Remember Me – Part 5

Here’s The Whole Thing.

I watched her for long moments. I knew she’d rise soon, but would probably be gone before I got back. I bent and touched my lips to her cheek, flower petal soft, perfume sweet . I breathed her, inhaled her essence. Part of me panicked at the thought of her leaving.

She said so many strange things I didn’t understand. She believed with all her heart I knew her, knew her name. She believed if I said her name, eternity was ours.

Eternity with her. My eyes wandered the length of her body, nude and pure, beautiful, smooth, sensual, enticing. The dimness of pre-dawn couldn’t blanket her beauty. She lay on her stomach, torso rising and falling with her breath. Her voluptuous curves, the lines of her jaw and cheek, the way her hair played over the bedding — like a master’s painting, perfect, pristine, deliberate. I was overpowered by her, the very woman of her. I leaned and kissed her shoulder, and squeezed my eyes shut against the thought of losing her for lack of a name.

A single tear fell from my eye and splashed on her shoulder. I licked it from her, and her taste bloomed in my mouth.

She aroused me even while she slept, but something more stirred too. Emotion, as powerful as an ocean storm, as crushing, as relentless, as irresistible.

I loved her. Truly. With all my being. I loved her more than the sea, more than breath, more than life. I stood. I had to find a way. There was no alternative.

She stirred, blinked open her eyes, and without their ethereal glow they turned toward me. Her smile didn’t touch them, and faded like St. Elmo’s Fire in a moment.

“Are you leaving me?”

The accusation in the query wounded me. “I’ll be back soon. I promise, I’ll be back.”

She nodded. “I know. You promised before.”

“Didn’t I come back as I said?”

She lay silent.

“When I come home we can … I’ll …” I didn’t know what to tell her. That I would say her name? I didn’t know if I’d find it. That we’d be together forever? I didn’t know how. That I’d remember all she wanted me to? I didn’t know what it was. I had no idea how to finish the statement, and it hung like a fog between us for a second.

“When you come home,” she murmured, voice choked with sorrow. Her hand wiped a tear from her cheek, and one elegant finger hooked a rogue lock behind her ear. “When you come home.”

“Please … I’ll come home.”

Her eyes locked on mine. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Very much. I want to be with you forever.”

She was silent.

“I won’t be gone long.”

Silence.

“I will be back.”

She sighed, nodded. “Yes. Eventually, you come back.”

“Will you be at the cove tonight?”

Another regal nod. “I’m going to the kelp bed tonight.”

“Why? Why do you go there?”

“To wait for you.”

“Wait on the beach.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I sought you. I wanted to join you, be with you forever. So I go to the kelp bed.”

“I don’t … understand.”

She sighed again, like a breaker dying on the beach. “I know.”

“Please wait on the beach for me.”

“You’re afraid still. But I’m going to the kelp bed.”

I didn’t know what she meant by afraid still. “Don’t, please. The water’s too cold to swim.”

“It was colder the first time.”

“The first time?”

“Yes. Colder, darker. I went to wait for you.”

“On the night of the full moon, when I saw you in the cove?”

“No. On the night of the new moon. When I knew you’d left me. I went to be with you and waited at the kelp bed for you. I’m waiting for you.”

I was thoroughly lost in her mysterious words.

She sighed again, the sound of an ocean swell collapsing on the shore. “I never knew what happened. Maybe you were hurt. A head injury. Maybe that’s why you can’t remember.”

I tipped my head. Time I needed to find out who she was, her name, slipped through my fingers. But I couldn’t pull myself from her.

“I don’t … I’ve never had a head injury. I don’t … I don’t know what you’re telling me.”

“I know,” she sniffed, and wiped a second tear that followed the track of the first. “I just wish …”

I waited. “Wish what?”

“… I could do something to remind you. I’ve done everything I know how. I’ve let you go everywhere you wanted, do anything you wanted, given you all I have to give. And you don’t remember.”

I shook my head, confused, in agony at her sorrow. “What can I do? What can I say? How can I change your mind, convince you to stay? I want you with me, and want to be with you. I love you.”

