Abby Geni - The Lightkeepers

ON FRIDAY, LUCY held her memorial service. She waited until the workday was done. First Forest and Galen came home in a black humor. Their video camera was on the fritz again. Given my experience, I was deputized to help fix it, and soon the entire table was covered with viewfinders, memory cards, fiddly plastic shapes, tiny circuit boards, and pages of the falling-apart instruction manual. Galen kept reading passages of this useless document aloud to us. Forest and I treated the whole thing like a jigsaw puzzle, starting at the middle and working toward the edges. Mick emerged a while later, whistling cheerfully, having spotted a few elephant seals frolicking in the surf. He tried to participate in the great camera adventure, but almost immediately he snapped a section of the casing in two. As I taped it back together, he retreated in shame.

“You men with your big, clumsy fingers,” Forest said unexpectedly in a Southern drawl. Mick hid a smile in his palm.

For the rest of the afternoon, the four of us sheltered there. Forest and I reassembled the video camera. Galen complained that the manual shifted from English into French and then into what looked like Portuguese. Mick, in the corner, raved about the elephant seals. The room was filled with a cheery glow. The kitchen had always been the homey heart of the cabin to me.

At sunset, we had finally finished putting the camera back together — minus a few cogs that Forest suspected were actually part of the toaster, which had been dismantled in the same spot a few weeks earlier. By this time, the sky was the color of a bruised plum. A sliver of moon had crested the horizon.

Then Lucy strode out of her bedroom, followed by Charlene. I was unaware that they’d been in the house at all. Lucy held a bundle of long, slim, ivory candles. As Forest hastily tucked the camera out of the way, she distributed these tapers in silence, one for each of us. Charlene had a handful of round origami shapes — the sort that could be blown up like balloons. Lucy explained that these paper globes would shield our candles from the wind as we walked in procession down to the sea.

I noticed that both women were dressed in dark hues. I wondered if I ought to change out of my hot-pink T-shirt — but it was too late, Lucy had whipped a lighter out of her pocket. Soon each of us held a dancing flame. It took a bit of work to attach the paper spheres to the top of the candles without setting the parchment alight. Galen was unsuccessful. There was a sudden flare, followed by a few curses, and a charred butterfly floated down to the floor.

“We made extra,” Charlene said.

The evening was suffused with a wintry chill. We moved toward the water in single file, Charlene and Lucy both hefting a satchel in their free hands. Despite my skepticism, I could not help but be impressed by the stateliness of our dark shapes, each bearing a glowing orb. There was a grandeur about the proceedings. We gave Sea Pigeon Gulch a wide berth. We headed toward Mussel Flat instead, where the shoreline was a gentle mound.

At the water’s edge, Lucy turned. We gathered in a semicircle in front of her. Her face looked different, lit from beneath with gold.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said.

There was a round of murmurs.

“This was Andrew’s favorite time of day,” she said. “He liked the evening. I thought that we might—” Her voice broke, and she paused. “Charlene has been kind enough to help me gather up some of his things. If we could—” She paused again. Hastily, she wiped her eyes.

Lucy had been like a leaking sponge since Andrew’s death, spouting tears at the slightest provocation. I, on the other hand, had not cried once, though it seemed to me that I had greater cause. All this gushing emotion was indulgent. Even as a child, I had never been a crier. I ducked my head, letting the wind carry my hair across my cheek. Drawing a shaky breath, Lucy pulled herself together.

“Galen let me have one of his model ships,” she said. “We’ll load it up with Andrew’s things and sail it out to sea. I think that’s fitting. A Viking burial for his best possessions.”

She made a gesture, and Charlene bent over the bags, lifting out a miniature clipper ship, complete with rigging. In the past, this had sat on the mantelpiece, adding an extra bit of nautical flair to the living room. Now Lucy looked it over. She brushed a speck of dust off the hull. Charlene pulled out a yellow T-shirt. With a shudder, I recognized it as Andrew’s; I had often glimpsed that splash of ochre inside the collar of his jacket. There followed a bottle of cologne and a wristwatch. A fountain pen. A battered copy of The Catcher in the Rye. A pack of gum. Each item was settled importantly on the deck.

At last it was done. Lucy turned to us again.

“I wish we had his red hat,” she said. “His lucky hat. It’s the one thing I couldn’t find. The waves must have washed it away.”

She and Charlene walked down to the water, holding the little boat between them. They set it in the shallows. Lucy gave it a push, and the tiny craft bobbed away, rotating to port, heading for Saddle Rock. The sea was coated with the last of the day’s light. The ship’s silhouette made a hole in that shimmering, silvery glaze. We all had our eyes fixed on it. From what I could tell, Mick was holding his breath, willing the thing onward. It traveled farther than I had expected. Finally the sea took matters into its own hands. The craft tilted to one side. It sank abruptly, as though a miniature submarine had breached its hull with a torpedo. Andrew’s T-shirt remained for a minute or two, drifting on the surface. Then it, too, slid underwater.

“We’ll say a prayer,” Lucy said huskily. “I wasn’t raised in a religious environment. Andrew wasn’t either. Honestly, I don’t even know if he’d like us to pray for him. But I thought it would be appropriate. Just repeat after me, okay?”

She bent her head over her guttering candle. The others raised their voices in an atonal chorus, Charlene’s soprano clashing against Galen’s growl. I did not pay much attention to the phrasing: God full of mercy — perfect rest — holy and pure — the soul of Andrew Metzger . Charlene had gone a little teary, a gleam around her eyes. As for me, I kept my lips closed. I did not say a word.

THERE WAS BLOOD on the rocks. The elephant seals were fighting again. I stood a safe distance away, eye to the viewfinder, framing the shot.

This is a daily ritual now, in cold December, beneath clotted clouds. Dozens of male elephant seals have come on land to make war with one another. They have claimed Marine Terrace and Mirounga Bay. They have filled the air with their thundering cries. They are monstrous creatures. Mick has told me their dimensions: thirteen feet from nose to tail, two tons in weight. But the data don’t do justice to the animals’ physical presence, their unique combination of ferocity and silliness. The males have blubbery, lolling bodies. Their heads are misshapen — distorted by a limp, waggling nose, a kind of prototrunk. The elephant seals lumber around the beaches, posturing at one another, swinging their headgear aggressively. They are making a hierarchy. They are preparing for the females to arrive.

Their fights make for excellent photographs. Each confrontation begins with a display. One male will lift the top half of his body completely into the air and torque on the spot, showing off his bulk. A few feet away, a second elephant seal will do the same. Their noses will inflate, and they will bellow — a sharp, clapping cry, the pinniped version of a sonic boom. Often, the smaller male will concede at this stage.

If not, however, the two will engage. These scuffles are brief, brutal things. Full contact. They fling and thrust with their immense torsos. They slash with their vicious teeth. Each elephant seal wears a chest plate of scar tissue. They are gray animals, ocean-colored, but their torsos are pink, veiny, and raw. The flesh there is enough to make me wince. After exchanging blows, the winner will pose and boom triumphantly. The loser will slink away, painting the stones with red.