The Light The Dark And Ember Between Read online



  "J.W. Nicklaus is a masterful storyteller, one whose work shows a depth seldom found among writers today. These stories are masterfully imbued with poignant insight, and a smooth, silky narration that permeates like incense. " ~ Mary Hay Davis, San Diego Family Magazine

  "Some of the stories made me smile, others had me pondering and still others stirred the emotion of sorrow, but isn't that the mark of a good writer, to touch upon our very spirit with their words. This is not easily done, especially in short works, but our author has succeeded in this." ~ Shirley Johnson, Midwest Book Review

  "Beautifully poetic and breathtakingly real . . . how can one not help but fall in love with the delightfully poetic tone and voice of this author." ~ April Pohren, Café of Dreams

  The Light, The Dark, & Ember Between

  By J.W. Nicklaus

  Copyright J.W. Nicklaus 2011

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To those who have been quietly supportive and encouraging, you have both my genuine respect and unreserved gratitude.

  To the concealed yet ever manifest angel watching over me, I need not reveal what you possess, for you already know.

  Amor Vincit Omnia

  Foreword

   Intelligence and heart shine through in The Light, the Dark, and Ember Between, a rich collection of short stories demonstrating tremendous insight into the human condition. Lush descriptions deepen the emotional impact, drawing in the reader from the start as J.W. Nicklaus explores love in its many forms.

  Relationships—fragile, yet enduring—unfold throughout the pages. From a youth’s first love channeled through carefully crafted paper dolls, to an old man’s enduring devotion to his wife, the thread of Hope remains.

  J.W. Nicklaus weaves his tales with a luminous bittersweetness that will touch your soul.

  I have the honor of recommending The Light, the Dark, and Ember Between to you. Read on. I promise you won’t be disappointed

   

  Carrie Weaver

  Award-winning Author, Harlequin SuperRomance series

  https://www.carrieweaver.com

  Preface

   Every child is taught in school about the Four Elements: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, each as disparate as they are harmonious with one another, each undeniably necessary.

  Air surrounds every living creature, its oxygen component supporting respiration; Earth supports all that life needs to exist and grow; Fire cleanses and warms, its heat and intensity can assuredly raze and destroy all matter in its path, but in its wake nitrogen is returned to the Earth allowing new life to spawn; Water—as essential to life as Air—cools, hydrates, and feeds, encompassing the other three elements at any given time, to extinguish Fire by depriving it of heat and oxygen, by relinquishing moisture to the Air to condense into clouds and fall back to the Earth, simultaneously being reborn and feeding life as well.

  A Greek philosopher named Empedocles is widely accepted as the first person to submit that all matter is comprised of these elements, but he also believed that Love strives to combine them harmoniously, while Strife, conversely, does its best to breach and rip asunder. Therefore, he proffered, Love and Strife explain the elements’ variation and harmony. Both principles were old news by the time Empedocles raised them to a temporal level. Perhaps Adam and Eve were the first to experience both in the human context.

  It can be argued that in the absence of one, the other flourishes. Darkness seeps into fading light, and light caresses away darkness. Somewhere, bridging the two, is a lifeline for the penitent and fatally optimistic—Hope: the ember between.

  An old adage says that every life has a story to tell. Mark Twain wrote, “If you wish to lower yourself in a person’s favor, one good way is to tell his story over again, the way you heard it.” Since the short stories herein are fictional, I shoulder no burden of concern. Any story, in some fashion, is an emancipation of life’s components; experiences and emotions are conditions to narrative flight. While I’m not retelling any one individual’s story, perhaps save my own, I am in some granular way attempting to reflect a piece of something within each of us—the human spirit and experience.