She nodded, but the motion carried no conviction.

“I do. I love you. I’ve never loved anything so much as I love you.”

Her eyes locked on mine, head still on the pillow. “Do you? Really? I wonder. I’ve wondered for so long now, and you never remember.”

I hung my head. What could I say? She seemed convinced we’d met before, I should remember something, know her name.

“Tell me,” I said, voice low and gentle, “is it possible you’ve mistaken me for someone else? Perhaps I resemble him, perhaps … perhaps similar facial features, or … is it possible?”

She looked at me, the pale radiance back in her eyes, lighting the pillow around her face.

Her resolute voice dropped, its music weighty. “No. I’m not mistaken.” She paused, stared at me. “Do you think I’m mad? That you’ve been tricked by an insane woman?”

“No,” I said without hesitation. I don’t know why, but I was sure of the words. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy. I just …”

“You just don’t remember, and wondered if it was me, my lack, my error. No. It’s you — it’s always you, every year.”

“Every year?”

She nodded. “So many now. I hope, each time, you’ll remember. You never do, and I’ve given up trying to figure out why you’ve forgotten. How could you? With all you promised, all we shared — how could you forget?”

“What? What did we share, what did I promise?”

Her eyes closed, another tear danced over her lashes and down her cheek. She drew a deep breath and let it out slow and long.

“You promised eternity.”

The words hit me like a swinging ship’s boom. “Eternity?”

She nodded. “We shared … everything. Each other. You promised eternity.”

“How … when …?”

She sighed, eyes still closed. “You can’t remember now. How could the bond be real, the promise true? So much doubt … how can we share eternity when there’s so much doubt? You can’t remember.”

I wanted to — oh, I wanted to! I wrestled with my memory, struggled to find it, whatever she wanted, until my head ached.

“The sun is coming,” she said, eyes still closed. I didn’t know how she knew; the faint wee hour’s light hadn’t brightened much. I put my hand on her shoulder and she sighed again, a sorrowful, mourning wind on the open water.

“Before you leave me, know I love you. Please just know I love you, and always have. I always will.” Her hand found my chest and rested there. “You should go now. You haven’t much time.”

More mystery, confusion. Part of me wanted to stay, hold her, make her a prisoner in my embrace until today passed and dawn broke tomorrow. And she’d see, it didn’t need to be our last day, she didn’t need to tell me we couldn’t be together.

“Go now, before I lose the strength to let you leave.” Despair cracked her voice.

“I … I could stay.”

“You can’t. Go now. Do what you must.”

“When I come home …”

“When you come home,” her mouth caressed the words, as she might kiss a lover. “Those words … please, don’t speak them anymore. Go, leave me. It’s almost time. Hurry.”

She turned away. Then something … I felt her hand go cold on my skin. The smell of briny rot crept up, her skin faded, lost its tanned glow, turned sallow. Her soft sobs became choked gurgles, and I knew … I knew I’d see the hideous decaying corpse, so I stood and paced to the door, the stench of rotten sea water, putrescence, filled the air with each step. I heard water drip behind me, and knew.

I didn’t turn around. I went downstairs, through the living room, out the door. I didn’t turn back for fear of seeing her, the image of her, dead. And I wondered what caused that, what made me see her so horribly. Instead of questioning her sanity, I should question mine.

I went down the hill, and thoughts of how I might find her name hammered in my head.

I was gone much longer than I wanted. I made no progress with my task. I floundered in failure so complete, so utter, I couldn’t remember what I did. I didn’t know her name any more than when I bathed in her sorrow at first light. I’d lost most of what she called our last day. The sun languished in a pool of its own blood near the horizon. I wanted to scream at it, stop it from slipping further. Rage and frustration confounded me, mocked me, tormented me. I sprinted toward the bungalow, strained to get there sooner than before, even if only by minutes, to catch her, stop her, hold her. Keep her somehow.

I banged through the door and the darkened room answered my internal question: she was gone. I failed. I’d missed her — with her convinced this was our last day.

