The Night Mark(28)

Already Faye regretted not bringing her camera with her. She could have taken a whole series of sunset-on-the-water pictures.

In reverential silence, Faye stood at the railing facing the water and watched the last of the light fading and the sky turning from gold to red to blue to black. Up here, watching the sky change color as time passed, the thought of growing older and dying wasn’t nearly so terrifying. She’d just watched an evening turn to night, and if she stood up here long enough she’d see the night turn into morning.

One...two...three... Red...blue...black... Time turned colors as it passed. That was growing older—watching the colors of one’s life changing. And death? What was death but falling asleep? Faye fell asleep every night. What did it matter to her if one morning she simply didn’t wake up again? Had Will known? Did he have any idea that the blow to his head would be fatal? When he’d nodded off in the ambulance after muttering, “Somebody call my wife, please,” did he know he would never wake up again? No. Surely not. If he had known, his last words would have been a declaration of love to her, and she knew that in the marrow of her bones. If she could take any comfort in Will’s death, it was this—she hadn’t needed him to tell her he loved her in his last words. She’d known. He’d told her that morning. He’d told her every day. That was why she knew if there were any ghosts in this world, Will wasn’t one of them. The particular unfinished business she and Will had wasn’t the sort of unfinished business one could finish without a body. No offense to his beautiful spirit.

“This is me, Will,” she said to the empty air around her. “I’m just like this lighthouse. Still standing, still here. But I’m falling apart. The light’s off, and I don’t know how to turn it back on again.”

She blinked back tears and took a long, shuddering breath.

“Your wife is turning weird. I’m talking to myself. I banged a college kid. I’m being stalked by a stork. I even talked to a priest about you—retired, but still. Oh, and did you know the lighthouse keeper of this very lighthouse looked just like you? So now I have a crush on a guy who’s been dead for fifty years in addition to a guy who’s been dead four years. I’m glad you’re not here to see what a mess I am these days. If I go to see a medium next, you have my permission to kill me from beyond the grave.”

She could hear the memory of Will’s warm laugh in her mind, and his voice taunting her.

Can’t hold the college kid against you. He was damn cute. You always did want me to get a tattoo.

“Don’t laugh at me. This is all your fault.”

How is it my fault you banged a college kid?

“Because you died for a car. Do you really think I cared if our car got stolen? I mean, maybe if it was a Corvette or something, but a Ford Focus? A beige Ford Focus? Come on. Couldn’t you have at least died for a sports car?”

The flowers were in the car, Bunny.

“Oh, screw the flowers,” she said.

That would hurt. They had thorns.

“You know what I mean. I can grow my own flowers if I want them. I can’t grow another you. And I tried. My body is not made for having babies, apparently. Not even yours.”

Don’t feel bad. My body’s not made for having babies, either.

“No, but your body was made for making them.”

I’m sorry about the baby, too, sweetheart. You know that. But we would have had fun trying again, wouldn’t we?

“God, yes.” She closed her eyes and let herself remember images, moments, his hands in her hair, his lips on her stomach and going lower, lower... “Remember that thing you used to do to me? You know, when I’d wear a scarf in my hair and you’d pull it out and wrap it around my wrists, drag me into the bedroom and use the scarf for evil?”

I used it for good. If it ends with you having a screaming orgasm, then it was for good.

“You’re a pervert.”

I resemble that remark.

Faye sighed, then gave a little drunken laugh. Drunk on memories. Drunk on loneliness.

“You’re not making this any easier,” she said, still laughing because it was the one thing that kept her from crying. “You know, it’s been almost four years. I should be over you by now. I’ve been widowed four times as long as we were even together. One year wasn’t enough.”

I hate to tell you this, but...

“But what?” she asked, knowing that when Will said he “hated” to tell her something, it meant he was really really going to enjoy what he was going to tell her.

One thousand years wouldn’t have been enough. One thousand years, and we would have just gotten started...

Faye smiled. “You sweet talker, you.” This time she couldn’t hear Will’s smart-ass answer. Probably because if he’d been there for real and not just in her mind, he wouldn’t have said a word. He would have kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. And eventually she’d be on her stomach in bed with his mouth on the back of her neck, and no words would be necessary for all that would inevitably follow. But her eyes were dry, and her throat was clear. How long had it been since she’d been able to smile while thinking of Will? Just smile? No tears, no panic, no pain? Coming to the lighthouse had been good for her, if for no reason other than it had given her this one little moment of peace.