The Night Mark(27)
Pat had said the only people who were nostalgic for the past had never lived there, and he did have a point. Yet she couldn’t help but long for a bygone era when craftsmen took the time to make something both functional and beautiful, even knowing how few people would ever see their work. It was foolish to tell a grieving widow not to long for the past. She’d heard the saying that the past was a foreign country. True? Yes, but it was the foreign country where Will lived.
Faye wiped the sweat off her forehead. She should have brought a bottle of water with her. Faye started up the staircase, testing each one with her foot before trusting it with her full weight. If she fell and hurt herself, that was it for her. No one knew she was here. No one in the world. While foolish and dangerous, it was also exhilarating. Hagen had always insisted she keep her phone with her at all times, always charged no matter where she went. He insisted she tell him her schedule, when she’d leave, when she’d return. He’d been more a father to her than husband at times, and an overbearing father at that.
Not even sleeping with Ty had made her feel this free—being somewhere no could find her, and knowing that if something bad happened, she was on her own. Pat had warned her not to come out here, warned her it wasn’t safe. She’d been playing it safe since Will had died, marrying Hagen for health insurance, getting pregnant because she’d known that was what Hagen wanted... But Hagen wouldn’t want her doing this. This was something she and Will would have done together. Sneaking onto private property, giggling and whispering, Faye threatening to disavow all knowledge of Will and this mission if they were caught in the act. She’d gone on several of his team’s road trips, and she and Will had had sex in three different minor-league ballpark locker rooms and one major-league dugout. Will had told the security guard that he’d left his contact-lens case in the dugout, which was easily the stupidest lie Will had ever come up with to get laid. And the security guard had known it, too. He’d looked at Will, then looked at Faye and then looked back at Will. He’d said, “She’s cute, so I’ll give you fifteen minutes. Make it good.”
They’d made it good.
As she climbed up the spiraling staircase her body trembled with nervous excitement at doing something she knew she shouldn’t. It was a delicious feeling, taking a risk again, getting out of her comfort zone and into the danger zone. It felt like her old life.
“I only wish you were waiting for me at the top of this lighthouse, Will,” she whispered. “Not quite the mile-high club but close enough, right?”
She made it to the top at last. Her legs screamed at her and her lungs burned, but she made it. She found the door to the lantern room. She stepped inside and walked straight into a spiderweb. Screaming, she stepped back, batting at her hair and face, before laughing at her wild overreaction to something she should have anticipated. Of course there were spiders up here. Maybe even rats. Luckily it seemed the architect of the web had abandoned her handiwork long ago. Once more into the lantern room Faye ventured. She found it free of any other creatures or cobwebs. She also found it a dirty, disappointing mess. She couldn’t even see through the muck-encrusted windows. The lens that had magnified the wick was long gone, no doubt residing in a museum somewhere or converted into a chandelier for some rich man’s ceiling. Faye found the exterior door to the widow’s walk, took a deep breath and walked outside into the open air.
“Wow,” she breathed, unable to stay silent in the presence of such a magnificent vista. She could see all the way to Hunting Island. And the ocean... The ocean stretched out to the very edge of the horizon before dropping out of sight where the earth curved away from her. Close to the shore, the water was a greenish brown, like river water, but farther out it turned a bluish black where the continental shelf ended and the deep waters began. From this height, she could see the outline of the sandbar that had spelled disaster for so many ships before this lighthouse had been erected to guide them to safety. She wondered how ships avoided the sandbar now. In the distance, she heard the gentle tolling of a bell buoy. Ah, that’s how. Less expensive than manning a lighthouse, but hardly as romantic.
Faye wandered the full perimeter of the widow’s walk, taking in every inch of the view. So much beauty, she could hardly stand it. The trees of Bride Island looked like a soft green carpet, and the beaches at the edges of the island looked like delicate pie crust. From above she could see the roofs of several houses closer to the south beach. That must be where Ms. Shelby lived when she stayed here. If Faye had her own island, she’d never leave it, not for anything. Closer in, Faye spied another area near the center of the island that had been cleared of trees. Had those trees been taken for Ms. Shelby’s bourbon barrels? Or was that the location of the ruins and the graves Pat had told her about? She wouldn’t want to plant trees or build houses over a cemetery, either, although she imagined if one dug deep enough anywhere on earth, one would find the remains of someone who wouldn’t want a house erected on top of them. That was one reason she’d chosen to have Will cremated. She didn’t want to give him a grave that in a few centuries would be the foundation of someone’s house or office complex. And she couldn’t imagine putting her husband into a hole in the ground. Not her Will. She’d given his ashes to the water off the pier where he’d asked her to marry him. And looking at the sun setting on the ocean, at the long slant of light that stretched like a reaching arm from the sound to the sea, she knew she’d entrusted the ashes of her husband to the only place worthy enough for them.