For Spilling Ink Writing Contest.
When I lived down by the sea, I made the mistake of falling in love with the lighthouse keeper's daughter.
It was the summer I turned thirteen; after grade seven. I grew up in Laguna, practically on that beach, and she grew up alongside me. But everything changed when she was eleven, I was nine, and her mother died. Her father, the lighthouse keeper, was completely distraught over his wife’s death. He used to be the kindest man we knew, waving his hellos and giving pretty seashells to his daughter’s playmates. But after they lost her, he came outside with less and less frequency. His daughter too. By the time a year had past, neither of them came outside hardly at all, and she was homeschooled. I was troubled by the loss of my best friend. I anxiously craned my neck in the direction of the home next to the lighthouse, to no avail.
--
We called her Skye, for the blue of her eyes was a perfect match to the sky above. She was the light of our lives, and surely the light of many around her. The first time I held her in my arms I wept. I wept because I looked into her eyes and I knew she was mine. After she was born, the doctor told Hattie she couldn’t have any more children. I think since we knew she would be our only, we spoiled her a little too much. But despite that, Skye was kind, and modest, and caring. She woke us with kisses in the morning and had to be peeled off at bedtime.
My heart broke when Hattie died, and I know it wasn’t any easier on Skye. I didn’t make it any easier by closing off from the world. Skye felt she had to take care of me and as a result closed herself off.
--
I was sitting on the beach with Madison one day. We were watching the waves rolling back and forth while we talked about Mom and whether we would go out for dinner. As I laughed, I looked over Madison’s shoulder and the laughter died in my throat. Then the air in my lungs rushed out in what sounded mentally like the loudest whoosh I had ever heard. Madison turned around and greeted Skye. How was she doing? Was she coming back to school this year? No? Well, Madison missed having her in her class.
I’d seen Skye a few times, leaving the lighthouse on the odd occasion. But I never got a chance to talk to her or get very close. She was always hurrying off somewhere. There was something about seeing her on the beach again that stirred my heart. Her hair blew in her face and she fixed those sky colored eyes on my face. She smiled and I fixed my eyes on her. She asked how I was doing but my voice was stuck in my throat. Madison looked at me and laughed. She told Skye that I was fine, but I never had a best friend like her again. Skye looked sad and said that she hadn’t either. And that she had to go, but would see us soon. I don’t know if any of us thought we really would.
When she had left, Madison looked at me and said, something has changed – hasn’t it? Of course she knew; she was my twin, after all. I told her it had without looking away from the waves.
Something had definitely changed. Skye had been the best friend that I missed, but now she was the girl that I loved. I began to linger near the lighthouse when I was on the beach or passing through to town, just hoping to catch a glimpse of her sun-lightened hair or a quick smile. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I did see her, but I knew I had to.
--
I knew I had become the old man by the sea, all alone in the lighthouse. Alone except for Skye. She stayed with me, and I loved that, but I realized I was holding her back. I had to become better for her sake. I had to let her continue to live her own life.
I began to go out on my own. I smiled at the old friends I came across at the bakery and market. Skye noticed the change in me and I knew she was glad. She seemed to open up as much as I began to. One day I told her that she ought to go to school with the other kids again. She wondered if I would be ok, but I assured her that I would be. So I set her free.
--
I knew that lilacs had been Skye’s favorite flowers and always would be. It had been months since we had met each other again on the beach and I still walked longingly past her home. Every day when I passed her doorstep, I left a small bundle of the purple flowers. Every morning they were gone, at least telling me that she got them. I hoped she knew whom they were from, but I don’t think so.
Sometimes at night, as I walked on the beach, I would see a light in the upper room of her little house. I would stand for a moment in the glow, imagining she was up there looking down at me.
I felt it in the air, that day, that things were about to change. And when Skye showed up in the schoolyard before the bell one cool morning, I wasn’t as surprised as you would expect. She greeted me with a smile and a soft hello. She said she was coming back to school and that she was going to be outside a lot more. She was ready to rejoin the world.
She stood waiting for my response. The first thing I was able to say to her after all those years was that hearing her voice again was like hearing the melody of the ocean for the first time.
