The Lighthouse

“Help what? The not sleeping?”

“Sometimes.”

The weird feeling I have in the pit of my stomach grows. I breathe in, remind myself, yes, things change, but some things don’t—like not being able to talk to your father or to feel completely relaxed around him.

“Excuse me,” he says, trying to pass through the door.

“Want me to go with you?”

“Only if you want to. I stay out a long time, so if you’re tired that’s not such a good idea.”

I step back into the hallway, knowing he wants me to stay home.

He moves past me. “Don’t wait up if you’re tired, honey.”

A moment later I hear the back door close. In the living room the tree blinks on. I turn off the TV, go to my old room and shut the door. The white daisy bedspread I’m so used to is still on the bed. The oak dresser and highboy from Lou’s Antiques in Palos Verdes stand opposite each other.

I pull back the curtain, try to look out to the front, but the window mirrors my reflection. I click off the lamp on the dresser and I disappear. Then I see my father, highlighted in the blinking red light from the fake tree. He’s standing in the middle of the front yard, staring at the house.

I wonder what he’s thinking. Is he happy I’m here? It sure doesn’t seem like it. But he did put up the tree. Maybe he just doesn’t want company. The sad part of all this is that I really don’t know.

Jake McGuire looked at the house his wife Dorothy had insisted on buying thirty-eight years ago. Christine’s bedroom light clicked off. He hoped his only child was going to bed. The red patch of light from the Christmas tree snapped off then on again. He crossed his arms and felt calmer than he had when he was in the house.

A few minutes ago, when he was sitting in his chair, he’d again seen an image of his wife. Jake shook his head.

Maybe all the talk about Christmas had brought it about. Then again, it could have been Christine’s reflection.

No, that wasn’t it.

He’d seen Dorothy standing in the middle of the living room. It was for just a split second, but he couldn’t deny it.

Jake took a deep breath. Many times this past eight months, he’d wished his wife were sitting next to him or in another room. He’d even closed his eyes and pictured her standing in front of him smiling. But tonight? What he saw felt real. And seeing her made him feel comforted.

The Christmas tree lights blinked off then on, and Jake remembered why he’d bought the stupid tree. He’d gone to pick up a case of Pennz-oil on sale at Wal-Mart, and he’d heard Dorothy’s favorite Christmas song, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” as he was standing in the middle of the auto supplies, for Christ’s sake. That’s when he realized he needed to get a tree because Christine would be home. The next thing he knew, he was shoving the artificial one in the trunk.

Jake walked away from the house, then stopped a little ways down the sidewalk. He was glad he’d come outside. He wasn’t used to talking about Dorothy. Since she’d been gone, his evenings were silent, except for the TV. And he’d never been responsible for Christmas. When his wife was alive, she took care of all the holidays. Most of the time, he was flying. Lay-over hotels were quiet, and he got the best assignments for those days. Dorothy said she didn’t mind, even after they got older, as long as Christine could make it home.

Deep grief invaded his body as he walked down the street. To distract himself, he looked up. The tall streetlights dabbed every fourth lawn with glassy white light. He hoped the cool night air and being out of the house, away from the memories—all the regrets—would make him feel better.

Tonight, seeing Christine for the first time since Dorothy’s funeral had made him sad. She looked so much like her mother, with her dark hair, slim build and blue eyes.

Maybe all the fresh memories had made him think he saw Dorothy. Jake stopped in the middle of the street. Yeah, that was it. The same thing had happened three weeks ago, right after the evening news reported a car wreck. That’s the first time he thought he saw Dorothy standing in front of him. It was for just a moment, yet he felt elated.

And later that night, loneliness covered him like a blanket, suffocating him. So he’d walked to the center of town, away from the house, the memories, the uncertainty. He stayed out for an hour, then right after he’d walked in the kitchen, Christine called, told him she’d booked a flight to come home. He’d been so depressed, he couldn’t think or talk. It took him a few minutes to get it together, call her back and ask what time she was coming in.

This morning, he’d thought, with Christine home, he’d be busy and the grief would subside. Tonight, at least, he managed to talk, act normal. He certainly didn’t want his daughter to worry about him.

