The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,98

the beach. In the cabin, he propped her up in bed with pillows and a hot-water bottle, and then he sat down beside her, his face pale.

‘What happened out there?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘I must have sat for too long . . .’

He shook his head. ‘I doubt it. You’re always sitting. So it can’t have been that.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Just remind me not to put you on the speaking circuit again. You upset a few people, fainting like that. The kids thought you were dead.’

‘Was it all right—the talk?’

‘It was fantastic. Everyone loved it . . . until you collapsed.’ He contemplated her solemnly. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

She clutched at his hand, frightened now. This could mean the end of everything. He might send her back. ‘Please don’t let them put me in a home.’

‘You need more help than I can give you. And what’s your family going to think when I tell them?’

‘Don’t tell them.’

He stared at her, his expression strained. ‘I think they should know. Your daughter called me the other week. What’s her name? Jan.’

Mary became sullen. ‘Yes. But she shouldn’t have rung you. She has no right. It’s my death we’re talking about here, not hers.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Leon said.

Silence fell between them. Mary had entered forbidden territory—discussion of her death. She slid into another coughing fit and Leon’s eyebrows rose in accusation. He stood up. ‘I’ll make you another cup of tea.’

She listened to him banging around in the kitchen and soon he returned with a mug. The cabin was warm now, with both heaters pumping. Leon had rolled up his sleeves. ‘If I can’t tell your family, then I’ll have to move in,’ he declared. As he placed the cup on her bedside table, she saw new bruises on his forearm. They were dark red, turning green.

‘Perhaps that’d be best for both of us,’ she said, nodding pointedly at his arm.

He glanced down at the bruises and covered them slowly with the palm of his hand. Then he took his hand away.

‘They’re not pretty, are they?’ he said. He sat down and gazed blindly out the window. Mary waited.

‘What do you do . . .’ he said slowly, ‘when you’re desperate to escape, but someone needs you so badly you know you can’t go?’ His jaw locked square and a muscle twitched high in his cheek.

‘Perhaps you can find a way to help them help themselves.’

‘And if they’re powerless?’ His voice was dense with pain. ‘Alcohol makes him violent and my mother can’t leave him. She’s like a beaten dog. Comes back again and again, hoping for a pat. I have to be there to protect her when he comes home.’

Mary watched him carefully, beginning to comprehend. He stayed to take the blows for his mother. And his mother probably stayed out of a misplaced sense of duty. Mary understood that. She felt tears rising. Leon was a brave young man. A lesser man would have left long ago. It was no wonder he resented her presence at the cabin: she was yet another burden. She reached to touch his hand and he allowed her to do it, even though his face was screwed tight with anger and his hands were bunched in fists.

‘I can’t leave,’ he said.

‘He’s your father?’

He nodded bitterly. ‘I wish he wasn’t.’

‘Yes. But you’re not like him. You’re strong. It takes strength to stay.’

He looked at her now, tears in his eyes. ‘It should be him dying,’ he said. ‘Not someone good like you.’

Mary managed a feeble smile. ‘I’ve fooled you then, haven’t I? I’m not good at all.’

He turned away to wipe his eyes. ‘It could be in me—his weakness. It could be genetic.’

‘You’re not weak, Leon.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘I do know that.’

‘But you’re biased,’ he said, smiling faintly at last. ‘You like me.’

‘I didn’t at first,’ she admits.

‘I didn’t make it easy for you.’

She grasped his arm, squeezing to make sure she had his full attention. ‘You’ll leave one day, you know.’

He stared at her without hope. ‘You think so?’

‘Yes. Something will change and you’ll be able to go.’

His face became stony. ‘If he puts her in hospital, she might leave him. But if he hurts her, I’ll kill him.’

‘You don’t need violence, Leon. That’s his game.’

He paused for a while, struggling with something in himself. Then he patted her hand where it rested on his arm. ‘It’s all right. I won’t kill him. If that was in me, I’d