I screamed my furious rue at the ceiling, my fists shook at my sides, my throat strained. When the sound died flat in the empty house, tears stung my eyes with salt, and I dragged a savage wipe over them with my fist. I pounded the wall and the tiny Cape Cod’s frame rattled.

More senseless, useless time wasting. I knew where to find her, but didn’t know what to do. My dread grew at the thought of the cove. Something horrible, frightening, slithered up my spine. Would she already be swimming toward the kelp bed? A shiver twisted down my back at the image of frothed, foam-laced breakers tumbling up the beach.

I paced, hands on my head. Think, think! What can I do? How can I stop her from leaving? Think, damn you, think!

I raged past the coffee table between the worn sofas, my legs brushed the edge and rattled it. I glanced down, unfocused, uncaring.

The Lighthouse Mysteries and Legends book lay open on the table, covers spread to a full-page photo of the cove down the hill. The photo framed the lighthouse against one side, the cove’s edge jutted into the sea beyond. It was the exact view I had as I clambered nervously over the crag where the lighthouse perched sentinel.

My mind reeled, my brows knit. I sat on the couch in front of the book. I had precious few moments but could not ignore the short, concisely written story. It held me like gravity, pressed me to sit and read like the pressure of the ocean’s depths.

It was the story of the missing lighthouse keeper’s daughter. The very one I’d been eager to read when I bought the book two weeks ago.

The words hit me like bullets.

The lighthouse keeper and his wife lived in the beacon’s residence from when they were young. Their daughter was born in that house. She lived there her entire life. She grew up happy and nurtured, and spent most of her free time in the cove. She went to school, and eventually grew into a beautiful young woman. She watched ships come and go from port, and met many fascinating people. She learned to belly dance from foreign women who came from far away. She practiced without music on the beach for hours, and swam every day.

One day as she danced, a young sailor came to the beach and watched her. He told her about Middle East women who danced as she danced, told her she was more beautiful, more seductive than they by far. He spent hours with her, watching the sun set, watching the moon rise, watching her dance. They saw each other every day until he shipped out. But he always came back and stayed in the tiny port town, spending his time with her.

You already know my name. You always have.

They fell in love and became inseparable. They sparked envy among gossips and busybodies and their affair caused whispers in the tiny town. He went to sea and other sailors put in to port. So many asked her to marry them, but she declined them all. She belonged to someone, and waited for his return. And when at last he did return, they spent their days dancing, watching the ocean and the moon. Finally, when his love for her couldn’t be denied anymore, he bought a house in the tiny port town, not far from the cove where the lighthouse stands.

One night under a full moon on the beach, he asked her to marry him. He had no ring, but promised when he came home, they would be married.

You promised eternity.

He was to ship out two weeks later, on the eve of the new moon. They spent those weeks together, but few townspeople saw them. The rumors grew. Where did they go? What did they do? How did they spend those days, those nights, before he left?

It’s our last night together.

He promised a wedding when he returned. When he came home.

The morning he shipped out, she stood on the dock and waved until his vessel disappeared beyond the horizon. She ignored the whispers and disparaging looks from other women seeing sailors off. She didn’t care. She only wanted him.

But the port received a distress call from the ill-fated vessel that night, cut off short. No further transmissions received. The ship didn’t respond to signals from land and was never heard from again. That night an extensive search embarked. Coast guard ships traced the route. They returned after dawn, with grim news.

All hands lost.

Wives found out first, but she wasn’t his wife. It took time for word to reach her. She found out just before sunset, when widows of crewmen came to the lighthouse keeper’s door in veils and black clothes, wailing and mourning. They asked for her; she was on the beach, dancing. The widows found her and told her she’d lost her lover. They accused her of being a whore. They dumped the sorrow of their own tragedies on her. They spoke the things they kept as whispers before, and left her in the cove to mourn alone.

She stared out to sea from the beach. The lighthouse keeper and his wife watched her, but left her alone to grieve.

They never saw her again.

