The Sea is Made of Wind and Unkindness, Part I of II

There is no noise more overwhelming and at the same time silent than the violence of the wind wrapped around this old lighthouse. Inside, I am made of muscle memory and rumination, swept up in a constant state of looking back, as if the wind is not just outside. A lifetime of lighting the tower and keeping an eye on the horizon of the sea. A lifetime of floating bodies, including the bloated corpse of my husband, who decades ago gave into the call of the salty sea wind.

But this is not a love story, though at one time it might have been.

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I met him while at the market one day. He was a carpenter’s apprentice; his natural talent was known around the peninsula. And even though he was just an apprentice, he was already commissioned by several powerful merchants in carriage and boat components. When I saw him the first time, I didn’t know he was that boy.

Standing up from his current project, he wiped his hand across his sweaty brow, smearing sawdust on his forehead in the process. Peeking at him from the apple cart just outside the wood shop, I accidentally giggled, which caused him to turn towards me. 

His eyes were dark as ash, and they sparkled. And against his high cheekbones, long, curly red hair and muscled arms, I felt something I hadn’t before. I immediately averted my eyes with a shy smile and pretended to go back to being enthralled with choosing apples.

Moments later, I felt a tap-tap on my shoulder, and when I turned, he was right there, smiling from ear to ear with an expression that looked hungry, devious and kind. I wondered which one it was. He introduced himself and I responded in kind. And when he asked if he could call on me later, I saw he was relieved when I told him my father was dead and would not be meeting him at the door with a cocked rifle.

And that was how it began.

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My mother was never concerned with social status. My father was a renowned sailmaker - the best one on the peninsula. We weren’t rich by any means, but we were comfortable and our family’s name was respected. And when my father died unexpectedly, he left us enough that my mother and I only needed to work odd jobs to keep the household afloat. 

We both offered seamstress services to the town; it was a fun way to get to do something we enjoyed as well as stay a little bit connected to the textile craftsmanship that defined my father. She missed him; she was never the same after he was gone, and she never remarried. 

A year after I met the young carpenter who made my knees weak, we were married at the shore of the sea, under the lighthouse his family had watched for 3 generations. By the time we got there, his father had fallen ill and died as well. He had to give up carpentry to assume the role of lighthouse keeper, as his mother was often battling a mysterious mental illness that caused her to become emotionally violent at unexpected times. She rarely left the house, as her public outbursts had caused her family embarrassment over the years.

My mother was happy I had gotten married. She was always worried something would happen to us and we would become destitute overnight. She wanted the protection of a man. And she saw that I was in love with him and he with me, so when the minister announced us married and he kissed me for the first time, I saw a tear run down her left cheek, and she smiled a way I hadn’t seen since my father died. Way off in the distance, a storm started to gather over the water.

The sea is a character. The sea is an omen.

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The first year of marriage was everything I’d expected it to be. A new life in a new home, and a new job as he and I both learned what it took to keep a lighthouse. Late nights were an adventure. Beautiful storm systems on top of the sea were a natural wonder. Spotting a ship on the horizon always spurred a bit of excitement. 

The second year of marriage seemed like a natural evolution. We had decided it was time to start trying in earnest to get pregnant, since it hadn’t happened yet. The first few months were full of anticipation. But after the 6th or 7th month of no luck, things began to change. 

The third year of marriage was a complete shift. He became angry, sullen, resentful of me and my barren womb. He felt cheated - who was this woman who couldn’t fulfill her main purpose as a wife and as a human? His dark eyes no longer sparkled - they became a real type of darkness that reflected no light, even in the bright rays that bounced off the lighthouse glass in the midday sun. 

The fourth year was a downward spiral. The first time he pushed me down the lighthouse stairs, I wondered if he was beginning to become like his mother. The fourth time he pushed me down the lighthouse stairs, I wondered if I would survive the year. 

The fifth year was filled with tragedy and woe. I finally became pregnant, but we lost it less than halfway through after one night his temper got the better of him and he kicked me in the stomach. My mother died of a fever that had filled her lungs with water and blood. And then he found his mother hanging in the keeping room of her home on a Wednesday in the middle of May. 

