The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter, page 26
I miss the rhythmic breaths of the tide, the soothing whisper of the sea, the happy cry of the terns and the kittiwakes. I miss the sense of this vast earth you only get when you stand at the very edge of it, as I have done since I was a child.
In my delirium, I lie in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Occasionally, I hear a knock at the door, another well-wisher or reporter come to inquire about my health and to pass on their prayers for my recovery. They mean well, but it is tiresome for Thomasin to forever repeat the same sorry tale of my lack of improvement. I hear her weeping and wish I had the strength to comfort her.
The duchess visits often, sitting quietly by my bedside day and night. She brings posies of sweet violets to brighten the cheerless little room. She tries to be brave, but I know it distresses her greatly to watch me wither and wilt.
In the afternoon, I hear my sister converse with another caller downstairs. Gentle footsteps on the stairs beyond the bedroom door set the boards creaking like tired old bones before Thomasin pushes open the heavy door and peers into the gloom.
“Grace, pet? Are you awake?” Her voice is as soft as goose down. Everyone talks to me in whispers these past weeks, as if they might damage me with too much noise.
My eyes flicker weakly against the thin strip of light that plays at the edge of the shuttered window. It lends a becoming glow to Thomasin’s face. I want to tell her she looks pretty in her new bonnet, ribbons the color of eider duck eggs, but I can’t summon the energy.
She clutches a rectangular parcel to her chest. “I’ve something for you,” she says secretively, walking toward the bed, where she leans down to whisper in my ear, holding back long enough to stir my pulse in anticipation. “A gift from George.”
Joy rushes to my lips at his name, but I can’t easily shape them into a smile.
“A book, by all accounts,” she adds, resting the parcel against the ewer on the washstand as she unbuttons her gloves. “Although a very large book by the look of it.” She helps me to sit up briefly so she can plump my pillows.
“Is he here?” My voice is barely a whisper.
She nods and gently squeezes my hand. “He is downstairs, but he bid me not to disturb you if you were sleeping.” A smile dances in her eyes. My sister knows the extent of my devotion to George Emmerson. She has sent word to him of my condition over the past long weeks. She knows that to see him will cause my heart to bloom like a summer rose. “Will I tell him to come up?”
I nod.
There is a hushed exchange beyond the door before hesitant footsteps enter and he is here.
“Dear Miss Darling.” He sits at the little chair beside the bed, his hat in his hands, his eyes barely able to look at me, at the pale imitation of myself I have become. “I will not stay long. I only wished to see you for a moment.”
I try to smile. “I am glad.”
He looks at me with such sadness in his eyes. “I should not have left it so long.”
“But you are here now,” I say and only wish I had the energy I’d felt on the night of the storm when we stood outside on the lantern gallery. What would I say if we could have those moments again?
His eyes settle on the locket at my neck. “You still wear it,” he says.
I reach my fingers to the clasp, but I am too weak to open it. Seeing my struggle, his hands reach forward and he opens it for me, his fingers brushing fleetingly against my skin. He smiles to see his portraits keep safely inside.
“A perfect fit,” he whispers.
He sits for a long while as I drift in and out of sleep, my eyes flickering open to see him still sitting there, watching me, loving me.
“Are you painting me, Mr. Emmerson?” I ask as the light fades at the window.
“I am, Miss Darling. Yes.”
There is so much more to say and yet nothing to say at all.
When I open my eyes again the room is in darkness, lit only by the soft flame of a candle. Mr. Emmerson is gone.
Thomasin brushes her fingertips against my forehead, frowning at the intense heat she feels there. “You’re too hot, Grace. Can I get you anything? Water? A cold compress?”
I motion to the windowsill.
Understanding that I want the conch shell that sits there, she passes it to me with a tender smile. “You and your shells,” she says with affection. “You always loved to collect them, didn’t you?” The crack in her voice betrays her emotion. I smile weakly as she fusses at the counterpane, as if by tugging it free of its crumples and wrinkles she might smooth away my illness. “Try to get some rest, pet. Doctor Barnfather is due a little later.”