  Empedocles’ postulations assuredly have their cabal of detractors, but perhaps, even in our own time of petulance, dichotomous greed, and pills for once obscure maladies, we may not have to search too long or too far to find superiority in true believers. For those who genuinely feel, who possess honest compassion and embrace Hope, each provides equal variation and harmony to the collective heart, each indelibly acquainted with the acute sensibility of breath, hard reality, heat, and tears—the human equivalents of the elements. Just as Water nurtures and cleanses in the physical world, in far smaller amounts it accomplishes the same in the biological and metaphysical realms, washing our souls little by little, and almost without our realizing, renewing and leading us to new life.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Preface

  Table of Contents

  Emissary

  Requiem for Linny

  Streetlamp

  Broken

  Short Attention Span

  The Run

  Paper Doll

  Elevator Shoes

  10:18

  Four Letter Session

  Blind

  Ten Word Quickie

  One Washington Diner

  Winter Rose

  In the Name of Love

  About the Author

   

  Emissary

  Even at four stories up I could hear the waves as they greeted the rocky shoreline; the hum of the rotor that turned the lamp couldn’t drown it out. With each smooth sweep the beam cut through the Atlantic night, almost a violation of a sea which seemed to demand privacy. The warm glow gave just enough light to draw the graying skyline into relief. I heard the lamp house door squeak as it opened behind me.

  “You all right, Pop?”

  I stared off into the distance, watching intently. “Yes, I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep again.”

  “Same dream?”

  “In some respects, yes.” I tugged my sweater around me, almost subconsciously.

  “Pop, it’s been two years since—well, we both know—and what, about a year since the boat mysteriously appeared again? Had I not seen the life preserver myself I would have had you committed long ago.” The pause that followed was only vaguely uncomfortable, but the gusts of wind carried a lot of the tension away. “Your need to hang on to what happened is as unnecessary as this old lighthouse. Let it go, Pop, for your own good.”

  I turned to stare at my son, a grown man, living with and badgering his retired father. “Aury, do you remember why your mother and I gave you that name?”

  “Well, as I recall, Mom was fascinated with old Rome.”

  “Right…and?” Aury had leaned against the railing with his forearms and hung his head in resignation as he talked above the sound of the careening waves, wind, and rotor. “Her favorite was Marcus Aurelius.”

  “But a name by itself really isn’t much of anything. Do you remember the quote, the reason why she associated you with Aurelius?” I could tell he couldn’t remember.

  “Pop, it’s like 3 a.m., and I want to go back to sleep.”

  “You don’t remember, do you? I’m disappointed for you and your mother.”

  “C’mon Pop, don’t be so melodramatic.”

  “The answer to why I won’t ‘let it go’ is written within
your name, Aury.” He did nothing more than turn his head to look at me, then pushed away from the railing and clasped my shoulder.

  “Don’t stay out here too long, Pop. I’m going back downstairs to Sally. She probably thinks I’m having an affair with the sea, too.”

  “I’ll be down in a bit,” I said.

  Aury nodded, turned to leave, then stopped and turned around again. “Deep down I admire your patience, Pop. I just have difficulty accepting what it takes from you, and you get nothing in return.”

  “But you’re wrong, Aury. Perhaps the better answer is that only I can understand what it gives to me.” And with my explanation, he turned and descended into the spiraling darkness.

  I turned back to watch the horizon, eyelids as heavy as the morning felt. Lightning raced through the clouds like blinking lights on a Christmas tree. Pre-dawn dripped with tainted sweetness, a taste I’d acquired but would never learn to relish. Sleep drew her velvety cloak around my shoulders, urging me to let slip vigilance and allow my physical self-rest; my soul had long become restless.

   *** 

  Comfort and warmth from the thick plaid blanket was an embrace I didn’t want to break from, but the mischievous aroma of hash browns and bacon toyed with my early morning sensibilities. Eggs and a soothing mug of steaming tea would likely be part of the enticement. Judging by the minimal amount of floorboard groaning from upstairs, I figured Sally was the only one up and must want to talk. She often made a little something each morning, but a hearty breakfast usually meant something was on her mind. I’d always figured it was a pretty square deal—she made an insidiously good breakfast; I listened and proffered whatever advice was appropriate. God forbid she made her cinnamon rolls with orange icing; I’d essentially be her slave for the day if she made them. No scent of cinnamon though. Somebody was looking out for me already, and my feet hadn’t even hit the floor.

