The Girl and the Lighthouse

Trigger warning: emotional and family-related themes.

The car moved slowly along the coastline. The sea appeared and disappeared between bends in the road. I have always particularly liked that stretch, where you drive higher than the lighthouse.

“There it is again,” a tiny voice said from the back seat.

I glanced at the rear-view mirror. My daughter had her forehead pressed against the window.

I smiled to myself. She is the most precious thing God has gifted me, and I wish to preserve her innocence for as long as I can.

After a moment, I asked, “What did you see, my darling?”

“The lighthouse,” she said simply. “There was one in my dreams last night.”

“But mine looked different,” she added.

“Pink. And… glittery. Like it was shining from the inside!”

My eyes returned to the road and the horizon beyond. Something in me wanted to question her. To make it more real. More accurate.

But I stopped myself.

Because I knew what she had seen was not about accuracy.

It was about presence.

“When are we going to see Daddy again?” she asked, her face full of curiosity.

“We’ll see him tomorrow morning, after a good night’s sleep at Auntie Suzanne’s. We’ll pick him up at the station, my love.”

“I miss him, Mummy,” she said, crossing her arms and pouting.

It had only been a few days, but I knew that for a child, a parent’s absence is multiplied.

“We’ll call him when we arrive so you can tell him just how much we miss him.”

My great-aunt stood at the front gate, already open.

“That’s Auntie Suzie waving at us. We’re here!” I said.

As soon as we pulled up beside her, I leaned out of the window.

“How long have you been waiting here, dear Suzanne?”

Rose was giggling and squealing in the back seat.

“Hello, my darlings. Oh, I just knew! That’s what old women like me do. We sense everything. Now come along.”

The house revealed itself slowly.

Elvis ran circles around the garden, delighted by the arrival of visitors.

My father was already there. I could see him through the window before we had even stopped the car.

“Hi, Elvis!” Rose laughed.

The front door opened before we knocked.

My father bent to greet Rosie as she ran ahead. He said her name with a gentleness that stirred something warm inside me. Then he looked up and smiled before I had even stepped through the doorway.

The bedroom was bathed in the soft amber glow of a bedside lamp. White wooden panels lined the walls, a simplicity I had always loved. The linen curtains moved gently with the evening breeze drifting through the slightly open window.

I was changing into my pyjamas when my husband said,

“She asked me again why your mum isn’t here with us, whether she even knows the news we have to share. We could try explaining it to Rosie. She’s nearly four. She has to learn that not everyone has a mum like you.”

“I sure don’t like not answering her, but I don’t know…”

I climbed into bed and sat half-upright against the headboard, my legs tucked beneath the duvet that Marlon pulled over me.

Across from me, he rested on one elbow and was looking at me with that familiar expression that had survived years, distance, work, disagreements, sleepless nights, and the arrival of our first child.

“That would make her more empathetic,” he said, absent-mindedly rubbing my belly. “Especially towards her little brother.”

I ran my fingers through his hair and along the back of his neck.

“I have to find the right words. I don’t wish to sadden her. I don’t want to rip her from her naivety — she is so young. I want to spare her any worry, and more importantly not be the source of it, because…”

“Come here.”

“What?”

“Just come here.” He gently took hold of my arm and pulled me closer.

I rested my head against his chest and placed my hand on his cheek.

He took it and kissed it.

“Damn,” he said. “Who gave you that ring? Looks rather nice on you.”

I laughed.

“A very fine man. My forever one. My unconditional love. Who desperately wants to kiss me. Do you know him?”

“I do,” he whispered, his breath warm on my mouth. I closed my eyes.

“What else can I do?” he added, his hand holding my chin, his finger brushing my lower lip before I bit it.

“You’re so —”

A small hand tapped my foot.

“Oh hey, baby girl. What’s wrong?” Marlon asked.

“We want to sleep with you two.”

She stood there clutching her teddy bear.

“It’s too dark when we’re alone in my room. Bubba and I got scared.”

I opened my arms immediately.

“Come here.”

Within a few minutes, she had squeezed herself between us, hugging Bubba tightly against her.

The three of us lay there together.

We watched her slowly drift off to sleep, her breathing softening into peaceful silence.

The room felt suspended outside of time.

No quarrels.

No uncertainty.

No voices raised through walls.

Only the feeling of being home.

I found myself standing in the hallway.

The interior was lit by the moon.

The house smelled faintly of wood and old books.

It was quiet now.

Only distant echoes of voices lingered somewhere deeper within the house.

Voices I loved.

Voices that belonged.

Almost without thinking, I followed them.

A few moments later, I stood in the kitchen, facing the window overlooking the sea.

The lighthouse waited in the distance.

Silent.

Steady.

Or perhaps I only wished it had been.

The voice returned.

Not from the house.

From somewhere within me.

Too far away to feel reassuring.

Yet close enough that I could still feel its resonance.

For years, I had allowed it to live quietly in the back of my mind.

I never asked it to leave.

I never knew I could.

I simply assumed that was where it belonged.

That I was meant to carry it.

And who would I be without it?

My eyes remained fixed on the lighthouse.

As a child, I imagined a powerful beam that would guide me with unconditional love and endless patience.

A light that would remain unchanged no matter the weather.

A landmark.

A certainty.

But the light flickered.

Truthfully, it always had.

It appeared and disappeared according to circumstances I could neither understand nor control.

And so, not because I wanted to, but because I had to, I learned to navigate storms long before I understood what calm felt like.

Only recently have I begun to understand that some voices are meant to remain distant.

That not every lighthouse was built to guide us forever.

Would I have become someone different had I grown up beneath a steadier light?

I don’t know.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

A tear slipped down my cheek.

I wiped it away automatically with trembling fingers.

For years, tears had carried their own shame.

I had been told I felt too much.

That I was too sensitive.

Too emotional.

Too difficult to comfort.

And yet, standing there, I wondered whether my tears had ever really been the problem.

Or whether I had simply spent too long apologising for them.

My gaze drifted towards my phone resting on the kitchen table.

My finger hovered above her name.

I stared at it.

Longer than I intended to.

Was I more ashamed of my tears?

Or of the fact that, after everything, part of me still hoped?

Still waited.

Still wished.

For a moment, neither the lighthouse nor the sea offered an answer.