I sigh at the prospect. He’s a good man and it is very kind of the duke to arrange for his physician to attend me, but I am tired of the doctor’s ministrations. I am tired of lying here in this bed, in this room, so far from home.
Thomasin sees the frown across my brow. “Now, Grace. You’re not to be grousing. Let him take care of you and he’ll have you sitting up singing one of your sea shanties before the week is out. Then we can get you back to Longstone, where you belong.”
She smiles with the effort of a mother reassuring an anxious child, and closes the door quietly behind her, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the melodic hubbub of an ordinary market day beyond the window. Except nothing is ordinary anymore. Everything is laced with a strange poignancy. Will this be the last time I hear a market day beyond the window? Is this the last time I will see my sister’s bonny face peering around the bedroom door?
Slowly, I turn my cheek to the right, my gaze settling on the rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. “A book, by all accounts . . .”
It isn’t a book. Without opening it, I know it is his portrait of me.
I can still see his hands moving briskly over the canvas, the gentle furrow in his brow, the way he licked his lips in quiet concentration, the shy glances we shared as he worked. I have never been looked at that way before, nor since. I hardly dared breathe, such was the intensity in his eyes. I remember how the breeze set the ribbons of my bonnet fluttering around my cheeks as we’d walked outside and how my skirts ballooned like a church bell swaying in the rafters, the motion setting my thoughts to his impending wedding and the bells that would ring out in celebration of the happy union. I remember so clearly the look on his face as he quietly observed me, remember his remark that I came alive outdoors. That I became something more.
Beyond the narrow window, milk churns clatter against each other as a cart rumbles over the cobbles. Peddlers shout their wares. The fishwives gossip on street corners, their creels full of fresh herring. Children laugh at a street entertainer. I close my eyes, too weary to do anything but press the creamy white edge of the conch shell to my ear and listen to the sound of the sea, and a lifetime of memories captured inside.
Chapter Fifty-One
Matilda
Newport, Rhode Island. September 1938
THE LAST THING I see is Harriet’s face as the great wave knocks me off my feet and I am thrown into the water.
I gasp for air as I break the surface, my feet searching for the rocks around the bottom of the island. “Harriet!” I shout. “Harriet!” But I can’t see her.
My pink housedress becomes heavy, tangling around my legs so that for all my efforts I don’t make any progress as I try desperately to swim back to the steps. I turn onto my back, remembering my father’s reassuring voice beside me when he taught me to swim. “Keep kicking. I have you. I won’t let go.” But this is no gentle sunlit bay, and I am entirely at the mercy of the water.
A huge wave blindsides me, pushing me beneath the surface again before carrying me up, where I splutter and gasp for air, but the next wave comes immediately after and is bigger still. It lifts me up, rolls me over, and sucks me down on the undertow, pressing my face into the rocks before rolling me over and over so that I don’t know which way is up. Beneath the water, I kick and flail, instinct insisting I fight for breath.
I surface again, and Harriet is in front of me. We lock eyes for a moment as our hands reach out for each other, but the motion of the water pulls us apart and I go under again.
I open my eyes. The sweep of the light crosses the surface above me and I start to kick toward it, fixing my gaze on the flashes of alternating light and darkness, determined to get back to my baby, and from nowhere I remember a song my granny used to sing to me—“’Twas on the Longstone lighthouse, There dwelt an English maid, Pure as the air around her, Of danger ne’er afraid . . .”
When I break the surface this time I am farther away from the lighthouse. My breaths are shallow, my arms and legs exhausted with my efforts. I tip my head back and open my mouth wide, gasping for air, but another wave takes me beneath the water and I am too weak to kick anymore.
Above me, the light turns and flashes once more before plunging the water into darkness and I feel the light within me flicker and begin to fade . . .
Chapter Fifty-Two
Harriet
I JUMP OUT OF the boat and reach for Matilda but my fingertips just miss the fabric of her dress as I am pushed under, and she rushes past me in a surge of water, and is gone.