  With half-hearted reluctance, I tossed aside the blanket and slipped my bare feet into soft, wool-lined slippers; my trusty flannel robe flowed over cotton pajamas, and I began trekking upstairs, yawning as I went.

  The breakfast nook just off the landing is nestled next to a bay window large enough to stand up in. Morning had come, austere and grey, just as the prior night had promised. Sally had her back to me, apparently juicing some oranges, for drinking I hoped, not icing. I softly stepped to the window so as not to startle her and watched the whitecaps through the veil of drizzling rain. I thought of how fortunate my son was to have a woman of Sally’s class put up with him. She’d always been nothing but kind, honest, and without an ounce of pretension—a genuinely good soul—easy on the eyes at any time of the day or night. She was no model, but had grace and poise—simple beauty, the essence of all man’s weaknesses. I’d told both of them it had been a good thing Aury married her, because neither he nor I could cook to save our lives. I grinned, half at the thought of my light-hearted teasing and partially at the morning weather; something about the rain and an overcast day always soothed me.

  “Get some sleep last night?” Sally asked, walking up behind me and gently stroking my back.

  I reached up and massaged my head for a moment. “Yeah, some,” I replied through a yawn.

  “Thought you would like a good breakfast.”

  “You know I could never turn down one of your breakfasts. The only reason I got out of bed was because I couldn’t stand to miss out. It smells delicious.” Even if I had been upset at her for some insane reason, her smile would have immediately disarmed me. “You’re going to join me, aren’t you?”

  “What, you think I cook for my health?” she teased, raising an eyebrow. Giving her my best half-awake grin, I motioned her toward the table. “Well, then quit monkeyin’ around at the stove and come sit down and eat.”

  “I’m comin’, I’m comin’.”

  I’d already salted my hash browns and eggs, and sprinkled pepper over the whites; bacon and egg melted in my mouth by the time she’d finally taken a seat. “No better way to wake up, Sal. Thank you very much.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, Dad,” she said, spreading her napkin on her lap. She’d called me Dad since she and Aury became serious. Just as well, I loved her like a daughter. I waved the fork in circles before speaking, for no good reason, really.

  “The oranges are for drinking, right?”

  Her stare said it all. “What else would they be for?”

  “Oh, nothin’. Just asking.” She knew I loved her rolls with orange icing. She was being a coy, understated, diabolical female. She reminded me so much of Emma, my wife. No wonder I felt so comfortable around her.

  “Aury came back to bed around three this morning. Said he’d found you up on the lookout again.” I nodded and stuffed my mouth again, partially to avoid having to answer. “As many times as I’ve asked him to tell me what happened, he always says I wouldn’t believe him.”

  “He’s probably right,” I managed, swallowing the last forkful. “Is he still asleep?” Taking a bite of egg she nodded and finished chewing.

  “I’m sure he’ll be up within the hour,” she said. We sat and ate for the next few minutes, each seeming to take turns staring out the window and then at one another. The drizzle outside served to blur, ever so slightly, the harsh and rugged contours of nature. The jetties on either side of the sound seemed, when viewed through the gauze filter of the rain, more like arms embracing the encroaching ocean than the stony extrusions they were. The image always reminded me of my Emma and how much I missed her embrace. Sally reminded me so much of Emma, possessing the same gentle, innate goodness.

  Sally had become my confidant. She wasn’t always empathetic, but she had the patience of Job and an equal capacity for listening. If Aury ever broke her heart, I’d write him out of my will. It was time I told her what happened, but I couldn’t let her cooking go to waste.

  “Did you learn to cook from your mother?” I asked, genuinely curious but also half-heartedly trying to postpone the inevitable.

  Sally looked up and smiled, “Pretty much. My mom was a great cook. Dad used to say to her ‘I can’t afford to have you outside the kitchen.’ Then he’d kiss her…every time.” She looked back down at her nearly empty plate and absent-mindedly drew the fork tines through leftover yolk.