This was the fourth generation in his family that someone had taken their own life. It made him even darker. He never smiled and he was quicker to scream and raise a hand at me. It seemed he sometimes even blamed me for the weather, as if I was the source of every pain he had inside.

And then the storms came in earnest.

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Before the deaths of our mothers and our never-to-be child, things weren’t good, but they weren’t what they became after. Unlike my mother, his had been obsessed with status and had spent the better part of our marriage asking him why he didn’t marry better and why he wouldn’t just leave me to find a woman who could give him the things he wanted. 

I watched those ideas of hers slowly take hold of him as his love had become dissatisfaction had become resentment had become anger had become rage. And when he found her swinging from the rafters, there was nothing of his old self left. It was almost as if her haunting then inhabited him.

Nights in the lighthouse became each their own horror story where the reader waits in suspense for the main character to lose their mind. I didn’t do enough; I didn’t see enough. I breathed too loud; I didn’t make enough conversation. Dinner was terrible; why are you so useless?

And, of course, the stairs.

The first of the summer storms came on a night when he was unusually calm. The winds were low and the sea still. So was he - staring out over the gallery and into the sunset. He looked back at me for a moment, and I thought I saw the carpenter’s apprentice I’d fallen in love with. And then the shadows on his face changed, and with them, the sea as well. 

It came in quickly. The great waves threatened to top the rocky cliff banks and the lighthouse seemed almost unsteady in the gale force winds that swept in from nowhere. The lantern room became a fishbowl of potential catastrophe.

Off in the distance, I saw a ship with tattered sails. We tried to signal it not to come in. But it never moved. At all, even in the chaos of the stormy waters.And were those bodies speckling the walls of water hurling against the lighthouse base? The dark of the night on the sea plays tricks on your eyes, but at the same time it also reveals everything.

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We hunkered down in the lantern room for what seemed like hours as I weighed which I was more afraid of - the winds or my husband. He seemed softer than he had, but not in a way that resembled the way he used to love me. More in the way that my presence was being tolerated. 

And when the storm finally passed and the steady, raining drear that followed took up residence around the lighthouse, he suggested we go home. The sun was coming up. I agreed and followed him down the narrow spiral stairs. Except when we reached the bottom, there was no door.

I saw his face change as he moved from surprise to confusion to frustration to panic. And once the panic set in, he turned to me, as if I had something to do with it. I put my hands up and began swearing over and over it wasn’t my fault and I had no idea what was going on. He put his hands up, too, and began hitting me while repeating over and over that he had known I was a witch this whole time. That his mother always said I was too smart. That I only existed to test his sanity. That I only lived out of his kindness. And then I couldn’t do it anymore.

I squirmed away just enough to climb the first two stairs, turned back towards him and, as he reached for me, pulled back and hit him in the mouth with all my strength. He fell back against the wall. I saw confusion set back in as he brought his fingers to his mouth and looked at the evidence of the blood pouring out of his face. He looked up at me with the biggest question I’d ever seen in his eyes. And so I spoke. Without shaking. Without averting my eyes. Without wondering what he would do next.

We are trapped in a small haunted tower. Of all the things you have unfairly blamed and punished me for over the years - this will not be one of them. I will be up in the lantern room, which will remain locked until such a time as you decide you want to treat me with basic human respect so we can work together on whatever has happened here.

I had never seen such a blank stare from him - of bewilderment and not malice. So I finished - 

And when we do figure a way out, I’m leaving. I’m done.

Never in my life did I see any of these moments coming. All I’d ever wanted was a husband who loved me and saw how much I loved him. But all these years. I couldn’t anymore. And so I turned back up the narrow stone steps and to the lantern room, where I locked the door and sat on top of it. And when I had a moment to breathe, I began to realize what a fatal mistake that little speech likely was.