Beneath the waves I open my eyes, frantically looking for her, above and below me, but the water is thick with silt and debris and I am blind. The muffled silence betrays the chaos taking place above. My lungs burn with the desire to breathe as I kick for the surface, and as I break through the water she is in front of me.
A wave pushes me toward her and for a moment we hold each other’s gaze and all the lost years and all the heartache and despair distill down into that one final frantic moment. When faced with the ultimate choice of living or dying we perhaps know ourselves better than ever. I try desperately to grab her hands, but she goes under again.
With one last breath, I dive beneath the water and reach for her, my fingertips gripping her wrist as I drag her up until we both break free of the water. I flip onto my back and kick with every ounce of strength in my body, determined to save her, determined not to lose her again. A wave carries us forward, smashing us beside the horseshoe-shaped beach. I take my chance and scramble onto the rocks, not caring for the way the sharp edges scrape and tear at my skin as I drag Matilda behind me.
A dead weight in my arms I struggle to pull her out of the water. I grit my teeth and use all my strength, never more grateful for the swell that helps me haul her up and onto land. She slides from my grasp and slumps onto the rocks, her head hitting the stones with a sickening thud.
I fall to my knees and push her hair from her face and start pumping at her chest and breathing into her mouth. One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe . . . One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe . . . Her lips are the palest violet. Her skin gray as dust. Her hair is matted and speckled with sand that glistens when the beam of the light settles on us.
Leaning back on my heels, I grip my head, my fingers like a vice. “Breathe, Matilda! You’ve got to breathe! Breathe!” I scream at her, lean forward, and start again.
One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe.
One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe.
I pump as hard as I dare while the wind howls above and I press my face to hers and will my child to breathe, to stay with me, gasping for air as I give her whatever I can spare, not caring if I give her my last breath, as long as she wakes up. And then a sudden jerk in my arms and she convulses violently as water shoots from her mouth. Quickly, I roll her onto her side, holding her head so she can eject the seawater from her lungs. Still it keeps coming as she gasps and splutters.
“That’s it, Matilda. Breathe. You’ll be all right now. Everything’ll be all right.”
She coughs again as I shush and soothe her as she huddles against my chest, finding her breath, grasping on to the life that had so nearly left her. Gradually, her breathing regulates and the color returns to her lips and cheeks. Only then does she look at me, blue-black eyes fixing on mine, and without words or explanation, we cling to each other for all the years we have missed, and everything we ever needed is right there in our arms.
We stand up then, stumbling together toward the lighthouse as fast as we can, both of us convulsing with cold and shock, but I slip on the rocks as Matilda reaches the lighthouse door, and as I try to stand up another huge wave sweeps me back into the heaving ocean.
The water engulfs me, pulling me down. For a moment I struggle, but I know I don’t have the energy to fight it and all I can think is that Matilda and Grace are safe in the lighthouse.
Quietly, I accept my fate.
Everything becomes strangely calm as I close my eyes and I know that for all my shortcomings and imperfections, I loved my children with the passion of a storm and that, in the end, it is perhaps all we can ever hope for. To have loved, and to have been loved in return.
When I open my eyes, Cora is there. She takes my hand and together we become the fragments of light captured on the surface of the water, carried eternally on by the tides.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Matilda
Newport, Rhode Island. September 1938
FOR TWO HOURS the great storm tears apart the town that gave me a home and a place of sanctuary when I needed it most. For two relentless hours it releases its fury, and then it is over. The great storm leaves as suddenly as it arrived, the turbulent skies washed away by a warm and generous sun. Newport is ripped apart, and my heart with it.
Joseph is here, and Mrs. O’Driscoll. Baby Grace and Captain. I wake to them all, and to silence. The storm has said its piece.
“Hey, you.” Joseph sits by the side of the bed, a shy smile crossing his face when my eyes meet his.
“Is it over?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s over.”