  I gulped down the last bit of orange juice and wiped my mouth. “Sal, it’s time.” She looked up again, completely uncertain as to what I meant. I took her free hand and gently tugged. “C’mon. Grab your galoshes, windbreaker, and slicker. Let’s take a walk down to the dock—the water looks to have calmed down and the rain’s more of a nuisance now than a threat.” Her eyes never left mine, filled with concern and curiosity; her fork tinked against the plate as she dropped it.

  Just off the kitchen was the mudroom, a space just large enough to hang six sets of coats, rain slickers, and galoshes. It measured only six feet by six feet, but what it lacked in size it made up for in coziness. Plastic and rubber slapped and wobbled as we donned our gear, the clasps clicking in an almost-natural syncopation with the rain falling on the roof above. Neither of us said a word as we stepped out of the mudroom and into the morning rain, the soft drizzle on the slicker and the ever-present sound of surf reminding us who was really in charge.

  The air was brisk yet fresh—a mixture of rain-clean tinged with salt spray. Our footsteps slickly whisked against the tall grass that grew up to the sand of the small beach. I leaned in toward Sally as we walked so she could hear me, “The missus and I always loved this kind of weather, the smell of the air. We called it angels’ breath.”

  Sally closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. “The description is perfect,” she replied. We walked silently another twenty yards to the dock, hands stuffed deep inside our pockets, shunning September’s nip.

  Stark white pontoons floated on either side of the small dock, its full twelve-foot length bobbing up and down with the approaching waves as they petered out against the shoreline. The planks and handrails wer
e made of marine-grade aluminum and covered in a protective sleeve of white PVC as additional protection against the harsh battering of nature and the sea. Everything about it was artificial, right down to the nylon ropes wrapped around the cleats. Conversely, the short wooden walkway leading to the dock was all natural cedar, aged and weather beaten, beach sand filling every nook and cranny of each board. Our galoshes thumped softly against it as we stepped toward, then onto, the lilting dock, timing our steps with its cadence. I knelt and wrapped the loose rope around my hand, waiting for it to reveal some secret I didn’t already know, then turned and looked up at Sally.

  “Tell me, what do you see out there?” I said, nodding at the water. She stared for what seemed like minutes, scanning left and right.

  “Nothing, really. A buoy almost directly ahead, a couple of gulls sitting on it. The fog,” she paused. “It’s just thick enough to obscure the horizon, but I can make out the dim outline of the jetties to the north and south.” She turned and looked down at me. “It feels peaceful, yet there’s something that doesn’t sit right, as if I’m being pushed and pulled at the same time.”

  I stood up, facing seaward with her.

  “Listen close. Hear that? The sound of water everywhere. It laps against the dock, rolls and bubbles onto the beach, crackles and patters as it falls from the sky and onto everything around us. It’s partly Nature’s way of telling us to pay attention, partly Neptune’s way of beckoning us to come to him. Depending on our level of arrogance or stupidity, we choose one, brushing off the other. Sometimes we get lucky despite ourselves,” I paused and closed my eyes, drinking in the grayness. “Sometimes…we don’t.”

  Sally remained stoic, unflinchingly silent.

  “We had a small sailboat, nothing fancy, about a fifteen-footer, painted in differing shades of blue down to the waterline.” I pointed to the two salt-encrusted tires mounted on the end of the dock where it once was berthed. “She had a beautiful sail and a small outboard motor we rarely used since there’s normally enough wind here to put a boat underway. I insisted we name it after her, Emma Jeane. She fussed about that for a while, but relented to my stubbornness. I can still picture it here, bobbing up just ahead of the dock, then down as the dock rose. You would have loved it, Sal.”

  “I’m sure of it,” she mused.

  I motioned to a pair of Adirondack chairs that sat at the land’s edge of the dock. “It’s been a while since I’ve given these chairs any attention. Emma and I would sit here when the weather allowed and watch the sun sink into the ocean. Once in a while I’d roll the old Weber down here, take off the grill, and we’d have a makeshift fire pit—just sit and talk, in between listen to the water.”

  Sally eased herself into one of the chairs, then asked, “Dad, what happened?” The inflection in her voice told me she was more than curious—she was both concerned and ready. I’d put it off long enough. I pulled the other chair next to hers and sat down.

