The Lighthouse

One drawback was the small hot water heater-only thirty gallons, barely enough for one of Jan’s protracted showers-but that wouldn’t be a problem. She’d taken cold showers for years, had gotten to like them when they’d been living on the back of Beacon Hill in Boston, in a building that lacked heat of any kind, including hot water. But the main drawbacks to the rooms and their arrangement were the drab white walls, their chilliness-small propane heaters were the only source of warmth in the bedrooms-and the enclosed inner stairway that took up part of the living room and led upward to the second floor and then through the tower into the lantern room. But she felt she could live with all of these too. If the dingy white color in the bedrooms and living room became too oppressive, she could always talk Jan into helping her paint them, along with the kitchen.

She finished drying the supper dishes-she and Jan had always taken turns with the domestic chores-and glanced up at the ceiling and thought again that she would have to get out the Ajax and 409 and see how much of that accumulation of grime would come off. But not tonight. She was so tired her legs felt achey. Some preliminary cleaning; Bonner was not much of a housekeeper. Unpacking. Finding places for things, rearranging other things. Making up the four-poster bed; setting out towels. And she had only just scratched the surface. A move like this was no summer vacation lark; it was a transplanting of an entire household, the same sort of upheaval you went through when you made a permanent move.

She thought of their big mock-Tudor house in Palo Alto and wondered when she would see it again. Not until Christmas, at the earliest- if they decided to go home for the holidays. But the house was in good hands: her cousin June was dependable and conscientious-you couldn’t ask for a better house-sitter.

Alix went into the empty living room. Jan had gone upstairs after supper; she wondered what he was doing. Whatever it was, he was being quiet about it. Curiosity took her up to the second floor. In the hallway that skirted the curve of the tower wall, she called his name. But he wasn’t in their bedroom or in his new study; his answer came echoing down from above.

“Up here. In the lantern.”

She went back to the stairs. The hollow of the tower was like a speaking tube: from the lower floors you could hear clearly when someone spoke from the lantern room in a voice not much louder than normal, and the same was true vice versa. Not even the constant muttering of the wind affected the acoustics inside.

The two flights of stairs leading up to the lantern were steep, creaky, and worn to a shine in the center of each riser. Just above the second-floor landing you had to pass through a metal trapdoor, hinged open and fastened that way with a hook; the reason for the trap, Jan had said, was so that men working in the lightroom and the lantern above wouldn’t disturb their family members below. A pair of low-wattage electric bulbs, one on the wall halfway up each flight, did little to dispel the damp gloom. Climbing, she thought it was a good thing neither of them would have to do this every day-Jan especially, with the extra weight he was carrying. She wondered again if she could get him to diet while they were living here. Probably not. Well, maybe she could at least talk him into doing aerobics with her. She had started working out a couple of years ago, after her second miscarriage, and had kept it up because she knew it was good for her, kept her own weight down. And it was better than tennis or racquetball, the big “in” sports back home, neither of which she had ever been any good at. Too uncoordinated: all arms and legs, with an uncanny knack for stumbling over her own feet. Anyhow, lifting a book was the second most strenuous exercise Jan ever indulged in. “I’d prefer to have my heart attack screwing or reading quietly in a chair,” he’d said more than once. A sedentary Viking…

There was a three-foot-square opening in the floor of the lantern room, but no trapdoor there. Dusky light showed above it; it must be about eight, close to dark outside. She climbed through the opening. Yes, almost nightfall. Through the lantern windows she could see that the sun had set and there were hints of violent reds and purples among the clouds massed on the horizon.

Jan was on his hands and knees to one side of the massive light, using a flashlight to do something she couldn’t see. He said, “Be with you in a minute,” in a distracted voice.