He explains how he arrived at the lighthouse just before the storm surge hit. “Captain jumped out of the boat. I’d seen Harriet set out behind me, so I went back to try and help her. The water was crazy. But I got caught in a rip and swept around to the far side of the island. The boat was damaged on the rocks so I sheltered in the old fog signal tower until the worst was over.”
I wince when I try to lift my head. “Harriet?”
He lifts his eyes to meet mine and takes my hand. A slow shake of the head confirms what I already knew. “I’m so sorry, Matilda.”
Tears fall down my cheeks. “She saved me,” I whisper, my words choked by my sobs. “She saved my life.”
Joseph wraps me in his arms. “It’s what a lighthouse keeper does, Matilda. It’s what she dedicated her life to doing.”
In the stories I made up as a little girl, my characters always had a mother who loved them. Perhaps I imagined Harriet so hard that, in the end, she became real. Harriet offered me a home, knowing she was inviting far more than a pregnant young woman into her life. She cared for me without smothering me, and she brought my daughter safely into the world when everyone else only wanted to take her away from me. Harriet Flaherty saved me in more ways than I ever thought possible.
I give in to the deep well of emotion I’ve carried for so long and I cry until my bones ache with the agony of it all, until the storm of my grief subsides and I shelter in the harbor of sleep, safe in the arms of the lighthouse. When I wake up to see little Grace gazing back at me, I know it will somehow all be okay. In giving her life to save mine, Harriet has given this little girl a mother. It is the ultimate sacrifice, and I hope I would have the courage to do the same, if the same were asked of me.
I’m so glad Joseph is safe and glad, too, of Mrs. O’Driscoll, who takes charge of us all, soothing the baby while I sleep, feeding us all, tending to the nasty gash on the back of my head. We spend long days and nights together, cocooned at the lighthouse, until Joseph goes back across the bay when it is safe to do so, returning with shocking tales of death and devastation.
“The storm began as a tropical cyclone off the Cape Verde islands some weeks ago,” he explains. “It hit the New England coast with the full force of a category three hurricane. The tidal surge was so powerful that nothing in its path was spared.”
All along the coast, from Providence to Connecticut, Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island, entire communities have been swept away, a trail of devastation and grief left in the hurricane’s wake.
Newport suffers its own pain. When I am eventually strong enough to row across the harbor, I can barely believe what I’m seeing. The houses on Cherry Street don’t exist anymore, erased from their foundations like dirt scrubbed from a muddy trouser knee. Where warm homes stood only days earlier, there is nothing but a tangle of wood and debris. Like chicken bones left after a feast, the sea has gorged itself.
The death toll rises daily. Three hundred dead. Five hundred. Over six hundred is the final tally. Even so, there are too few of our loved ones to bury. We search for days, but we never find Harriet. I like to think she is with Cora again and I hope that in saving me, she was, in her final moments, finally able to find peace.
And so it is that among these flooded streets and flattened homes and boats turned upside down, I find my future. There is no greater turning point than a disaster on this scale. The choice of what I do next is mine. I have been given a second chance to put things right, to make amends, to live my best life. When I look into little Grace’s eyes, I know that she is the reason I was spared— and I will not let it go to waste.
I write to Constance Emmerson to tell her everything and to explain that I will not be giving up my child or returning to Ireland. I tell her I don’t expect to hear from her, but that—for what it’s worth—I wish her well. To my father, I say only that I am sorry to have disappointed him, but that I can feel no remorse or regret when I have such a beautiful child in my arms. I hope that, one day, he might understand.
Mrs. O’Driscoll stays for a month, helping to set things right. Joseph salvages a few things from his home, moving temporarily into the lighthouse while the town is rebuilt. Together we create a sense of family, unconventional though it is. I like to think Harriet would be happy to hear these walls filled with love and laughter again. She was never one to follow convention. I think it would please her to see the four of us, muddling through together. In quiet moments, I reflect on how far I have come since leaving Heartbreak Pier, so uncertain and unsure of myself. I am happy to know that the loose threads of my past have finally been connected to my present. Like a found piece of a jigsaw puzzle or a stray button reattached, I am back where I belong.