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It wasn’t until I was awoken near sunrise by a knock under the door that I realized I had fallen asleep. I immediately got up and readied myself for violence. Through the door, I could almost feel him trying to figure out what to say. We were years past the promises of things getting better and the apologies and the professions of love. So this was different. He said,

Please. I promise not to be angry with you; please let me in.

I unlatched the door and backed to the other side of the optic. As he walked up and into the room, through the glass he looked like a creature I didn’t know - one that doesn’t exist. When he saw my shape through the other side of the optic, he slowly started walking around towards me, the way you approach a scared animal. 

Please. I’m sorry about last night. I’m sorry about all the nights - so much more than that. But you have to trust me so we can find a way out of here.

Like hell I do. I was slowly backing up without looking away from him, because I was at once scared of him and curious as to what he would do next.

Please. I promise I won’t hurt you. I promise. Please.

He kept on like that, and our delicate round-the-lens dance lasted for a while as I tried my hardest to figure out what move would help me live the longest. But I heard his voice in my heart - the soft one that used to tell me at night that I was the love of his life. His eyes. His heart. And mine was so rattled, so choked and stretched and torn, that I gave in, like I always did. He saw it happen. His arms outstretched, 

Come here; it’s okay.

And as I collapsed into him, pressing my face into the hollow of his neck, everything outside stopped. The wind, the rain, the fog, the light, the sea - everything became still and I could hear his heartbeat. And that - that was the loudest sound I had ever heard.

—--------------------------------

After moments or minutes, he slowly pulled away from me without letting me go. One hand around my lower back and the other slowly pulling my face to his, he looked directly in my eyes. With kindness. He told me he loved me and the way it felt was 5 years ago when his voice, his smell, his hands were the safest place for me to be. I forgot when I was, so I said it back, and I meant it.

I always had.

Our short episode of peace inside of this bizarre situation was quickly interrupted by the day becoming the color of stormcloud that might as well be night. All at once, heavy, opaque clouds covered the sky in all directions. And just a few seconds later, a wall of rain surrounded the lighthouse as the sea went from still to surging - an instantaneous and intense squall.

He was still holding me, lightly, as we both turned our faces out over the water to see a ship with tattered sails on the horizon. 

Do you see that? He asked.

Yes; I saw it that last bad storm as well, but it never came in.

It wasn’t there a few minutes ago.

I know. Something’s wrong with it.

Silence.

Wait - are those bodies? 

Silence. He looked at me - 

Are those bodies?

I don’t know - they appeared when the ship did last time, too.

At that point, the rain became so heavy we couldn’t hear each other, even standing together. It was almost sideways, the winds were so high. And out on the sea, a massive series of waves should have buried the mysterious ship. But they didn’t. And just like last time, it never moved. And neither did the trail of bloated corpses.The bodies were like anchored buoys marking instances where people never came back. 

The sea was violent, and the violence unmoving.

He turned to me in the noise and mouthed something about lighting the optic, so I helped. If any ships were out there, they needed to know not to come near the rocky shore when the waves were like this. But every time we tried to light it, it wouldn’t take. I don’t remember how many times we tried - it must have been over a dozen, before we looked at each other and just sort of knew there was no point in trying further.

Without speaking, we went downstairs to the watch room so we could keep an eye on the sea from a more comfortable space, since it seemed we would be here for some time. Without speaking, he sat on the small cot we kept in there and patted the space next to him. I sat down without thinking - there was no such thing as refusing him, and any attempt to always made it worse.

But this time, he did the thing he always used to do where he tucked my hair behind my ear and whispered to me that he loved me. And in one moment, I was full of fear and loneliness and longing and regret. I missed this him who he used to be. Everything that came after felt like remembering something wonderful while mourning it at the same time.

At some point after, laying in a dazed stasis, we realized the winds had stopped screaming. He immediately sprang up out of bed and to the window. Turning back to me - 

The sky is clearing. I’m going to check the door. 

And he hopped into his boots and ran downstairs. I heard nothing until a couple minutes later, as slow, defeated boots stepped up the stairs and he entered back into the room. Nothing had changed.

........ continue to Part II