The Light

The sky was still dark when Clara stole his cap.

Elias had set it on the dock post for just a moment, and when he turned back, she was wearing it, that crooked grin on her face like she'd gotten away with something.

"Give it back," he said.

"Make me."

"Clara."

She laughed, that full-throated sound that had been waking him up for thirty years, and pulled the cap down over her ears. It was too big on her. Everything he owned was too big on her. She looked ridiculous and beautiful and he wanted to kiss her, but his hands were full of net and the forecast called for storms by evening.

"We should wait," he said instead.

"We've got hours." She hoisted the cooler into the boat with practiced ease, her movements efficient despite her size. "Storm's not coming till tonight. We'll be back by lunch."

"The radio said—"

"The radio always says." She was already untying the mooring line, her fingers quick and sure. "Besides, when have we ever let a little weather stop us?"

"A little weather," he muttered, but he was climbing into the boat anyway, because this was how it always went. She pushed, he worried. She laughed, he followed. Three decades of this dance and he still hadn't learned the steps.

The harbor was quiet at this hour, just the lap of water against boats and the distant cry of gulls. Their boat—the Clara Marie, though she always rolled her eyes when he said the full name—rocked gently as Elias started the engine. It caught on the second try, coughing blue smoke into the dawn.

Clara stood at the bow as they pulled away from the dock, one hand on the rail, the other holding his cap on her head against the wind. She was singing off-key and too loud, and Elias felt that familiar tightness in his chest that wasn't worry at all.

"Look," she said, turning back to him.

The lighthouse stood at the harbor's mouth, its beam sweeping slow and steady across the water. White light, then darkness, then white again. Constant as a heartbeat.

"As long as we can see the lighthouse," Clara said, "we're fine."

Elias didn’t answer. He was watching the horizon, where the sky met the sea in a line too straight to be natural. But Clara was already moving toward the back of the boat, checking the nets, humming that same tuneless song, and the lighthouse beam swept past them one more time as they cleared the breakwater.

The morning was perfect. The water was like glass. The sun rising slow and red behind them. The fish practically jumping into their nets, silver bodies flashing in the early light.

"What do you want for supper?" she asked, hauling in a net.

"Whatever you're making."

"That's not an answer." She laughed.

"That stew," he said. "The one with the potatoes."

"I make a lot of stews with potatoes, Eli."

"The good one."

She threw a fish at him. He caught it, tossed it in the cooler, and she was grinning again, that gap between her front teeth showing.

"We should repaint the porch," Clara said later, when they'd stopped for coffee from the thermos. She was sitting on the cooler, his cap still on her head, her hands wrapped around the cup. "It's looking shabby."

"It's looked shabby for five years."

"Well, now I'm noticing." She took a sip, steam rising around her face. "Maybe yellow. Something cheerful."

"Yellow."

"What's wrong with yellow?"

"Nothing's wrong with yellow." Elias checked the nets again, though they didn't need checking. "I just didn't know we were the yellow porch type."

"We could be." She was quiet for a moment, watching the water. "Maybe when we're old, we'll sit on that yellow porch and watch our grandchildren play in the yard."

"We don't have grandchildren."

"Not yet." She looked at him over the rim of her cup, her eyes bright. "But someday. When we're old and slow and can't haul nets anymore."

"You'll never be slow."

"Not today. Today we're young and strong and beating the storm home."

That was when the wind changed.

It came from the north, sudden and cold, carrying the smell of rain. The water, so calm an hour before, began to ripple and shift. Above them, the gulls that had been circling scattered, their cries fading as they fled toward shore.

Elias and Clara looked at each other.

"We're going back," he said.

"Yes," she said.

No argument. No bravado. They'd been fishing these waters too long to be stupid about it. Clara was already securing the nets while Elias turned the boat, and the first drops of rain hit the deck as the engine roared to life.

The lighthouse was still visible, a gray finger pointing at the darkening sky. Elias fixed his eyes on it and opened the throttle.

The storm came fast.

One moment they were racing ahead of it, the next they were inside it, rain hammering the deck like fists. The wind screamed. The water rose in walls around them, the Clara Marie climbing each wave and slamming down the other side, shuddering with every impact.

"Hang on!" Elias shouted.

Clara was already hanging on, both hands locked on the rail, her jaw set, her eyes fixed on the horizon. His cap was gone, torn away by the wind.

Lightning split the sky. Thunder followed, so close it rattled his teeth.

The boat climbed another wave, this one taller, and for a moment they hung suspended at the top, the world nothing but gray water and white foam and the rain like needles against his skin.

Then they dropped.

The impact drove Elias to his knees. Water crashed over the bow, cold and brutal, filling his mouth and nose. He couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. The boat was rolling, tilting too far, and he grabbed for something, anything.

"Eli!"

He looked up and saw her at the rail. Saw the next wave coming. Saw her feet slip on the wet deck.

She fell over the side.

Elias moved without thinking. His hand shot out, caught her wrist, and for one impossible second he was holding her. Their eyes met.

She whispered his name.

"Eli."

The wave hit. It tore her away like she weighed nothing. Like she was made of paper. One moment her wrist was in his hand, solid and real and warm, and the next there was just water, just the rain and the foam and the empty space where she'd been.

"Clara!"

He couldn't see her. Couldn't see anything. The rain was a curtain, the waves were mountains, and Clara was gone.

Elias jumped over the rail. The water was so cold it stopped his heart. He went under, came up gasping, went under again. Salt in his mouth. In his lungs. Burning.

"Clara! Clara!"

Nothing. Just water. Just the roar of the wind and the crash of the waves and the cold seeping into his bones.

The lighthouse kept turning and he kept swimming. Kept searching. His arms were lead. His legs were stone. The water pulled at him, dragged him down, and he fought it because Clara was here somewhere, she had to be here, he'd just been holding her hand.

Voices. Shouting.

Hands grabbed him. Rough hands, pulling him up, hauling him over the side of a boat that wasn't his. He fought them, tried to push them away, but his body wouldn't work anymore. Wouldn't do what he told it to do.

"Clara," he tried to say.

Someone wrapped a blanket around him. Someone else was talking, words he couldn't understand. The world was tilting, spinning, and all he could see was the lighthouse beam sweeping past again and again and again.

"Where is she?" His voice sounded wrong. Distant. "Where is she?"

No one answered.

He tried to stand, but gentle, firm hands pushed him down. He looked toward the water, but there was nothing there. Just waves. Just darkness.

The lighthouse kept turning.