In my delirium, I lie in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Occasionally, I hear a knock at the door, another well-wisher or reporter come to inquire about my health and to pass on their prayers for my recovery. They mean well, but it is tiresome for Thomasin to forever repeat the same sorry tale of my lack of improvement. I hear her weeping and wish I had the strength to comfort her.
The duchess visits often, sitting quietly by my bedside day and night. She brings posies of sweet violets to brighten the cheerless little room. She tries to be brave, but I know it distresses her greatly to watch me wither and wilt.
In the afternoon, I hear my sister converse with another caller downstairs. Gentle footsteps on the stairs beyond the bedroom door set the boards creaking like tired old bones before Thomasin pushes open the heavy door and peers into the gloom.
“Grace, pet? Are you awake?” Her voice is as soft as goose down. Everyone talks to me in whispers these past weeks, as if they might damage me with too much noise.
My eyes flicker weakly against the thin strip of light that plays at the edge of the shuttered window. It lends a becoming glow to Thomasin’s face. I want to tell her she looks pretty in her new bonnet, ribbons the color of eider duck eggs, but I can’t summon the energy.
She clutches a rectangular parcel to her chest. “I’ve something for you,” she says secretively, walking toward the bed, where she leans down to whisper in my ear, holding back long enough to stir my pulse in anticipation. “A gift from George.”
Joy rushes to my lips at his name, but I can’t easily shape them into a smile.
“A book, by all accounts,” she adds, resting the parcel against the ewer on the washstand as she unbuttons her gloves. “Although a very large book by the look of it.” She helps me to sit up briefly so she can plump my pillows.
“Is he here?” My voice is barely a whisper.
She nods and gently squeezes my hand. “He is downstairs, but he bid me not to disturb you if you were sleeping.” A smile dances in her eyes. My sister knows the extent of my devotion to George Emmerson. She has sent word to him of my condition over the past long weeks. She knows that to see him will cause my heart to bloom like a summer rose. “Will I tell him to come up?”
I nod.
There is a hushed exchange beyond the door before hesitant footsteps enter and he is here.
“Dear Miss Darling.” He sits at the little chair beside the bed, his hat in his hands, his eyes barely able to look at me, at the pale imitation of myself I have become. “I will not stay long. I only wished to see you for a moment.”
I try to smile. “I am glad.”
He looks at me with such sadness in his eyes. “I should not have left it so long.”
“But you are here now,” I say and only wish I had the energy I’d felt on the night of the storm when we stood outside on the lantern gallery. What would I say if we could have those moments again?
His eyes settle on the locket at my neck. “You still wear it,” he says.
I reach my fingers to the clasp, but I am too weak to open it. Seeing my struggle, his hands reach forward and he opens it for me, his fingers brushing fleetingly against my skin. He smiles to see his portraits keep safely inside.
“A perfect fit,” he whispers.
He sits for a long while as I drift in and out of sleep, my eyes flickering open to see him still sitting there, watching me, loving me.
“Are you painting me, Mr. Emmerson?” I ask as the light fades at the window.
“I am, Miss Darling. Yes.”
There is so much more to say and yet nothing to say at all.
When I open my eyes again the room is in darkness, lit only by the soft flame of a candle. Mr. Emmerson is gone.
Thomasin brushes her fingertips against my forehead, frowning at the intense heat she feels there. “You’re too hot, Grace. Can I get you anything? Water? A cold compress?”
I motion to the windowsill.
Understanding that I want the conch shell that sits there, she passes it to me with a tender smile. “You and your shells,” she says with affection. “You always loved to collect them, didn’t you?” The crack in her voice betrays her emotion. I smile weakly as she fusses at the counterpane, as if by tugging it free of its crumples and wrinkles she might smooth away my illness. “Try to get some rest, pet. Doctor Barnfather is due a little later.”
