He knows her work well. He followed her career as best he could, and even has a small print hanging in his cottage at Silver Islet. It proved too difficult to find her. To find them. It was more difficult to write the letter, and he ended up sending only a note, telling them where to find their belongings from Porphyry, should they one day return. He sent it to Emily’s agent, to the gallery in London that carried her work. He knew they eventually received it when the belongings were claimed a few years ago, and that they had returned. He wished he had said more.
The child was not with him long. He held her, briefly, that May night when Charlie banged on their door in the dark hours before dawn, insisting she was his family’s responsibility. His mother and father took care of things. They did not ask questions; it was how they were and how things were done. There were reputations to preserve. When they registered the birth a few days later, Porphyry was still smoldering, the baby’s mother had been institutionalized, deemed unfit, and in the blank space for the father’s name, they wrote David Fletcher, occupation, assistant lighthouse keeper. Arnie did not correct them. She was adopted by a couple from Ottawa. It was his mother who picked the name Isabel. At one point he made some inquiries, officially typed up on the letterhead of his firm. He found out that she died of cancer years ago.
He stands there for a time, looking out at the small collection of people at the point, catching faint strains of the fiddle drifting on the breeze. He considers walking down to them, speaking to Elizabeth. Instead, he sighs and turns, making his way back to the car. The Lab greets him enthusiastically.
57
Afterword: Morgan
The helicopter swoops down, flying close to the surface of the Lake, and I can hear the pilot’s voice through the headphones.
“That’s Porphyry up ahead.”
The tall white tower is easy to pick out, and the red-roofed buildings, scattered across the rocky point. The Lake is turquoise, blending into mottled green where the bottom rises to shallows near the shore. As we approach the landing pad from the east, I can see the Sleeping Giant, a purple silhouette reclining on the far side of Silver Islet. It feels odd to see it from this angle, like I’m looking from the other side of a mirror.
I know it’s not the same. The house and light tower that she lived in are gone, burned in the fire. They built a new assistant keeper’s dwelling sometime in the sixties, I think, so that’s gone too. But it’s what she wanted.
I hold the urn in my lap.
It’s been more than five years since we gathered at the waterfront, that cold November day. God, it feels like so long ago.
I couldn’t convince Marty to come. He told me he’d said his good-byes and made some excuse about needing to fix a piece of equipment, but I knew the thought of flying in a helicopter scared the shit out of him. Elizabeth arranged it all before she died. We talked about it when I was home from university for reading week. She made me promise, but she didn’t need to—I would have done it anyway. I think she knew that.
The helicopter hovers briefly, then touches down on the landing pad at the point, and the rotors begin to slow. “Take all the time you need.” The pilot fiddles with switches and levers and then helps me to unbuckle. I remove my headphones, pop open the door, and climb down. They don’t follow; it’s just me and Elizabeth walking across the rocks toward the buildings.
The light was automated years ago, and nobody lives in the houses anymore. But someone has been out to clean things up. Everything’s freshly painted, the lilacs are blooming, and the grass has been cut.
I sit on the concrete base below the light tower and look out across the Lake. I can see a freighter in the distance. It’s heading toward Thunder Bay, slicing through the cold water and leaving a foamy trail behind it. In the distance, I can see Pie Island.
It’s all so familiar, it feels like I’ve been here before.
I returned home from school a few weeks ago. It was almost like she waited for me to come back, to be done with all my exams, to have some time to sit with her and tell her about my classes and roommates and the band I’m playing in now. She bought me a graduation gift. I saw Marty’s hand in it, but she would have told him what to get. A blue electric violin. She said she could never understand the kind of music I played, that an old lady like her could still learn lots of things, but not to appreciate wild screaming guitars and pounding percussion when there was music like Paganini and Bach. I showed her how we layered the classics into our pieces, but she scrunched up her face and shook her head and it made me laugh. I know she was teasing me. I know how proud she is . . . was. The blue violin said so.
Laurie was happy to see me, too. I’ve got my own place now, but I visit her sometimes at her house or meet her for coffee. She and Bill haven’t taken in any new kids. She says they’re retired. Between Caleb and me, we probably wore them out. She says no and smiles, but it’s a tired smile.
A couple of years ago, Elizabeth got a letter. It was from the estate of Arnie Richardson and had been written a long, long time ago, but never mailed. There were some legal documents in there, including a faded copy of the birth registration for Emily’s baby, Anna. They named her Isabel. Elizabeth and I still aren’t sure how much of the story Grandpa was able to piece together when she showed up at his door, thinking he was her father. But he would have known enough to figure out what had happened, who she was. So he took her in. He loved her. He loved me. I wonder if he told her stories about her mother, about the time they spent together on Porphyry Island. I wonder if he showed her the picture of the dragonflies, the one she slid under his door when he was assistant lightkeeper; the one he kept hidden in the violin case.
Emily knew me. She knew who I was. I don’t know how, but she did, I know she did. She saw things that no one else even knew were there. That day, when I found her in the blizzard, it was like it was the other way around; it was like she found me. Marty says I look like her. We have the same eyes, the color of the Lake.
It’s a long hike to the boat harbor, and the fucking mosquitoes are insane. I almost dump Elizabeth right there on the path to be done with it. The old boathouse is still standing. It’s a little lopsided, but it’s been painted, too, and the dock repaired. I find the path to the beach on the east side of the island, place the urn on the rocky shore, and sit beside it, looking out at Dreadnaught Island. I didn’t bring my fiddle. I didn’t need to. The music is here; it’s in the waves and wind and the songs of the birds. And in my memory.
While I’m sitting there, I decide that I’m not going to do things like she asked. Not quite.
The door is open, but I’m strapped in. On our first pass, the gulls take to the air in a flash of white wings, and then we bank around and fly over Hardscrabble Island again. I open the urn and lean out, far enough to send the gray dust spilling over the edge. It floats through the air, drifting over the pile of lichen-covered rocks where a weathered cross marks the grave of the baby Elizabeth Livingstone. A gust of wind catches the cloud before it settles on the stones, and carries some of it out over the surface of Superior. The Lake dances and sparkles like a thousand beams of light.
Elizabeth and Emily. They’re together again.
Author’s Note