The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,132

me sit you up a bit. I’m going to cup my hand over your eyes to shield out the sun . . . There it is, blazing from behind a cloud again.’

She was vaguely aware of movement; somebody shuffling her arms and legs and propping up her torso. She struggled to open her eyes, and tied to focus on the blur before her. Blue and grey, shadow, fog.

‘You’re on the beach, Mary,’ the voice said. ‘I’ve brought you out so you can see the sky. I wanted you to feel the wind.’

The light disappeared once more to bleary grey. She thought she heard a rattling sound. Or maybe she just felt it. Gurgling. Hollow rumbling.

Everything about her was rigid. Her body, unyielding. She was dissolving into the ground. Cold creeping through her. Such coldness. Her body not her own anymore.

She forced her eyes open, fluttering, and thought she saw the outline of a face, misty, framed with ginger hair. Her eyelids slid down again thankfully, into darkness.

‘Mary. It’s me. I’m here to look after you.’

Jack was with her. He was holding her. His arms strong around her. He forgave her for everything. Even that which he didn’t know. He had to forgive her. She needed his forgiveness.

‘Do you feel the wind on your face, Mary?’

The wind. Yes, the wind. They had been at home in it together. But she couldn’t feel it now. She couldn’t feel anything. Just heaviness. A great weight. A sense of sliding. Of light fading. Flashes of light returning again.

‘I promised I’d bring you out here, didn’t I?’

She felt Jack’s breath on her face. His head beside hers on the pillow. She had always liked to feel him close to her. Such comfort.

There were shadows slipping across her face. Then the voice again, like an echo. ‘The clouds are skating across the sky, Mary. There’s a strong wind high up. Cirrus clouds. A front coming in.’

She struggled to open her eyes again. She was beneath the skies at Cape Bruny. This was a grey she knew and loved. It was the colour of her southern home: the long, shimmering silver light.

She waited for the shadows to come again, flitting, her head feeling light.

‘It’s a big cloud this time. We’ll have to wait awhile before the sun comes through . . . Are you warm enough?’

What was warmth if it was not these arms around her?

The flashes of light and dark. The cold of the wind. Lightness. Her body detaching.

‘Mary. The sun has come out again. Can you see it?’

She felt a strange warmth. Jack reaching for her. Adam’s touch.

Then the warmth was giving way to cold again. But she was not afraid. She would be safe. All was glowing around her.

She heard humming. It must be Jack. But no, not Jack. It was something more. The rhythm of all things. The hum of life. She felt it deep within. The glow of living. The joy of knowing that Jack was waiting. And Adam. The great release of letting go. Of knowing all things would be happy in their own way. As she had been.

The humming.

The light.

Yes. She could see it. The light of the sun. So great. So beautiful.

Yes, Jack, I am coming . . .

PART IV

Resurrection

32

‘It’s a guy called Leon. Says he’s calling from Cloudy Bay.’ Nick passes the phone to me as I dash up onto the deck. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he says. ‘We’ll be off now. Hope everything’s all right.’

I curl my fingers around the receiver and Nick ceases to exist. I barely see him as he slips down the driveway and tucks Emma into his car.

‘Hello?’ I’m hardly breathing as I wait to hear Leon’s voice.

‘Tom.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m really sorry, mate . . . but she’s gone.’ He sounds exhausted, bereft.

‘Gone?’

‘Yes. It was just a little while ago. On the beach.’

‘On the beach?’ I feel like an echo, distant, hollow. ‘How did you get her out there?’

‘I carried her. I promised I’d take her out. She wanted that. Said she didn’t want to be trapped under a roof. That she wanted to be beneath the sky.’

‘She told you that?’

‘Yes. She mentioned it a week ago. When we were talking.’

I sit down on the hard wood of the deck. Jess presses against me, her body warm against my arm. ‘Where is she now?’

‘In bed. I tucked her in . . . to keep her warm. I know it’s strange but I didn’t want her to get cold . . .’ His voice drifts off, and the