The Night Mark(18)

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I’m being nosy. I have a reason for asking, I promise.”

“What’s the reason?”

“It’s a stupid reason.”

“Tell me your stupid reason, Faye. You’ve piqued my curiosity.”

“I just... When I saw the painting, I thought she was someone I knew. That’s all.”

He gave her a long searching look.

“Someone you knew. Who?” he asked.

“You’ll laugh.”

“I’d never laugh.”

Faye sighed. She was pretty sure the man would laugh.

“Who did you think the woman in the painting was?” Pat asked, his voice awash with the tender concern that must have served him well in his decades as a priest.

“I thought, maybe... I thought she was me.”





5


“Sounds crazy, right?” Faye asked. “You can laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” He wasn’t. He wasn’t even smiling. Maybe she’d scared him. It kind of looked like she had. “Like I said, that’s Faith Morgan in the painting. She was the old keeper’s girl.”

“I see. So if she was the lighthouse keeper’s daughter,” Faye said, “then who was the lighthouse keeper?”

“A former naval officer by the name of Carrick Morgan manned the light back then. Transferred from the Boston Light to Seaport in the fall of ’20, and his girl, Faith, joined him that next June. I think they say she was seventeen or so.”

Faye felt a mix of relief and embarrassment, all of which must have shown on her face. God, she felt so foolish. Well, she’d been a bigger fool before and survived.

“Never seen you before today,” he continued. “Honest. And even if I had, I’m not that good a painter. There’s a reason I paint landscapes and not portraits.”

He smiled gently. “What on earth made you think she was you?”

“Someone I loved died,” Faye said. “I went to a pier like the one in your painting to spread his ashes. It was cold, and I had on a gray coat. And I walked to the end of the pier holding the urn in my hands. The girl in the painting looks like she’s holding something. And there was this white bird on the pier when I was there. It was just like your painting. All of it. Minus the lighthouse, I mean. God, that does sound crazy.” Faye rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Anyone would be a little spooked to see a scene from their own life on canvas.”

“And that’s only half of it,” Faye said, laughing at herself.

“Well, let’s go over to the dock and talk about it. I want to hear the other half.”

Faye helped him gather his tools, and she slung her camera over her shoulder. They walked across the lawn in silence to the dock. Faye’s wedges sounded loud and hollow on the faded wood boards as they walked to the end and looked out onto the water. They were silent for a long moment. Faye sensed Pat sizing her up.

“So talk to me, Miss Faye. What are you not telling me?” Pat asked as they stood side by side, elbows resting on the dock’s wooden rail.

“Did you know that lighthouse keeper?” she asked.

“I knew him, yes. Long, long time ago.”

“Can I show you something?” she asked.

“Go right ahead.”

Faye took a printed piece of paper out of her bag and showed it to Pat. “Do you know who this man is?”

“He was much older when I knew him, but I’d know that face anywhere,” Pat said. “That’s Carrick Morgan.”

“Is it? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Faye went silent a moment. His certainty had scared her.

“Faye?”

“Sorry. Can you maybe tell me more about him?”

“Carrick?” He shrugged. “When I knew him he was retired and living off his navy pension.”

“Interesting name. Irish?”

Pat nodded. “Son of Irish immigrants, named for the village they’d come from.”

“How’d he get the job as lighthouse keeper? I thought the Irish had trouble getting good work.”

“He’d been working at the Boston Light after the war. Carrick was brought down as an assistant keeper, took over as principle keeper when the previous family got transferred.”

“You said his daughter moved in with him,” Faye said. “What about his wife?”

Pat shook his head. “He said he was a widower.”

“But he had a daughter?” Faye asked. Interesting Carrick Morgan “said” he was a widower. Did that mean he wasn’t? Was his daughter illegitimate? That sort of thing didn’t fly back in the 1920s like it did now. Faye could easily imagine a man in a government job trying to protect his daughter from the stain of scandal by lying about his past.

“Where did you find this picture?” Pat asked. He hadn’t stopped staring at the picture since she’d handed it to him. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“I took that picture,” Faye said.

Pat’s brow furrowed. “Not possible. Carrick was dead long before you were born. Died in ’65.”