I picked up the phone immediately and called her.Just as I thought it would go to voicemail, it connected.I started before she even spoke a single word.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Sam, I—”
“Wait.Before you say anything, let me get this out.I shouldn’t have gotten so mad at you.I was trying to push you away because I was scared.I’m sorry I defaulted to the same thing I always do, leaving before someone can leave me, whether they want to or not.You were right.I ran before to get away from the one person who didn’t care about me in the way I needed her to, and I left so many others who did.I left you.And I’m sorry.”
She sniffled through the line.
The line went silent for five seconds.Then ten.“Okay, that was a pretty good apology.”She laughed and sniffled again.“Apology accepted.But I’m still mad about Austin.”
“About that.”I took a deep breath and forged on.“I’m not sorry.I’m sorry about the way I acted and how I left it with him, but I’m not sorry about how I feel about him.But if you’re open to it, I think I may have figured out a way to maybe fix it.All of it.”
“I’m listening.”
“The lighthouse.Is there one at the Birchwood Beach?”
“Yeah, didn’t Austin take you to it?It’s a pretty good trek through the bushes at this point since everything’s sort of grown over.You can see it by boat better.”
I pulled out the land survey for the Rock Island contract.At the northernmost tip, past Birchwood Beach, there was no sign of a lighthouse.
I looked back to the computer and the map on the screen clearly had it positioned at the tip.Thinking back to that day, we had eaten lunch, then I got the text about my mom so we left.We didn’t walk down farther than halfway along the beach.And when he took me to see it on the boat, our time was cut short.
Something started to fall into place.
“Stay by your phone.I’m going to run something by you in a little.But Lex…”
“Yeah?”
“For the record, you’re worth staying for.”
I hung up and clicked through another couple articles on the computer and learned that the lighthouse had been used for almost twenty years steering ships around the island.A picture of an old keeper’s log recorded the weather and a few ships that made it aroundthe point.The entries were barely legible, dotted with watermarks and discolored from age.
The lighthouse was no longer operable.It had fallen into erosion and desperately needed repair.Provisions were made to automate the actual lighthouse itself back in 1949, but the building was closed to the public.
An idea started to spark.I could see it.It’d take a lot of research and a miracle, and I only had a single night to make a lot of changes, but I had nothing else to lose.
37
AUSTIN
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
CHARTER GUY:$30k all in for both.
I sat out back at my parents’ and watched their vintage wooden speedboat rock against the dock.I caught my first fish on that boat as a kid.I also nursed my first broken heart on it.When I found out about Vanessa and Tom, I drove straight to my parents’ and took it out.I sat there with my pole for hours and didn’t catch a single fish.Then I took it out the next day, and the next, sitting out on the water, drifting aimlessly, slowly praying that if I sat out there long enough, I could somehow throw all the hurt and betrayal in my body into the sea and watch it sink to the bottom.
Mom showed up with plate after plate of brussels sprouts and chicken casserole, thinking a full stomach would cure a broken heart.Lexi became founding member of the I Hate Vanessa Fan Club.Patrick leaned in to try and fill the hole Tom had left behind.
Everyone rallied around me, loving me harder than I’d ever been loved.
But no matter how hard they tried, the looks of pity were still there.SilentI’m so sorrys stitched in their glances.Hushed toneswhen I entered a room.Quick glances flickered my way when people thought I wasn’t looking.
But I slowly filled my time with other things that kept me busy.I threw myself into a job that kept me working from sunrise to sunset.I put what I wanted on the back burner to fill in for what was needed.It wasn’t that I didn’t want to start the ferry business, but it wasn’t my dream job.
It was just easier to settle.
And at the time, I told myself I was okay with that.