Jake walked faster, told himself he’d keep it together while Christine was here. At Dorothy’s funeral, he’d come to grips with the fact he was never going to see his wife again, despite what some people said.

You’ll be together again someday.

A lot of people said that to him. He thought people spouted that bull to make themselves feel better and not so afraid of death. He believed that the spirit everlasting was pretty much crap. He stuffed his grief, held his feelings back and told himself to face reality.

Jake crossed the deserted street. There was no heaven or hell or anything in between. When he was eight, he’d announced to his mother he didn’t believe in heaven. She slapped the crap out of him, and that pretty much convinced him. The woman had tried to shove her faith down his throat for years, until he joined the service and moved away from Des Moines.

He stopped at the corner. He had too much time on his hands. After Christmas, he’d paint the house, keep himself busy.

He turned west, pumped his arms, walked faster. For the first time he noticed the fog, up from the ocean and veiling everything. He thought about the pilots being vectored into LAX tonight, relying on instruments, believing in what they couldn’t see, working and not thinking about anything else but getting on the ground in one piece. He envied them and wished he could still fly—look out the front left window of an airplane.

He used to love flying in the mornings. Getting up early, taking off toward the sun as it inched up the blue sky—that was his personal heaven. And he liked jogging in the mornings, too. He always got back to the house before Dorothy woke. He’d step into their cathedral-like bedroom, watch her sleep, his fingers aching to touch her dark hair streaming against her pillow.

Jake stopped at the edge of Point Fermin Park. Even though the park was only four blocks from the house, he hadn’t come down here in years. The area was still thick with eucalyptus and oaks. Dorothy liked this park, and was fascinated with the abandoned lighthouse at the cliff’s edge. He’d told her once she was obsessed with the lighthouse. She laughed, but he saw the hurt in her expression.

He closed his eyes—God, what a fool he’d been.

Jake took the curb too fast, staggered, then fell to his knees, palms flat against the asphalt.

“Damn!” The low grunt knifed the air.

Stunned, he got up and dusted bits of tarred gravel from his hands. He tested his legs. His knees throbbed.

Slowly he walked into the park. The last time he could remember being here was with Dorothy and Christine. Dorothy had managed to talk him into going with them. The kid was little and she romped through the thick grass. Dorothy laughed, leaned against him.

The white clapboard lighthouse tower, forty feet away, stood between the eucalyptus trees. For the past few years, on days when the weather was good, Dorothy brought her lunch to the bench in front of the lighthouse and spent twenty minutes relaxing. At times, he’d actually been jealous of the building.

When the San Pedro City Council and the Coast Guard abandoned the place, Dorothy latched on to the hope someone would save the lighthouse. He’d told her a million times it wouldn’t happen, that nobody gave a crap about a useless building and she shouldn’t, either. Then he’d turned up the volume on the TV.

Jake winced, closed his eyes and wanted to go back, have one more night to listen and to talk to her. A foghorn from the Los Angeles harbor sounded, reaching out its long, thick fingers. His knees hurt and his hands burned. He needed to go home and rest. Maybe a hot shower would help him ease the pain in his knees, his chest.

He turned toward the exit to leave then stopped.

His heart began to pound. Her dark hair swayed, and the red dress with the white buttons that fitted her so well and enhanced her breasts reminded him of years ago, and how young they’d been.

Jake’s throat tightened. He closed his eyes, then opened them.

But Dorothy was gone.

CHAPTER 3

I struggle out of sleep, sit up. The Christmas tree lights blink on. Dad is standing by the living room window looking out at the front yard.

“I must have fallen asleep,” I say, hugging myself and leaning back on the couch where I dozed off. “I was waiting for you to come home.”

Dad crosses the room, clicks on the light by his chair, goes over and pulls the plug on the tree, then looks at me. “You should go to bed.”

I yawn. According to the grandfather clock in the corner, it’s eleven-thirty.

“I should. How long were you out?”

“Couple of hours.”

I get off the couch and notice the dirt on his pants. “What happened to your pants?”

“I fell.”

