Tuesday, 8 April—Lit the lamp for the first time. The season has officially begun. I took Charlie and the girls on a boat ride around the islands in Sweet Pea. We spotted a large sow on the east shore of Edward Is., near the entrance to Walker’s Channel. She had three cubs with her. The James Whalen stopped briefly to offload provisions en route to Number 10 Light and Battle Island with the returning keepers. Ross Sutherland and his wife are again stationed at Battle Island. Lil will continue to serve as official assistant here, and Sutherland has made the same arrangements for his station. The Department of Marine and Fisheries has recognized that keepers are much happier to have their families with them and that wives often serve better in the position of assistants. That suits me well.
Monday, 5 May—Discovered the remnants of an encampment on the NE shore of Edward, near the mining shafts. Layers of pine boughs, scorched earth delineating a campfire, and a collection of rabbit bones. It is likely someone has been setting trap lines in the area. It is unusual that they have not stopped in to say hello. The Niemi brothers have returned to their camp on the north shore of Porphyry Island in Walker’s Channel and have begun to lay nets. They continue to work with Kemp Fisheries, harvesting whitefish, herring, and trout. They have begun construction of a Finnish steam bath. I hope to have the opportunity to try it.
Friday, 27 June—Ran the foghorn for two days solid as the Lake was draped in a curtain so thick the birds themselves refused to fly. Peter kept me company on the evening watches, waking me every two hours to wind the clockworks. It is not his calling, I can tell, even at this age, but he put in a valiant effort.
Thursday, 21 August—Received word today that Sutherland is dead. He was found, drowned, washed ashore after his boat capsized. His wife will carry on as keeper to see the season out.
The girl yawns and stretches. “Sounds like it could be a dangerous place out there.”
“You have no idea,” I reply.
“Do you remember any of this?” she asks. “You were, what? Five years old?”
“It does waken some long sleeping memories.” The names and places. The snapshots of life. They are my past. They are my youth. They are my home.
18
Morgan
I keep reading through to the end of 1930 and move on to 1931; the year when the mantle on the light burned out three times, when the ice came in early but New Year’s was spent in a snowstorm. That summer, Charlie asked to go to school in town. I was surprised to read that his father told him no, and wrote that a boy of eleven still had much to learn at home.
School’s a fucking waste of time in my opinion anyway. So many stupid rules, and the teachers rarely give a shit. Being shut up in a stuffy classroom all day, fed facts and dates and names, expected to regurgitate them like some goddamn bird feeding its young—it teaches us fuck-all about what we can become, and more about who, or what, we aren’t. I know what I’m not. I don’t need that reminder day in and day out.
I think I might have liked growing up on an island, all that freedom, being outside in nature and shit. I haven’t had that since Grandpa died. I think I would have been happy there.
In 1932 they started raising chickens. They were Charlie’s responsibility, the lightkeeper wrote, but Elizabeth and Emily helped. The twins were always with their brother. He spent most of that summer building a coop.
I’m near the end, four years of the old woman’s childhood condensed down into this one book, when I turn the page and find it. It’s resting there, waiting to fly. It’s much simpler, but it’s unmistakable. I trace the lines with my finger, the body of the insect, the wings, the eyes. Someone has drawn it on the blank pages at the back of the book.
I realize I’ve stopped breathing.
It’s my dragonfly.
“Miss Livingstone?” A woman in pink scrubs is knocking on the door, opening it as she does, looking around the room, at me, at the old woman. She appears upset, frustrated maybe. “I’m sorry. You’re needed. We’ve done all we can. Can you come?”
The old woman sighs as though she’s tired, like she is dealing with a young child. “Yes, yes, of course.” She turns to me. “I am being summoned, it seems, and I’m sure your fence is calling to you.” She stands, slowly, moving toward the door, but something stops her. She turns, tilting her head in my direction. “What is it, Morgan? Is something wrong?”
I can’t have paused for more than a few seconds. She can’t see me. I know she can’t. But my heart is racing, my hand hovering over the image in her father’s journal. “No, I’m fine.” I make sure when I answer that my voice is calm, even though I’m not. I slide off the bed, pulling on my boots, my hair falling over my face. I can feel the deep flush starting at the back of my neck, spreading to my ears and cheeks. I don’t want the nurse to notice—she might ask questions—so I keep my head down and fiddle with my boots. “I’m sure Marty’s ready for me by now. I’ll see you later.”
She turns and follows the nurse down the hall, gripping the railing as a guide.
I stand up, collect the journals, and stack them on the table. I’m about to retie the fabric, but I don’t. I can’t. Instead I look at them, the years piled one on top of the other. One of them holds my dragonfly, the dragonfly that’s connected to my past, my memories, drawn in pencil and pressed like a leaf between the pages of a book that was meant to hold the memories of someone else. The same dragonfly was tucked behind the velvet lining of the violin case, this time drawn in the pastel of colored pencil. And then it landed, my dragonfly landed, on the old lady’s dresser, a watercolor sketch, the shapes bleeding together, the image framed in brown wood. I can’t just put it away. It’s tugging at me.
I turn to the violin case that I’ve tossed on the bed, flick open the clasps, and lift the lid. I ignore the instrument, instead sliding my hand behind the lining to pull out the pictures that are tucked there, spreading them on the knitted afghan that’s draped over the bed. I take 1930 to 1933 out of the pile, open Andrew Livingstone’s journal to the last page, and lay it beside the others. In some ways, they’re different; the quality of the drawing, the proportions, the material used—but like with the framed paintings on the old lady’s dresser, the artist is unmistakable. They’re different. But they’re the same. I turn to the watercolors, snatching them up one by one, and study the scrawled signature at the bottom. I can’t read it. I can only read the date—“’56.”
I collapse into the chair Miss Livingstone always sits in.
Who the hell is the artist?
I’m unsettled. Agitated. I put the journals back, carefully rewrapping them and leaving them on the table. I also arrange the pictures on the dresser. As I’m about to leave the room, I catch my reflection in the mirror. Black on black. Gray eyes looking back at me. There’s something in those eyes I haven’t seen before. For a fraction of a second, I’m not sure who I’m looking at.
I need to get a grip.