I sigh at the prospect. He’s a good man and it is very kind of the duke to arrange for his physician to attend me, but I am tired of the doctor’s ministrations. I am tired of lying here in this bed, in this room, so far from home.
Thomasin sees the frown across my brow. “Now, Grace. You’re not to be grousing. Let him take care of you and he’ll have you sitting up singing one of your sea shanties before the week is out. Then we can get you back to Longstone, where you belong.”
She smiles with the effort of a mother reassuring an anxious child, and closes the door quietly behind her, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the melodic hubbub of an ordinary market day beyond the window. Except nothing is ordinary anymore. Everything is laced with a strange poignancy. Will this be the last time I hear a market day beyond the window? Is this the last time I will see my sister’s bonny face peering around the bedroom door?
Slowly, I turn my cheek to the right, my gaze settling on the rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. “A book, by all accounts . . .”
It isn’t a book. Without opening it, I know it is his portrait of me.
I can still see his hands moving briskly over the canvas, the gentle furrow in his brow, the way he licked his lips in quiet concentration, the shy glances we shared as he worked. I have never been looked at that way before, nor since. I hardly dared breathe, such was the intensity in his eyes. I remember how the breeze set the ribbons of my bonnet fluttering around my cheeks as we’d walked outside and how my skirts ballooned like a church bell swaying in the rafters, the motion setting my thoughts to his impending wedding and the bells that would ring out in celebration of the happy union. I remember so clearly the look on his face as he quietly observed me, remember his remark that I came alive outdoors. That I became something more.
Beyond the narrow window, milk churns clatter against each other as a cart rumbles over the cobbles. Peddlers shout their wares. The fishwives gossip on street corners, their creels full of fresh herring. Children laugh at a street entertainer. I close my eyes, too weary to do anything but press the creamy white edge of the conch shell to my ear and listen to the sound of the sea, and a lifetime of memories captured inside.
Chapter Fifty-One
Matilda
Newport, Rhode Island. September 1938
THE LAST THING I see is Harriet’s face as the great wave knocks me off my feet and I am thrown into the water.
I gasp for air as I break the surface, my feet searching for the rocks around the bottom of the island. “Harriet!” I shout. “Harriet!” But I can’t see her.
My pink housedress becomes heavy, tangling around my legs so that for all my efforts I don’t make any progress as I try desperately to swim back to the steps. I turn onto my back, remembering my father’s reassuring voice beside me when he taught me to swim. “Keep kicking. I have you. I won’t let go.” But this is no gentle sunlit bay, and I am entirely at the mercy of the water.
A huge wave blindsides me, pushing me beneath the surface again before carrying me up, where I splutter and gasp for air, but the next wave comes immediately after and is bigger still. It lifts me up, rolls me over, and sucks me down on the undertow, pressing my face into the rocks before rolling me over and over so that I don’t know which way is up. Beneath the water, I kick and flail, instinct insisting I fight for breath.
I surface again, and Harriet is in front of me. We lock eyes for a moment as our hands reach out for each other, but the motion of the water pulls us apart and I go under again.
I open my eyes. The sweep of the light crosses the surface above me and I start to kick toward it, fixing my gaze on the flashes of alternating light and darkness, determined to get back to my baby, and from nowhere I remember a song my granny used to sing to me—“’Twas on the Longstone lighthouse, There dwelt an English maid, Pure as the air around her, Of danger ne’er afraid . . .”
When I break the surface this time I am farther away from the lighthouse. My breaths are shallow, my arms and legs exhausted with my efforts. I tip my head back and open my mouth wide, gasping for air, but another wave takes me beneath the water and I am too weak to kick anymore.
Above me, the light turns and flashes once more before plunging the water into darkness and I feel the light within me flicker and begin to fade . . .
Chapter Fifty-Two
Harriet
I JUMP OUT OF the boat and reach for Matilda but my fingertips just miss the fabric of her dress as I am pushed under, and she rushes past me in a surge of water, and is gone.