“You fell? How? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I stumbled off the curb. It’s no big deal,” he says, waves me away, and that’s when I see the blood on his hand.

“Dad, your hand is bleeding!” I go to him, take his wrist gingerly and try to look at his palm.

“It’s nothing.” He pulls away, walks through the dining room to the kitchen. I find him at the sink, filling a glass with water.

“You sure you’re okay?”

He nods, drinks. Water drips on the front of his chambray shirt, tiny dark tear shapes. I begin to feel light-headed. He turns back around, rinses his palms and grimaces.

“You should put something on your hand.” I look at his pants again. There isn’t any blood and I’m thankful for that. “You sure your knees are okay?”

“There’s Neosporin somewhere around here. When I find it, I’ll put some on.”

Dad walks back to the living room and I tag along. He sits, groans, then looks at me and forces a smile. “I’m fine.”

“I know where the Neosporin is.” And for one deep, long moment, I want my mother to be here so badly I can’t breathe. I shake the thought away, go to the medicine cabinet, locate the ointment and come back to the living room.

“Here, put your hand out.” He does, and I dab the antibiotic on the small oozing areas.

“The other one is scraped, too.” He holds his left hand out.

It’s not as bad as his right one, thank God. “This must have taken the fun out of your walk,” I say, trying to be funny as I dab on more ointment.

He gives me this weird look, for just a moment—a split second really—and then it’s gone. But it’s too late and I’m more worried than I was before.

“Maybe you should go to the doctor to check—”

“I’m not going to the doctor.”

“What if you broke something?”

“I’m okay. I’ve had broken bones before and I know what that feels like.”

“Where’d you fall?” I ask as I put the cap on the Neosporin.

“On my knees.”

“No, I mean where were you?”

“Over by the park.”

“Oh, you walked to the park?”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t been there in years. Is it the same?”

Instead of answering, he closes his eyes. And I notice how pale his skin looks, pallid really. And the wrinkles on his forehead are much deeper than I remember.

“Dad?”

He looks at me. “Yeah?”

“Can I get you something? Maybe some hot chocolate or anything, another glass of water?”

“Hot chocolate would be good.” He pushes himself up with his elbows, his hands held high.

“I’ll make it,” I say, and we go into the kitchen. A few moments later, the hot chocolate sizzles in the pan. I stand at the stove, not knowing what to do. Dad is by the sink. I smile at him.

“I did the dishes.” I nod toward the sink.

“Thanks. Kitchen looks nice.”

“Is it cold outside?”

“A little.”

The house is so quiet and colorless without my mother. “The house seems kind of lonely.”

“It is.”

“How are you doing really?”

“Every day is tough…but I’m okay.” He purses his lips, shakes his head like a kid, and I feel so sorry for him.

I study the table for a moment, try to think of something that might make him feel better. When I look back, he’s staring at me. “Someone told me it gets easier.”

“That someone lied.” Dad straightens a little, looks at the pan on the stove. “Chocolate ready?”

“I think so.” I look for mugs that don’t remind me of my mother, but it’s impossible. I finally give up, fill two bright yellow ones that are as familiar as my own reflection.

“It’s hot, so be careful with your hands.” I place the steaming mugs on the oak table.

We sit across from each other. “So you walked around the park? Isn’t it kind of dark there at night?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never been there at night.”

He looks down, gingerly brings the mug to his lips, blows across the surface. “What do you want to do tomorrow?”

“Well, you know I need to go Christmas shopping. We could go to the mall early before it gets busy. I’ll buy you lunch after.”

“Still gonna challenge the crowds?”

I nod. “You could come with me, if you feel okay. I’ll drive. We don’t have to stay out long.”

“No thanks.”

I fill my lungs. “Doing something with a friend?”

“Nah. Thought I’d hang out around the house, get some work done.”

“Do you see any of your friends?”

“Chet and I have a beer once in a while. Most of our friends were your mother’s. She was good at making friends.”

Chet is a friend of my father’s. They knew each other in Vietnam. He’s a nice guy, quiet, tall and gray-haired like my father.

