The Lighthouse

She turned her back on the lighthouse, climbed in behind the wheel of the van. Tonight they would drive as far as Crescent City, and tomorrow they’d be home. And the day after that, Jan would check into the medical center for further tests to determine the cause of his blackouts. It was her opinion-and Jan’s, too, now-that they were not organic in origin, but rather a byproduct of his eye disease brought on by intense stress; if that was the case, it seemed reasonable to assume they wouldn’t recur if precautions were taken to avoid stressful situations.

Once the tests were finished, they would make plans for the future, for the alterations in the patterns of their existence that would become necessary if Jan did in fact lose his sight. But it was possible for them to do that now, to start over from a whole new basis and with a unified strength. Months ago she wouldn’t have thought so, wouldn’t have thought herself-or Jan-capable of such courage. But when you have survived an ordeal so much worse than any you could have imagined, no crisis seems quite so awesome or insurmountable anymore.

Jan slid into the passenger seat and shut the door. His wan smile held the same relief she had started to feel. For him the light was no longer a sanctuary, a place he refused to be driven out of; like its name, it had become a symbol of his despair, a place that had finally been driven out of him.

She drove them out of the yard and along the pot-holed road, not once glancing up at the rearview mirror. But then, after they’d gone about a mile and reached the rise from which she had first seen the lighthouse, she slowed on impulse, pulled over, and stopped. Looked back.

The headland lay barren and lonely, looking much, she thought, as it had when the pair of Basque sheepherders had first come to it more than a century ago. Beyond its scalloped reaches the harsh waves beat against the cliffs as they had when ships foundered there and Cap Des Peres became known as Cape Despair. And above it all was the ancient light, a severe white column piercing the sky.

From here she could see none of the smoke damage, nor the broken windows, nor the scarred walls. It looked as it had on that first day: a thing of beauty, guardian of the night, comfort and hope to the lost and the frightened.

For perhaps a minute she and Jan looked at it in silence. Then she released the brake and drove on, her eyes on the road, her mind on the future-neither lost nor afraid.