There, the story in the book ended with a series of questions. What became of her? What happened to the ship, caused it to go down with no further communications? But I lost interest in it and slammed the book shut.

On the night of the new moon. When I knew you’d left me. I went to be with you and waited at the kelp bed for you. I’m waiting for you.

The story wasn’t in the “Legends” section of the book as I thought, though. It was under the “Mysteries” section.

Because it was real, documented, true.

No one knew where she went. But I remembered her state the night before — the eve of the new moon — so quiet, still, catatonic, despondent.

The lighthouse keeper’s daughter.

You’ve always liked to watch me dance, haven’t you?

Yes, the lighthouse is someone’s home. Let’s go there before the sun comes.

The lighthouse keeper’s daughter!

She told me she already knew my name … that I knew hers, but couldn’t remember.

She must be! How else to explain her actions, her words? She’s the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, and she believes I’m —

She disappeared the night of the new moon.

Tonight is the night of the new moon.

So sad, so tortured, such pain … she’s reliving her loss.

I went to be with you and waited at the kelp bed for you. I’m waiting for you.

I bolted for the door. If she isn’t the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, she thinks she is. But insanity didn’t ring true, didn’t explain her mystical rise from the sea that full moon night. It didn’t explain how her flesh — so real to the touch — was clammy and wet, or the images of her as a cadaver with glazed eyes, scavengers feasting on the tender flesh in her mouth, the stench of death and rot on her, the kelp.

The kelp. In her hair.

I started down the hill, fighting the idea of making love to a dead woman — being in love with a dead woman, so much I couldn’t let her go — then realized I left the book in the house. I wanted to show her, ask her, to know for sure if it was her. Did she leave it for me to find, to read? Why did she think I was the lost sailor? I’m not — that’s why I don’t remember her name, or their love affair, or engagement. I can’t remember those things because I’m not him. But I love her, as much as he did perhaps, and want her to stay.

I skidded to a halt, arms wind milling, one eye on the dying sun. I wheeled to face the house, and froze. My blood ran cold.

The house was nothing but a shell.

Boards covered gaping window holes, paint cracked and spider-webbed on molded siding, fell off in huge flakes and chunks. The roof sagged, shingles fell into ragged black pits. The porch lay broken off, planks nailed helter-skelter over the front door that dangled from broken hinges. Missing clapboards exposed rotted supports in the ancient frame.

It was completely dilapidated, as if no one had been there in decades.

I went to the door, confused. My home … in an instant, aged to decrepit ruins.

How?

I peered between silver-aged boards across the door frame, the door I just came through.

Dust sheathed the charcoal, ashen, hollow, empty house.

When I knew you’d left me.

It can’t be. It can’t be!

I dashed for the cove, my heartbeat a merciless throb, my head raced to understand, grasp. It can’t be!

I flung myself down the hill, across quaint streets. The slope took me to the wedge of forest which embraced the cove, and I pounded through it and erupted on the other side as the sun splashed orange in the west and azure in the east.

She danced on the beach, cloaked in shadows and impending nightfall. Even from this distance her body undulated like the sea behind her. They seemed one beautiful creature then, the swells causing her midriff to ripple. She danced with arms overhead, her hands played in the air, as she learned from those exotic dancers so many decades ago.

Eight decades ago.

She danced on the beach, and I watched her, as real as I am, as real as —

— as I was?

I can’t remember anything before the two weeks I’ve spent with her. I don’t know how I spend my days. I can’t say where I go, have no recollection of my doings.

As real as I am.

I threw myself forward. I saw her finish her beautiful, alluring dance, head tipped skyward, hands held above her in a graceful pose. The light from her eyes beamed bright as the stars blinked into view above her, as if her dance beckoned them forth.

I dashed on, but she lowered her arms, then head, and turned toward the surf that crashed and wallowed before her.

One step, another. White foam raced around her ankles and up her calves.

I shouted, at the top of my lungs. I don’t know her name, couldn’t shout her name. I shouted “I love you” instead.