“I know, but they liked you, too. You could still go to dinner with them, have a drink. It’s got to be lonely without people around,” I say, knowing this from experience. I don’t have a lot of friends in Tucson because I work too much. When I’m home, I watch TV, then fall into bed so I can start another day early.

“People quit calling months ago.”

I think back to the time of the funeral. The phone rang and rang and rang, and for the two days I was home the house was thick with people. Now the house is almost silent.

“What do you do all day?” It’s funny how I’ve known my father all my life, but I don’t really know him. It was always my mother who made the plans, talked to people. She was the life in this house.

“I watch TV, walk, putter around. This spring I’m going to paint. Your mother always wanted me to paint the house yellow.”

A memory presses in, takes center stage. My mother standing by the kitchen sink, telling me she met my father on a beach at sunrise when the sun looked like a big pat of butter. I can almost hear her voice, the way she said the word. Even then I thought it odd, yet so much like her. She held out her arms, danced me around the room, and I laughed when she told me I’d find my Prince Charming, and we’d have a soft yellow house.

A sigh escapes my lips.

“What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. We’ve had enough happen tonight.”

“You said something.”

“No, I sighed. I was thinking about when Mom told me she met you at Cabrillo Beach at sunrise when the sun looked like butter. You know how she used to talk, and how she loved the color yellow.” My words cut the air like typewriter keys. “How she always said I’d find the right guy.”

His lips flatten a little. “We met on Cabrillo Beach in the morning. It might have been sunny.” His solemn expression crumbles a little, and I feel his sorrow under my heart, beneath my eyes.

“You know, when I was about six, she told me the sun spilled out a big puddle of lemonade when it was sunny.”

Dad takes another sip of hot chocolate, clears his throat. “I’d better go to bed. Thanks for the hot chocolate.” He scoots his chair back.

I watch him rinse his mug, rub his fingers around the edge, then put it upside down in the sink. He walks out of the room, and I swear, for a moment, I can feel my mother’s arms around me.

It’s early morning and I’m standing on the sidewalk that edges Point Fermin Park. The area almost matches the memory I tucked away years ago, except the park looks smaller, not as bright. Every time I come home I have this same experience—things look different, not by much, but enough to startle me for a moment.

The wet grass paints the bottom of my jeans as I walk across it. I woke at seven, found Dad sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee from the same mug he used last night. He was working the New York Times crossword puzzle, like he always does. I checked his hands. They looked much better, scabbed over and not so red. He seemed okay, told me he’s fine and I should have a great walk.

The sky is California blue, clear. I walk past the old bench, reach the lookout point and wrap my fingers around the metal railing. Cold slips to my fingers, moves up my arms and finds my shoulders. The ocean below rolls back and forth, like a window shade, rhythmically drenching the rocks.

To the right, the abandoned lighthouse sits. My mother once told me she loved the lighthouse because it brought people home. When she’d say things like that, I’d laugh and tell her it was ridiculous to love an old building.

The ocean breeze lifts strands of my hair, dances them around my face. I make a stab at brushing them back, then give up and study the lighthouse again, remember my mother explaining years ago that it was built in the 1800s. Two women ran it until they got so lonely they moved back to Los Angeles and both found true love. I told her I didn’t care.

Oh, honey, you need to let yourself dream.

A wave of hurt rushes into my chest, fills up my lungs. Maybe coming to the park wasn’t such a good idea. I turn, cut across the length of grass, take the sidewalk to the Point Fermin Café and go inside.

People are scattered throughout the familiar restaurant, sitting at wooden tables or large booths. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” meanders from the radio on the freezer and floats through the braided conversations.

I order coffee and smile at the young waitress because she’s sweet, so young she looks like a colt, and it isn’t her fault my mother isn’t here. As she heads toward the kitchen, a man walks by, stops, turns around.

“Christine McGuire?”

“Yes,” I say, before I realize I don’t know him. He smiles as if I should. Out of habit, I stand when he offers his hand.

“Don’t get up.”

“Do I know you?” I ask. I squint, really look at him.

“Well, you used to. We went to high school together.”

High school, my God. His face looks a little familiar, but I can’t remember his name. I was a nobody in high school, like ninety percent of the kids, and I hated it.