  “It was a day very much like this, it felt just like you described it—like you were being simultaneously pushed and pulled. We’d lived here five years at that point, so we’d had a lot of days like that. Nothing out of the ordinary for us. Emma wanted to sail down to South Harpswell and spend the day just walking around, maybe have some lunch, then come back before dusk.”

  “That’s not too far, why not just drive?”

  “It’s about an hour’s winding drive, but only thirty or forty minutes around the point by boat if the winds favor you. I can’t tell you how many times we’d sailed it before; we could practically do it in our sleep.”

   I was suddenly aware of how easily my memory had taken me by the hand; I hadn’t noticed anything around me—save Sally and the nuanced throbbing in my temples. I took a deep breath, fresh, moist air clinging to my lungs.

  “We set off, got the sail trimmed, and had everything in order. Emma sat next to me for a bit, with her arm around my waist. I remember looking at her and leaning over to give her a kiss. Then I took the rudder. We’d been out about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, having just skirted the outer part of the point. The fog seemed thick enough to snatch out of the air by the handful. There were no shipping vessels, really no marine traffic to speak of at all that morning. The boat had tacked against the wind into a dead spot and the sail went limp. Not a big deal; I was preoccupied with navigation, so Emma got up and put it into the breeze again.”

  I dropped my gaze to my feet, not quite sure what I’d hope to find—perhaps my resolve. I felt a warm hand upon my own; Sally had reached over and gently taken my right hand. I looked over, only to find her eyes fixated upon mine. She said nothing, only waited. I swallowed hard, knowing my voice would crack if I spoke, and then turned my gaze out to sea again.

  “‘Watch that jib!’ I called to her. She waved me off, and I just smiled. Emma had grown up around the water, and knew her way around a boat far better than I.” I caught myself looking down again. “She unwound the line from the cleat so the sail could swing freely to catch the breeze, which is exactly what happened. It caught a gust and the sail billowed. The boom swung free catching her smack dab in the gut. She doubled over, lost her balance, and the wind caused the boom to push her overboard. The boat had been pitching a little, so it took some doing to get forward and secure the sail to the cleat. It was just seconds, I’m sure, but it felt like minutes. I fully expected to hear Emma yelling any second. The boat took off once the wind caught the sail, as if some unseen hand had shoved it forward. I called out, over and over, ‘Emma! . . .EM!’ I didn’t dare use the outboard for fear I’d hit her. She had her life vest on, but the water was so murky it would have been easy to miss.” I paused, replaying the event in my head—and heart; no idea how many times I’ve seen the movie, but it always leaves the same emotional impression. I sighed heavily and then continued.

  “Sal, I scurried around that boat, from bow to stern, looking everywhere. I couldn’t see her. I didn’t have a lot of time because the water was cold—not winter cold, but cold enough.” I felt Sally’s other hand enclose mine, warming it on both sides. Only then did it occur to me how tense my grip had become.

  “I grabbed the rudder and did my best to steer and search the area. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t hear her call out or see her bobbing in the water. I tried so desperately to find her, and in doing so, waited far too long to radio the Coast Guard for help. It must have been fifteen, twenty minutes, before I called in. They did what they could, hauled me aboard and tethered our boat to theirs. Emma and I knew some of them because of our work with the lighthouse. God bless ’em, they did everything they could for me. But they never found Emma. Not a trace.”

  Sally stared out to sea for a minute before saying anything. “Forgive me, Dad, if I seem improper,” she started. I shook my head slightly, urging her to say whatever she wanted. “Nothing ever washed up on shore? Clothing, or, umm, her body?”

  “Not a damn thing. No shirt, not the picture she always kept with her for good luck…not even the life vest.” We both sat quietly immersed in physical and emotional greyness.

  “There’s more, isn’t there,” she finally said.

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “Would you rather tell me later?”

  I’d been staring at the dock, almost mesmerized by its rise and fall. A lone gull lit upon one of the railings. “No. Now is good. Now is best, actually.” Her presence was comforting in a place that wasn’t.

