The Night Mark(102)

“You’re looking mighty fine today, Miss Morgan.”

“I got married today, Mr. Rivers,” she said.

“Then my heartiest best wishes to you, Miss Morgan. Who is the lucky man?”

“Patrick Cahill. A sailor.”

“Well, I hope he’s real good to you, Mrs. Cahill.”

“He will be. And your lovely daughter made the dress. She’s very gifted. She should sell the clothes she makes.”

“That’s a fine idea. We’ll run that by her mama.”

“Tell Dolly she has the day off tomorrow. She’s more than earned it.”

“I’ll do that. You have a good night now,” he said with a little knowing grin that wasn’t quite a wink but served the same purpose.

She waved Dolly off and watched until she and her father were out of sight. She heard footsteps on the dock and turned to see Pat coming toward her, his hands in his pockets, a look on his face that told her it was time.

“Leaving so soon?” she asked.

“Carrick and I have said our goodbyes—for now. And I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome. You and Carrick should have the house to yourself. It is your wedding night, remember?”

“And Carrick is a lighthouse keeper, remember? He’ll spend half the night in the watch room.”

“And the other half with his new wife. I should be on my way before I get too used to this body. Wish I could take it with me.”

“You are awfully handsome. Anyone ever told you that you look like Gregory Peck?”

“Once or twice. I never believed them.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked out to the sea.

“It’s just the damnedest thing, isn’t it? Us being here?” he asked.

“That’s one way to put it. You think this is God’s doing?”

“I’d like to think it is.” He stuck his foot out and toed a fishing net Carrick had left out to dry on the dock. “You know, I used to come out to the islands all the time to swim. I’d watch the fishermen mending their nets and I remember wondering if time was like that. They teach us in seminary that God is outside of time. He created it, knitted it, just like you knit a net. Sometimes you get a tear in that net and have to mend it. What Carrick lost, what you lost... That’s a big tear. Maybe this is God mending that rend. Maybe He’ll do it for all of us someday.”

“Maybe He will,” she said. “Maybe He is.”

“Coming here was good for me. I feel His greatness again, His majesty and mysteriousness.” Pat turned his face to the setting sun and smiled a beatific smile. “I’ll take that back with me. It’ll carry me to the end.”

“What will you do when you get back? Will you tell anyone what happened?”

“No. Some secrets are too beautiful to tell. And too dangerous. We’d have to build a fortress to keep people from jumping into the waters around here, hoping to find a time machine. I’ll paint my secrets instead. I’ll paint the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, and no one will know she’s really my wife.”

“You’re going to paint me?”

“Someone has to paint the Lady of the Light.”

“I hope they don’t still call me that in the future. I don’t want to be a ghost story.”

“I’m sure they’ll find something else to say about you now. Hopefully that you lived a long, happy life even though your bastard sailor husband knocked you up and abandoned you, never to return.”

“Why did I marry that guy? What was I thinking?”

“Pretty girl like you could do a lot better. But it’ll make for a good story, I imagine. Lighthouse keeper’s daughter marries her sailor lover, and he ships out never to return. Or maybe he does return once or twice, depending on how many children you have. He loves her and leaves her, but our poor Lady of the Light is a constant lover and waits for him, never remarrying in the hopes he will come back to her someday for good.”

“Nice story,” she said. “Totally bullshit, but still very nice.”

“The true story behind the legend is so much better.”

“It always is,” Faye said, reaching out for Pat’s hand. She felt it shaking, but didn’t know if that was her hand or his.

“I should go,” he said.

She squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. She would never see him again.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Watch yourself. You’re in deep waters here, remember?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I have my own personal lighthouse.”

Pat smiled and turned from her, turned toward the end of the dock. He slipped out of his shoes and took a step forward. He looked back at her one more time.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just trying to decide what color to use on your eyes when I paint you. Dioxazine violet, I think.”

“Go,” she said. “Go before I stop you.”

“My wife is nagging me already. I’m out of here.” He took one step forward and then stopped, turned around, looked at her without a smile, looked at her with a look that scared her.

“E. B. White once said—or maybe he’ll say it someday—that the worst time to become a father is eighteen years before a war.”