Friday, 13 June—There was a glorious full moon last night that attempted to outshine the light itself. I took Peter out in our little boat, circumnavigating our island home by moonlight in the wee hours of the morning. There are times this Lake behaves as a civilized and proper lady, gentle and well-mannered, and I am almost fooled into complacency. But I am learning. She is temperamental and prone to fits of rage, working herself into a tempest at the slightest suggestion, throwing herself at us for endless days until her fury subsides again, and she is once again tranquil. I approach our relationship with caution.
Lil and I planted vegetables in our raised beds at the light, and I have expanded our potato patch in Walker’s Channel to include beets and turnips. The Red Fox has been visiting every few weeks on their way between Port Arthur and their fishing grounds and bring with them the mail and papers, and we are well in touch with the outside world again. There are many still ill with the influenza, and while I have made several trips into the city, Lil insists on remaining here at the light with Peter. I cannot fault her for that.
Wednesday, 23 July—I continue to marvel at the knowledge and skill of my wife. She is teaching me about the land between the work of keeping the light and tending our gardens. Our pot is often filled with the rewards of her snares, and she has begun already to prepare foods to sustain us through a winter of isolation—salting fish, preserving berries, and drying herbs. I have been out a few times with the Niemis on their tug, helping them to bring in nets and gut their harvest of fish that they bring to Kemp Fisheries for processing. They live in Port Arthur but base their summer fishing operations from a camp in Walker’s Channel. I find the work hard and only leave when the weather is fair and Lil is able to manage the chores of the light alone. We have not put in for an assistant. Lil and I have been able to share the workload, and the Department seems happy with the arrangement.
On the pages, summer turns to autumn, autumn to winter, and still I read. It’s repetitive in places—the same listings of visitors and how much fuel they went through and food they ate, but I’m not bored. Not really. It’s better than scraping fences, and I’m finding it easier now to figure out the handwriting. I suppose I’m getting used to it. I pick up the next book and begin 1921.
Tuesday, 5 April—The James Whalen arrived today, and construction has begun on the fog station. We have assembled the structure a few yards from the main lighthouse building, and the diaphone system is being installed. The crew is staying over, and it is just as well that Lil and Peter have taken a rare trip to visit with Lil’s cousin, who recently married and moved to Port Arthur. The timing is fortuitous, as Lil’s date of confinement is approaching.
Thursday, 14 April—The Red Fox arrived today with news of Lil. She was delivered of a boy yesterday. Will return with the Swede for a quick visit while Sutherland’s nephew covers the light. Named him Charles.
“Your brother.”
I do the math in my head. My god, he was over eighty years old. He was fucking nuts to be out on that boat alone.
“Yes.”
We continue like this for almost an hour. In a weird way, I’m helping her see her past again, and parts of it she probably didn’t even know about. Like that Grayson guy. Her brother must have read the books before; I can tell she’s trying to figure out why he went back to get them. Why now. We’re both looking for answers, but for me, I don’t even know what the questions are.
It’s getting dark, and the lights come on. The quiet noise of the home continues in the background, as my voice fills in the days of life on the island in the years before the old woman was even born.
I read to the end of 1924. “That’s it,” I say, “that’s the end of this book.”
“Are you too tired, then, to go on?”
“No. It’s just . . .”
I’m sorting through the books, stacking them up.
“The next one isn’t here.”
The old woman sits up. “What do you mean it isn’t there?”
“The one that starts in 1925 isn’t here. There’s a book missing.”
She leans back in her chair and sighs, sounding like she’s in pain, and I know that this is where she expected to find her answers.
“What happened in 1925, Miss Livingstone?”
Her voice is barely a whisper. “Emily and I were born.”
15
Elizabeth
Here I sit at the end, my living mostly behind me, and I don’t have a beginning. The Lake has conspired to keep the truth from me. The Lake and Charlie. The tattered books don’t hold any answers to my past. They have shed no light on what motivated my brother’s actions, set his boat on the water with a course charted for Porphyry. He has seen to that. After all these years he still holds that power over me.
I can feel the girl watching me. Waiting, I suppose, for a response.
“And the next book?” I keep my voice flat, not wanting to convey the emotion that is coursing through me. “What year does it begin?”
“Nineteen-thirty. Do you want me to start on that one?”
There are other voices in the room. Mr. Androsky and his family are here. I can hear the excited chatter of his granddaughter, a tiny slip of a child who is perhaps four or five years old. They come every week to visit. It is a ritual I’ve observed for months and can now re-create for my sightless eyes; the son pushing his father’s wheelchair to the sunroom, where they eat takeout off the coffee table, the old man happily soaking up the boundless energy of the very, very young. Between French fries, the child propels the most recent movie character in an array of acrobatics around the room. “No, Nemo, Grampy needs the wheely chair cuz his legs are tired of work. Quick! Hide in the bushes so the sharks don’t get us!” Every week, they bring Mr. Androsky a chocolate milk shake, which he sucks on happily, while the girl’s father runs interference between the child and her grandfather, tirelessly directing the tyke to the tepid package of chicken nuggets that I know is spread out on the wax paper wrapper, and asking the same slate of questions and getting the same slate of answers from the old man.
“How are you this week, Dad?”
“Still on the right side of the grass. That’s all that counts, I suppose.”
“How’s the food?”
“Can’t complain. Nobody’d listen anyway.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Good shot a whiskey in this milk shake would do me a world of good.”