effort didn’t produce something she could display with pride, there would be no second attempt.
He met Olivia in the parking lot at noon. “Are you in a hurry?” he asked as she got into his Bronco. “We can drive up to Duck and eat on the sound if you have the time.”