Beneath the waves I open my eyes, frantically looking for her, above and below me, but the water is thick with silt and debris and I am blind. The muffled silence betrays the chaos taking place above. My lungs burn with the desire to breathe as I kick for the surface, and as I break through the water she is in front of me.
A wave pushes me toward her and for a moment we hold each other’s gaze and all the lost years and all the heartache and despair distill down into that one final frantic moment. When faced with the ultimate choice of living or dying we perhaps know ourselves better than ever. I try desperately to grab her hands, but she goes under again.
With one last breath, I dive beneath the water and reach for her, my fingertips gripping her wrist as I drag her up until we both break free of the water. I flip onto my back and kick with every ounce of strength in my body, determined to save her, determined not to lose her again. A wave carries us forward, smashing us beside the horseshoe-shaped beach. I take my chance and scramble onto the rocks, not caring for the way the sharp edges scrape and tear at my skin as I drag Matilda behind me.
A dead weight in my arms I struggle to pull her out of the water. I grit my teeth and use all my strength, never more grateful for the swell that helps me haul her up and onto land. She slides from my grasp and slumps onto the rocks, her head hitting the stones with a sickening thud.
I fall to my knees and push her hair from her face and start pumping at her chest and breathing into her mouth. One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe . . . One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe . . . Her lips are the palest violet. Her skin gray as dust. Her hair is matted and speckled with sand that glistens when the beam of the light settles on us.
Leaning back on my heels, I grip my head, my fingers like a vice. “Breathe, Matilda! You’ve got to breathe! Breathe!” I scream at her, lean forward, and start again.
One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe.
One, two, three, four, breathe, breathe.
I pump as hard as I dare while the wind howls above and I press my face to hers and will my child to breathe, to stay with me, gasping for air as I give her whatever I can spare, not caring if I give her my last breath, as long as she wakes up. And then a sudden jerk in my arms and she convulses violently as water shoots from her mouth. Quickly, I roll her onto her side, holding her head so she can eject the seawater from her lungs. Still it keeps coming as she gasps and splutters.
“That’s it, Matilda. Breathe. You’ll be all right now. Everything’ll be all right.”
She coughs again as I shush and soothe her as she huddles against my chest, finding her breath, grasping on to the life that had so nearly left her. Gradually, her breathing regulates and the color returns to her lips and cheeks. Only then does she look at me, blue-black eyes fixing on mine, and without words or explanation, we cling to each other for all the years we have missed, and everything we ever needed is right there in our arms.
We stand up then, stumbling together toward the lighthouse as fast as we can, both of us convulsing with cold and shock, but I slip on the rocks as Matilda reaches the lighthouse door, and as I try to stand up another huge wave sweeps me back into the heaving ocean.
The water engulfs me, pulling me down. For a moment I struggle, but I know I don’t have the energy to fight it and all I can think is that Matilda and Grace are safe in the lighthouse.
Quietly, I accept my fate.
Everything becomes strangely calm as I close my eyes and I know that for all my shortcomings and imperfections, I loved my children with the passion of a storm and that, in the end, it is perhaps all we can ever hope for. To have loved, and to have been loved in return.
When I open my eyes, Cora is there. She takes my hand and together we become the fragments of light captured on the surface of the water, carried eternally on by the tides.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Matilda
Newport, Rhode Island. September 1938
FOR TWO HOURS the great storm tears apart the town that gave me a home and a place of sanctuary when I needed it most. For two relentless hours it releases its fury, and then it is over. The great storm leaves as suddenly as it arrived, the turbulent skies washed away by a warm and generous sun. Newport is ripped apart, and my heart with it.
Joseph is here, and Mrs. O’Driscoll. Baby Grace and Captain. I wake to them all, and to silence. The storm has said its piece.
“Hey, you.” Joseph sits by the side of the bed, a shy smile crossing his face when my eyes meet his.
“Is it over?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s over.”
He explains how he arrived at the lighthouse just before the storm surge hit. “Captain jumped out of the boat. I’d seen Harriet set out behind me, so I went back to try and help her. The water was crazy. But I got caught in a rip and swept around to the far side of the island. The boat was damaged on the rocks so I sheltered in the old fog signal tower until the worst was over.”
