Sinking to the Top - Chapter Fifteen: The Lighthouse

I had been asleep. Not fully but enough to know when I woke up that I had been sleeping. The cot in Grandpa’s apartment squealed as I shifted my weight to the springs that still had some life. After several minutes of trying to get comfortable, I pushed myself up and decided to explore the room. It was a renovated apartment that Grandpa had retrogressed. I slid my fingers across the twisted bunny ear antennae that sat on a DVD player above the old TV while studying the pictures that hung above the set. All had lighthouses. Stripes wrapped the structures until a shining stream of light welcomed the ships.

One picture caught my attention. It was the only lighthouse painted from the water. Shooting above the breaking waves, the tower reflected a spotlighting moon with a mirror of salt faded paint. The waves below absorbed the light except for the tips of white that were scalped by the scene’s wind. A sailboat rode the swell, desperately trying to avoid the same fate as the moon’s light. The water perspective wasn’t the lone unique part of the painting. It was the only picture where the lighthouse offered no help to the stranded ship, just the moon and the sailor alone to face the storm together.

I didn’t realize how still the night had been until someone sobbing stirred the apartment’s peace. Glancing down the hall, I saw Grandpa’s study door cracked and a light on inside. As I crept closer, I heard the familiar sound of a drink poured over ice. But there was a new sound as well. It was as if he was talking to someone.

At first I thought he was on the phone. My watch disagreed reading three in the morning. But there were two clear voices. One was Grandpa’s but the other I couldn’t recognize. Again there was a splash of drink on its way from bottle to glass. I got close enough to the door to hear the ice rattling in his unsteady hand as the voices were silenced. Finally, they started again with the foreign one speaking first. It was a woman’s voice.

“Will, honey, it’s me. I’ll be coming home soon but something’s gone wrong and the hospital needs you to come down here immediately...I need you here, I’m scared. I just… I just wanted to make sure you knew I’ll love you till I die. I’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready. I love you. Goodbye.”

The message ended. From the crack between the door and the frame I saw Grandpa had set his drink down and now had both hands covering his face. His body shook violently with each sob as he struggled to breathe and his tears matched the power of a storm. He gripped something in his hand. I couldn’t tell what it was of but I knew it was a photo in black and white.

Suddenly, that was all I needed.

It was of their wedding day three weeks after they both turned twenty, a picture that Grandma clutched when he got to the hospital that night and found she’d passed. The doctors had tried to take it but she had refused them with last breaths. Now Grandpa clung to all he had left of her. He turned the desk lamp off but the moon coming through the window behind him was enough to keep his room bright.

“I’m coming.” He cried to himself. “Help me. Help me come home.” He pressed a button on the old answering machine and the message started again.

I snuck back to my room and silently closed the door behind me. The bed squeaked again even though I crawled in slow, elaborate motions. My eyes fixed on the painting of the stranded sailor until they finally closed.

From down the hall, I could still hear Grandpa as he whispered to the moon for help.