  “I could never accept that she could be so cleanly, almost surgically, cut out of my life,” I began. “She would never leave without saying goodbye. I could still feel her around me…even in me.” I squirmed a bit in the chair. “Something nagged at me. I’d left the boat tied to the dock for a long time. Once in a while Aury would use it, even do a little upkeep on it just to keep it seaworthy. But I wouldn’t set foot on it. It was our boat, not mine alone. So one morning I did what I knew I really needed to do—I set her adrift. It was a stormy morning, so I could always blame it on the wea
ther. I undid the line from the dock cleat and turned my back. I never looked out to sea the rest of that day. I feared I’d see the boat lingering in the middle of the sound, mocking me.”

  “You could have sold it.”

  “I know, I know. Aury and I went round and round about that. Took him a while to accept what I did.”

  Sal’s brow raised in thoughtfulness. “I suppose it wouldn’t seem right having some financial gain from something you shared.”

  “Precisely.”

  She gave my hand a mild squeeze. “Go on.”

  “Shortly after that, the dreams started. I could make out the shoreline, the sound, the jetties, everything—but nothing audible. The water would roll on the beach and foam, and moonlight would shimmer, ghostlike upon the water. The first few times I’d see her standing about midway on that jetty over there,” I said, pointing to the northern outcropping. “I could see her hair streaming in a breeze that didn’t exist. I’d yell to her, and she’d turn, but then I’d wake up.”

  “I’d imagine it was a natural response to your sub-conscious dealing with the emotional trauma,” Sally said.

  I managed a weak grin. “Spoken like a true professional. Am I being billed for this?”

  She grinned back.

  “Anyhow, that’s about what I thought too, but that didn’t make it any easier to shake the dream hangover I’d have the following morning. Didn’t take long for them to start becoming more frequent. Slowly, I began to make my way closer to her, and she to me. Every dream, the closer she got the more painful it was, simply because she looked just as beautiful as she did the day I lost her.” The rain had let up for the moment, and I looked over at Sally. I thought I saw a tear upon her cheek, but it could just have easily been a stray raindrop.

  “Eventually I’d worked at trying to remain in those dreams as long as I could, willing my lucid self into staying put. That’s when we started talking.” I paused, more to remember her voice than from any need to momentarily halt.

  “And?” Sally insisted.

  “At first all she would say is, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ And I could wrap my arms around her—actually feel her. Anytime she held me, I felt like I could melt in her arms; I felt no distinction between the dream and my memory. Then the dream’s languid decay would leave me haunted until the next evening, hoping she’d return.”

  “She would, eventually, right?”

  “Of course, not always the next night, but eventually. Then in one dream she told me to watch the beach. No reason why, simply a solemn beseechment to be vigilant.”

  “She never described what to look for?”

  “No. But I didn’t have to wait long to find out.” The morning fog had begun to burn off leaving the sun to glisten off the water. I pushed off the poncho’s hood and tousled my hair. “You mind walking along the beach for a bit?” Sally rose almost before I’d finished asking. “Ready when you are.”

  The air was still crisp with the remaining fog and everything in sight had a sheen of moisture from the rain. Sally watched as I picked up an empty shell and tossed it ahead of us, about thirty yards down the beach.

  “See where that shell landed?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “I was up in the lantern room one morning, cleaning the lens, you know, doing basic maintenance. Through the glass I saw something lying on the beach, just about where that shell landed. You’ve been here long enough to know that we see stuff wash up all the time—I’ve seen messages in bottles, hats, oars, bathing suits, all kinds of stuff. This was bigger, though, probably a piece of driftwood I figured. I finished upstairs then walked out here to get a closer look. I stepped through the mudroom door and immediately broke into a jog—I never bothered to close the door.” Sally glanced back at the house, then back down at the beach. I wondered if she was getting the same hollow, gut-wrenching, adrenaline-tinged feeling I was.