I wince when I try to lift my head. “Harriet?”
He lifts his eyes to meet mine and takes my hand. A slow shake of the head confirms what I already knew. “I’m so sorry, Matilda.”
Tears fall down my cheeks. “She saved me,” I whisper, my words choked by my sobs. “She saved my life.”
Joseph wraps me in his arms. “It’s what a lighthouse keeper does, Matilda. It’s what she dedicated her life to doing.”
In the stories I made up as a little girl, my characters always had a mother who loved them. Perhaps I imagined Harriet so hard that, in the end, she became real. Harriet offered me a home, knowing she was inviting far more than a pregnant young woman into her life. She cared for me without smothering me, and she brought my daughter safely into the world when everyone else only wanted to take her away from me. Harriet Flaherty saved me in more ways than I ever thought possible.
I give in to the deep well of emotion I’ve carried for so long and I cry until my bones ache with the agony of it all, until the storm of my grief subsides and I shelter in the harbor of sleep, safe in the arms of the lighthouse. When I wake up to see little Grace gazing back at me, I know it will somehow all be okay. In giving her life to save mine, Harriet has given this little girl a mother. It is the ultimate sacrifice, and I hope I would have the courage to do the same, if the same were asked of me.
I’m so glad Joseph is safe and glad, too, of Mrs. O’Driscoll, who takes charge of us all, soothing the baby while I sleep, feeding us all, tending to the nasty gash on the back of my head. We spend long days and nights together, cocooned at the lighthouse, until Joseph goes back across the bay when it is safe to do so, returning with shocking tales of death and devastation.
“The storm began as a tropical cyclone off the Cape Verde islands some weeks ago,” he explains. “It hit the New England coast with the full force of a category three hurricane. The tidal surge was so powerful that nothing in its path was spared.”
All along the coast, from Providence to Connecticut, Martha’s Vineyard and Long Island, entire communities have been swept away, a trail of devastation and grief left in the hurricane’s wake.
Newport suffers its own pain. When I am eventually strong enough to row across the harbor, I can barely believe what I’m seeing. The houses on Cherry Street don’t exist anymore, erased from their foundations like dirt scrubbed from a muddy trouser knee. Where warm homes stood only days earlier, there is nothing but a tangle of wood and debris. Like chicken bones left after a feast, the sea has gorged itself.
The death toll rises daily. Three hundred dead. Five hundred. Over six hundred is the final tally. Even so, there are too few of our loved ones to bury. We search for days, but we never find Harriet. I like to think she is with Cora again and I hope that in saving me, she was, in her final moments, finally able to find peace.
And so it is that among these flooded streets and flattened homes and boats turned upside down, I find my future. There is no greater turning point than a disaster on this scale. The choice of what I do next is mine. I have been given a second chance to put things right, to make amends, to live my best life. When I look into little Grace’s eyes, I know that she is the reason I was spared— and I will not let it go to waste.
I write to Constance Emmerson to tell her everything and to explain that I will not be giving up my child or returning to Ireland. I tell her I don’t expect to hear from her, but that—for what it’s worth—I wish her well. To my father, I say only that I am sorry to have disappointed him, but that I can feel no remorse or regret when I have such a beautiful child in my arms. I hope that, one day, he might understand.
Mrs. O’Driscoll stays for a month, helping to set things right. Joseph salvages a few things from his home, moving temporarily into the lighthouse while the town is rebuilt. Together we create a sense of family, unconventional though it is. I like to think Harriet would be happy to hear these walls filled with love and laughter again. She was never one to follow convention. I think it would please her to see the four of us, muddling through together. In quiet moments, I reflect on how far I have come since leaving Heartbreak Pier, so uncertain and unsure of myself. I am happy to know that the loose threads of my past have finally been connected to my present. Like a found piece of a jigsaw puzzle or a stray button reattached, I am back where I belong.