“Adam Williams,” he says, like he knows I don’t remember him.

“Right. How are you? It’s been a long time.” Short dark hair covers his head. He’s an average-looking man. I have the same sensation I did in the park, where things look kind of the same, but not really.

“Yeah, twenty some years.” He laughs and I laugh, a reaction like a yawn that people sometimes share. “I don’t know why I expected you to recognize me.”

And then, for a moment, I’m seventeen, in a stuffy classroom, sitting across from Adam. I smile, feel like a teenager. “Oh, yeah, now I remember you.”

Johnny Mathis begins singing “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” and someone turns up the radio.

“Christmas music. God, I’ve had enough already,” I say.

“What?”

“The Christmas music.” I gesture toward the radio on the freezer.

He looks confused, then laughs. “I love Christmas music, always have. They should play it all year.”

“Please, no. I loved it before they started playing it in October.” This isn’t exactly the truth. I loved it until my mother died, but why go into this with someone I hardly know?

He motions to the chair across from the one I just got out of. “Mind if I join you for a minute? Catch up on old times.”

“Well, I guess not.” I don’t really want to talk or even think, but what can I say? I didn’t sleep well last night, when I finally got to bed, and then I woke up early.

The young waitress comes by. Adam shakes his head when she asks him if he wants anything.

“So,” he says, hesitates.

I take a sip of coffee. I know how he feels. It’s like we’ve been sitting next to each other on a long plane trip; there’s a faint connection, but nothing really.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” I say lamely to fill up the silent space.

“Why’s that?”

“Well…I guess, I don’t know really. I just thought that.”

“You still live in San Pedro?”

“No. Tucson. I’m here for the week, for Christmas.” I gesture toward the peeling Christmas lights surrounding the old wooden window.

“I moved back to Pedro seven years ago.” He leans forward a little. “I love it here.”

“Back from where?” I try not to stare at him, but it’s utterly impossible. One moment, he looks like someone I remember, and then the next like a man my age, but someone I don’t even know.

Adam glances out the window, then back to me. “I lived all over. Before I came home, I moved around a lot. Never thought I’d miss this town, but I did as I got older.”

“Why’s that?” I ask, yet I understand. The last few years, I’ve missed San Pedro, too.

“I like the ocean, the small-town atmosphere. When I came back, it wasn’t exactly what I remembered, but close.”

“I just had that same experience over at the park.” The image of my dad falling off the curb by the park last night pops into my mind, and I shake my head.

“Something wrong?”

“No…yes. My dad isn’t exactly the same, either.”

“People change, too. First rule of Zen Buddhism, things change, and to negate misery we have to accept those changes.” He closes his eyes as if he’s praying, then opens them and stares at me.

“Really?” Now I remember. Adam was the weird smart guy in high school.

He shrugs, grins a little. “Yeah, well, something like that. I’ve read some books on Buddhism. It fascinates me. What kind of work do you do?”

“Realtor.”

“Great. I’m an electrical engineer.” Adam laughs. “I think everyone in high school thought I’d end up a bum.”

I laugh, too. “No. Maybe a professor, or a rocket scientist. You were so smart. But we really didn’t know each other.”

“You were the shy, pretty one.”

“High school was a long time ago.”

“Did you know I quit high school?” he asks.

“You did?”

He nods, grins again.

“As boring as it was, I wondered why I stayed.”

“Actually, I got thrown out.” He leans back, rests his right arm over the vacant chair beside him. “I think it had something to do with the principal getting tired of me harassing teachers about what they didn’t know. After that I worked graveyard shift at the Pacific Street 7-Eleven for three weeks.”

“Only three weeks?”

He leans forward again. “Yeah. One night, right before Christmas, a woman came in and right behind her two guys. The woman needed Tampax, the guys dope. They robbed us both.”

“Jesus,” I whisper.

“Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking, when the taller of the two put his Smith & Wesson to my head.”

“Thank God you weren’t killed.”

“That was my second thought. It changed me. Decided to go back to school. Plus, it made me realize I wanted to live, do something with my life to make a difference.”