Keeper of the Light

“Paul, I said I’d listen, but I can’t. It just hurts too much.”

He stood up and, to her surprise, took her in his arms. She didn’t fight him. She couldn’t. It had been too long.

“I still care about you, Liv,” he said. “But she destroyed me. I wish to hell that we never moved here. I wish I’d never met her.”

He smelled warm and familiar, yet all she could see when she closed her eyes was the image of him in bed with Annie. She pulled away from him with a whimper. “Go home, Paul,” she said. “Go back to your little shrine.”

He hesitated for a moment before turning to leave. Olivia waited until she heard his car pull out of the driveway. Then she walked into the kitchen and removed the peacock feather from the window. She took it outside to the end of the pier, lifted it over her head in the darkness, and brought it down hard on the piling, listening with enormous satisfaction to the breaking of the glass.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Paul ran into Alec in the supermarket—literally—their carts colliding as he turned the corner by the dairy case. Alec broke into a smile when he saw him, and Paul nearly groaned with dismay. He was trapped.

“Paul!” Alec gave him a hearty handshake. “You’ve been on my mind a lot lately.”

“I have?”

Alec leaned on his cart as though he was settling in for a long discussion. “The lighthouse material you sent me is terrific. I talked to Nola about it, and with a little more information we can put together a booklet rather than a brochure. The printer’s agreed, and we’ve figured out a way to distribute it nationally.”

“Fantastic,” Paul said. He rearranged the packages in his cart to avoid looking at Alec.

“I have an idea for your next interview with Mary Poor,” Alec said. “Get her to talk about herself. People used to call her the ‘Angel of the Light.’ I have a few old articles about her I can send you so you’ll know what to ask her, in case she turns out to be the modest type. Then maybe later in the summer we can get her to give a few of us a tour of the keeper’s house. Does she seem up to it?”

“A tour of the house?” Paul moved his carton of vanilla ice cream from one side of his cart to the other. “I’m not sure,” he said. “She was sitting in a rocking chair when I spoke with her, so I don’t know how well she gets around.” He was not at all certain he could handle another interview with the old woman, much less a tour of the house. How much could his nerves take? He had gotten sick after the first interview, had to pull off on a side street in Manteo to throw up in the gutter.

“Well, we’ll see,” Alec said. “By the way, why didn’t you tell me you did that article in Seascape on my wife?”

Paul tried to read his tone. Alec was smiling; there was nothing accusatory in his face. It was more that he thought Paul was being modest. “Oh, well. I didn’t know what kind of memory that would be for you.”

“It was a very nice tribute to her. She loved it.”

Paul smiled himself. He’d never known that. She had never said that to him. “Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot. How did you figure it out?”

“Your wife was the doctor on duty the night Annie died. I guess you knew that, huh?”

Paul froze. “Yes.”

“So, I’ve spoken with her—with Olivia—a few times to understand exactly what happened that night. You know, I just needed to sort it out in my head.”

“Right.” How much had Olivia told him? Paul’s palms began to sweat on the bar of the shopping cart.

“Olivia’s been very helpful to me,” Alec said. “It helps knowing she was the one treating Annie.”

“Yes, I…it must.”

“Did you know that you and Annie were in the same class at Boston College?”

How the hell did Alec know that? “Uh, yes. It came out during the interviews.”

“You didn’t remember her from back then?”

“There were a lot of students in that class.”

Alec looked down at his grocery cart and Paul followed his eyes to the frozen foods, cans of vegetables. “Annie would have a fit if she could see this,” Alec said, nodding toward the cart.

“Well, I’ve gotten into the frozen stuff myself, lately,” Paul said. “Speaking of which, we’d better get going before everything thaws.” He started to push his cart past Alec.

“Right,” Alec agreed. “Oh, by the way, I’m reading The Wreck of the Eastern Spirit.”

Paul turned back to look at him. “How…?”

“I’d mentioned something about how well you wrote to Olivia, and she thought I might like to take a look at it. That’s when you two met, huh? It must have been something, watching her in action.”

“Olivia?” he asked, stupidly, the memory jarring him. She had been young and pretty, caring and efficient, and he had been genuinely smitten. He had seen something in her that made him think, yes, she could be the one to help him forget, and for the longest time she had unwittingly done exactly that.

Alec rested his elbows on the bar of the shopping cart again. “As I’m reading about the train wreck, though, it makes me realize how poorly equipped our little emergency room is to handle a major trauma,” he said. “Like a gunshot to the heart.”

Paul was disturbed by Alec’s candor. Did he think they were friends? “I guess that’s true.” He glanced toward the inviting open aisle behind Alec’s head, then looked at his watch. “Well, I’ve got to get this stuff home,” he said. “I’ll see you at the next lighthouse meeting.” He pushed his cart away, cringing, knowing that his exit had been totally graceless.