  “It was the boat…she’d beached herself; looked a little weather beaten, but completely intact.” I noticed I’d kept waving my hand in a shaky figure eight over the area, perhaps subconsciously dispensing my own aching blessing on the sand where it had come to rest. “I thought perhaps Aury had found it on one of his salvage trips, but he would have tied it to the dock,” I said, nodding in its direction.

  “The Coast Guard, maybe?” Sally ventured.

  “No, they would have called first, and the police would have been involved—lots of paperwork and such. Nobody called or left a note. Nothing, save for the life vest Emma had been wearing. It was lying on the bench seat close to the mast.”

  “It could have been any life vest someone tossed in, Dad.”

  “Ordinarily I’d agree, but Em made a custom slipcover for hers from light blue, heavy-duty nylon, and she’d embroidered our anniversary date on the bottom left panel: February 9. The color was a little faded, but it was her vest, all the same. To this day I can’t figure out any rational way to explain how it got there.”

  Sally looked at me, brushing her hair behind her right ear. “What about your dreams? Did she ever tell you anything about it before or after?”

  I didn’t need to contemplate the answer; it had been something I’d thought about for a long time, like a sculptor considers his subject before putting chisel to stone.

  “No, never specifically. She has often come to me and told me she’s waiting,” I paused to let the wind carry the words away, “that she’d send some sign of comfort.”

  “Do you think that was it?”

  My head started shaking before she’d finished the question. “No, the vest wasn’t comforting at all. It raised too many questions. At that point it had been two years since I’d lost her. Hope wasn’t an option. I did keep it, though.”

  Sally looked at me questioningly. “Hope?”

  “Well, my heart holds onto that, foolish and empty though it may be. I meant I kept the life vest—the only tangible thing I have from that day. In retrospect it seems almost debilitating how we cling to artifacts and memories…but in some strange way I suppose they help bring clarity once the haze clears.” Half-consciously I’d been looking at the sky as I spoke—the clouds had begun clearing in some spots allowing the sun to make the water sparkle. I could see Sal in my peripheral vision, looking here and there around the sound as if trying to locate something.

  “Obviously the boat isn’t here now. What did you do with it?” Sally asked.

  “I struggled with that for about an hour that day. Went looking for Aury, ’cause at the time I didn’t know if he had found it and returned it in an attempt to raise my spirits or what. After about fifteen minutes I figured he wasn’t around. The next time I saw him I told him what happened, showed him the vest. He told me he’d driven up to Harpswell to see you. I spent the next forty-five minutes agonizing over whether to cast it adrift again—which I wound up doing.”

  “So much for comfort?” She half asked, mostly stated.

  I nodded, then turned to look back at the lighthouse. “Shall we head back?” Sal threaded her arm around mine as we stepped onto the path, well worn from countless trips to and from the beach in happier times.

  “Dad…” I turned toward her voice. “What was the last thing she said to you, I mean, in the last dream?”

  My eyes closed of their own volition, a weak, if natural, attempt to shut out the light and resurrect her memory.

  “‘Soon.’ That’s it.” I could hear Emma’s voice clearly in my head, soft as a satin whisper.

  “And how long has it been since the boat…,” Sally let her question trail off.

  “Just over a year ago,” I intoned.

  “I can see now why Aury worries about you.”

  “I’m more convinced he thinks I’m crazy than really worried.”

  “Well, if the two of you talked more often you may just see things differently,” Sally chided. “Both of you are so busy trying to avoid the mountains you’re missing the veins of gold.”

  I stopped cold, mid-s
tep, and looked into her eyes. She was right, of course, but neither Aury nor I would admit it to the other. “Truth is, Sal, he resents that it’s my thing—that I won’t let it go.”

  “No, I think he resents that you won’t let him in.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her brashness Her wisdom belied her youthful years. Once again we began walking; neither of us uttered a word until we reached the landing in front of the mudroom. Sally tugged at my arm.

  “Dad, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said. “Thank you for sharing it with me.” Gently her arm untwined from mine and she strode into the house.

       I drew in a last lungful of angels’ breath, and watched a couple of seagulls in the distance as they settled into the mottled waters of the sound. It felt good to have told her.