It worked. She stopped, and I ran on. I bounded through sandy dunes, breathless, and stopped at the water line. The panicky dread seized me short of the tumbling waves.

High tide. New moon.

“I love you,” I panted again.

She opened her eyes, and they burned with their own luminescence, like miniature lighthouse beacons. Their light fell on the beach, obscured her face, pierced me. Again my blood ran cold. But I couldn’t rip my gaze from her.

“Every year we go through this. Every year.”

“Are you …?” I put my hands on my knees, gulped down air.

“You know who I am. You found the book.”

“Yes.”

“You read it.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know. That’s different than before — the book. I thought maybe it would help. It’s the same every year.”

“For eighty years.” I straightened. Her white-amber eyes blinded me.

“Yes. For eighty years. Do you remember? Do you know my name?”

I hesitated.

“You don’t. It didn’t help. I have to go to wait for you again.”

“NO! Please! Don’t go!”

She turned again. The water foamed at her knees now. I wanted to go to her, hold her, but … adrenaline shot through me and my palms slicked with sweat when I thought of approaching the water.

“Please!” I called. “Please, I’m begging you! Tell me your name! I’ll say it! I’ll say it!”

“I can’t. You have to remember. Remember you loved me, remember your desire for me, for always. If you can’t, it wasn’t real. There’s doubt. Love can’t survive in doubt. There must be no doubt.”

“Please … please, I love you … don’t you see?”

She nodded and her eerie eye-lights bobbed in the dark. “I know you do now. Because you fell in love with me during our time. But you must remember.”

“What if I’m not him? What if I’m not??”

Water foamed at her waist when she turned again. “Where were you born?”

I opened my mouth to answer. I … I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember anything before I met her.

“You see? What were your parents’ names?”

I groped my mind, strained for answers. There were none.

“What is my name?” The tone of her bell-voice changed again, a minor note, a sad song. “Just say my name, and we can be together forever.”

My foggy mind swirled with images … all of them her. All of them since the full moon. Our night in the lighthouse, our times here in the cove, in the house … nothing before she walked out of the sea.

She stared at me, cocked her head.

“You don’t remember.”

I tried to step forward and a wave frothed at my shoes. My heart slammed to a stop and I leaped back, a small cry escaped me.

“Do you still deny the truth?” she called, gentle and warm. “You’re still afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Yes, afraid. Afraid of the ocean that took you from me.”

My jaw worked, nothing came out.

“The ocean took you by force. You must have been afraid when you died. You never come near the water. Every year I try to get you to swim with me like we used to, but you won’t. Every year for 80 years. You’re afraid of the water.”

“I’m not … I wasn’t …” Another wave chased me farther up the sand. My pulse quickened. I looked back at her, and breakers tossed and rumbled at her chest now.

“Just say my name,” she spoke, and the music of her voice hypnotized me. “Just say my name, and we can be together for all eternity.”

My helpless tears answered her.

“I wanted to believe mine was the last name on your lips, just as yours was on mine. But until you can remember, I’ll never know for sure, and we can’t be together. Love can’t survive under doubt. Don’t you see?”

I watched her moonbeam eyes, her body unaffected by the tide and waves crashing over her shoulders. She stood still, as if on land, and gazed at me.

She was more beautiful than the sea, more beautiful than the moonlight that drizzled lovingly over her that first night, more beautiful than the music she danced to. She was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen.

She turned away, and her sorrow pierced me.

I bit my lip hard, so hard it bled, and plunged into the waves after her.

Images swirled over me, through me, in me. Images of something, the walls of a house — no, a ship — a ship’s bulkhead. It rocketed toward me, because the boat capsized, and tossed me like a pebble in an empty can. I remember a calendar fell off the wall and flailed and flapped like a frightened bird. Someone screaming, not me, but someone. I remembered the world stopped, went blue and green, cold … bubbles, rays of light spearing jade depths … cold, so cold.

And a name, the last thing in my mind was a name, and I screamed it now, splashed against the surf and screamed it, unable to see her, unable to stand.

I hoped it was her name.

— End —