An Indirect Sign of Light

Chapter 3 - Kyle

October, 2015

The room was stifling, sticky and silent... unless you count the flies that buzzed around Kyle's half-eaten bologna and walnut sandwich. Kyle stared at the stacks of copies of ancient blueprints, drawings, and schematics, a waxen figure in a Rembrandt etching. He was too young to have such an abundance of gray in his sandy-brown hair – that's what genetics can do to you. He was too young to have such rough, calloused hands – that's what years spent becoming a master craftsman can do to you. And he was too young to have a face full of lines – but that's what a heart that's seen too much care and not enough joy can do to you. He may have been too young to look as he did, but he didn't feel young at all.

Kyle's breath came in slow, steady pulses as he stared down the blueprints, daring them, willing them, to make sense, to present an answer to his dilemma, to reveal wisdom that wasn't apparent at first blush. The blueprints were entirely uncooperative. Whatever secrets they might hold, they were going to keep, and no amount of staring was going to coax them into changing their mind.

Kyle sighed. He closed his eyes and straightened up to his full height. In the tiny room, he looked taller than his respectable six feet. He shoved the top blueprints aside with disgust as he reached for the half-eaten sandwich. He pulled an older set of blueprints out from the bottom of the pile. What was the year? He squinted and held them up to the light coming through the tiny, milky window. 1853. They were fragile and faded and he had serious doubts that they would tell him anything of use, but no matter? He had nothing but time. And copies of blueprints. Lots and lots of blueprints.

He kept trying to avoid the obvious question, but it pushed through nonetheless: What had he gotten himself into now? Only six hours into it, and he was already regretting taking this job. It wasn't living on the island during the restoration period that bothered him – Lord knows he could use a little peace and quiet, and yes, maybe this break from the old, familiar places was just what Izzy needed. It was more a feeling that had come over Kyle this morning as Myron Finch, Aquinnah town selectman, drove them to the outermost part of the island – a feeling that this was more than just another run-of-the-mill reconstruction project. As they entered the lighthouse complex, the light towered over them, a silent tomb with secrets that it would not reveal. Secrets that, perhaps, would best be kept that way.

Kyle rubbed his eyes, half hoping that when he opened them again, everything would be clear and he'd know where to start. No such luck. The tiny room in the caretaker's cottage that was to be their home for the next nine months was still just as cluttered as his mind was. He shook his head and heard Dan's voice reaching through time – when in doubt, organize.

He started by moving the stacks of blueprints onto the picnic table outside, careful to anchor them with rocks lest the brisk sea wind make kites out of them. At the doorway to the cottage, Kyle realized that removing the blueprints hadn't done nearly as much good as he thought it would. Gerald McLain, the caretaker who had lived there for 27 years (more like thirty, to hear him tell it), was not one to waste anything. He would describe himself as frugal. People with no imagination would call him a pack rat. Kyle shook his head again and rubbed the back of his neck, wondering what to do next. Finch had assured Kyle that McLain would be packed and moved out of the cottage before Kyle and Izzy arrived. That, clearly, was not the case. Mr. Finch, a rather excitable man with a rather long nose and nasal voice, had "Hmmmm'd and "Oh Dear'd" and "We'll have to see'd" himself all the way back to his car as soon as he saw that McLain seemed to have no intention of vacating the premises as he'd been instructed. McLain, for his part, just stared at Kyle and Izzy with dark eyes, then turned and disappeared to who knows where after Mr. Finch had scurried off in his Volvo, muttering something about a council meeting and a sheriff.

Kyle weighed his options. He had every right to start moving McLain's stuff out of the cottage, although he resented the fact that he should have to. On the other hand, neither he nor Izzy could stay in the tight, cluttered quarters as they were for the next nine months. Izzy had already declared the place "exceedingly stinkable" and Kyle had seen an abundance of evidence to suggest that mice, cockroaches and other small, crawling creatures had long considered the cottage home. He had been promised a two-bedroom cottage with a kitchen and electricity as part of his deal, so he could go back to Finch and refuse to start on the project until the housing situation was resolved, but who knows how long that would take? He was pushing it as it was, thinking he could restore the lighthouse after its move, install the original Fresnel lens and rebuild the old keeper's quarters before tourist season kicked in the beginning of May. He couldn't risk losing even a week of work while Finch and McLain haggled about his living arrangements. Looking around at his surroundings, the irony was not lost on him. I've landed on the proverbial rock and hard place, he thought.

"Decided to work outside, have you?" said a voice that spun Kyle around on his heels to find McLain standing there, a wide-eyed, trembling Izzy at his side. She sprinted into Kyle's arms, shaking so hard she couldn't speak.

"What the..." Kyle eyed McLain. "What did you..."

"Don't go jumping the gun and say something you're gonna regret.   I didn't do nothin' but bring her down off the light."

"What happened?"

"All I know is I heard a great crash from the top of Dot, and come up there to find the railin' busted, a window knocked out and this 'un bleeding and callin' for her mama. Great lot of trouble, this one."

Kyle held Izzy by the shoulders, looking at the tears streaming down her twisted face.

"Is that right, Pete?"

Izzy nodded and then buried herself in her father's arms.

"Do you have a first-aid kit?" he asked over her shoulder.

"Dot's got one."

"Dot?"

The old man nodded his head in the direction of the lighthouse. "On the second landing. Don't know how good it is anymore."

Kyle waited for McLain to make a move to go get the kit for him, but the old man just crossed his arms and stood there. Kyle muttered a few words he hoped Izzy didn't hear as he picked her up and carried her toward the lighthouse.

"Last bus leaves for Edgartown in half an hour" the old man called after them, "unless you're figuring on spending the night in the light."