Peter Geye - The Lighthouse Road

She folded the paper sack and hid it beneath the davenport cushion and continued her restless pacing.

The next morning, hours after Odd left for work, she went to the mercantile on Superior Street and bought envelopes, stationery, and half-a-dozen two-cent stamps. It was the first time she'd left the brownstone in days, and the cold came biting like a small dog on the way back up the hill.

In their apartment she hurried to the davenport, took the folded sack out, and placed it in the envelope. She addressed it the only way she knew how:

Mister Hosea Grimm

Gunflint, Minnesota

and placed the postage in the corner and put the envelope back under the davenport cushion. She hid the stationery and envelopes in one of her hatboxes and went to bed to try for sleep. When it did not come she dressed again and went back to the mercantile to drop the letter for delivery.

Each of the next five nights she wrote another letter to Hosea. They got longer as her confidence grew but never asked for or told much.

If she thought writing the letters would slow her unraveling, or appease her guilt for leaving Hosea, if she thought it would help her understand the bitter feelings she had for the unborn child, she was mistaken. Instead of finding solace she found further proof that there was no reckoning with this life of hers. The sleepless nights grew longer and longer, spilling into the mornings, when her guilt was worst. Until those mornings she had been able to separate the causes of that guilt— leaving Hosea, betraying Odd, abhorring the child— but now it became the only state of mind she possessed. Her guilt ravaged her, and she gave up any resistance.

M eanwhile Odd did his best. He still tried to woo her, brought her things to satisfy the cravings she announced randomly, still spoke to her gently and imploringly. But there was no hope in his plea. He knew better. When he took Rebekah to the Lyceum hoping the troupe might succeed where he failed, and when she became sick from the cloud of smoke in the theater, he decided his only hope was that the child— when he was finally born— would compel her to happiness.

So he got up each morning and took the trolley across town and found his relief in the long, philosophical days at Sargent's. At night, after he and Rebekah shared their silent suppers, she would retire to her needlepoint and he to the Bible Sargent had given him at Christ mas. He read every night, not because he was becoming a believer but because any story was better than the one he was living.

It was around Saint Valentine's Day that Odd came home with a dinner invitation from Sargent. Rebekah was sleeping on the davenport, her needlepoint fallen at her feet. He watched her for some time, remembering how he used to revel in her childlike ability to sleep at a moment's notice, how he'd once loved watching the sleep come over her. What he saw now could hardly have been the same woman. She kept him awake at night, her pacing like she was some kind of caged animal.

She woke with a start to see him there, his hand on his chin.

"Odd," she said. She sat up as though she'd been dreaming of fire.

"Hey, Rebekah. Didn't mean to wake you. How you feeling?"

She rubbed her eyes, looked out the window. "You're home early."

"Harald gave me the afternoon off. He's invited us to Sunday dinner. I told him we'd be there."

"I can't go to dinner—"

"Nonsense," Odd interrupted. "You can and you will and we're not going to hem and haw about it. This Sunday. You'll behave yourself, too. These are good, upstanding folks. Put on a smile."

"I don't have anything to wear," she protested.

"We'll head downtown this afternoon and fix that. Now, go and get yourself together." He looked at her fiercely. "Now, Rebekah. Up. Let's go."

Rebekah rose slowly, paused in front of Odd, and went to their bedroom. She came back out ten minutes later. Odd had not moved.

S unday they had dinner at Harald Sargent's home. Rebekah wore her new dress, sitting at Sargent's bountiful table. Harald wore a heavy woolen suit and necktie, his wife, Rose, an equally heavy woolen dress.

Sargent, his eyes clenched shut, his hands clasped together, intoned the blessing. "Dear God, my savior and my light, with all my love I give thanks to thee. For the bounteous fare set upon this table, for the warmth of this home, for the love of my wife and sons, I give thanks to thee. For my wayward guests, may you show them the way to your heart, may you deliver their unborn child into a world of goodness and show him the way to your love and forgiveness. Yea! May you show us all your love and forgiveness. Amen." Sargent opened his eyes and smiled at his table, his eyes serene where they'd always appeared set in stone before.

"Amen," Rose said.

Odd and Rebekah both smiled demurely, seemed almost to blush in unison. "Smells good," Odd said.

" Thank you, Odd. Help yourself," Rose said. She handed him a plate of pork cutlets. "Harald insists on pork and gravy for Sunday dinner. I could make it in my sleep after all these years." She turned to Rebekah, smiled. "A good Sunday dinner is about all it takes to please a man, that's my free advice to you, young lady." Here was a woman so cheerful and good-natured that Rebekah indeed felt like a young lady.

"Odd could eat bread and butter for Sunday dinner and not care a whit," Rebekah said.

The mere sound of her voice buoyed Odd. He took her hand on the table and smiled.

Rose leaned toward Rebekah and said, "He leads you to believe that because he wishes to make your life easy." She winked. "Don't believe him, make him meat and gravy."

" Bread and butter's fine, but this here's a right feast," Odd said. "I thank you kindly, Missus Sargent."

"Harald, pass Odd the creamed corn and hominy bread. Here's a young man who knows how to please his hostess."

After the pleasantries at the start of the meal the table settled into a formal silence interrupted only by polite requests for second helpings. By the time they finished with supper, dusk had settled with still more snow. Harald requested coffee to go with the pudding, and Rebekah joined Rose in the kitchen to help prepare it.

In the dining room Sargent took out his pipe and packed it. He poured each of them another glass of apple wine. Odd could see the bare branches of the apple trees through the dinning room windows.

"Rebekah was to see Doctor Crumb?"

"She was."

"He's the finest physician in all of Duluth. Educated at the University of Chicago."

"Seemed a fine fellow."

"He was a help?"

"Rebekah's right private about that business."

Sargent nodded. "Do you mind if I ask you a question, Odd?"

"Shoot."

"How old are you?"

Odd had to think about it. " Guess I'm twenty-four years old."

"I had you pegged for older than that." He paused. "Mind if I ask how old Rebekah is?"

Odd smirked. "Old enough to know better than to get stuck with me."

Sargent smiled. "I apologize if I seem impertinent. I was just curious."

"I can't even begin to imagine what impertinent means, but your curiosity is no harm to me."

Sargent took a deep breath. They each took a drink from their wineglass. "You've been studying the Bible?"

"I've read some."

"Is it helping you toward peace?"

Odd stared long on the empty apple-tree branches.

"Thoughtful," Sargent said.

"There's plenty of good stories in that book. But I find my peace on the boatwright floor. Out on the lake hauling nets." Odd turned back to the window. "In the expectation of my child."