Note- Stand-alone story but for further enjoyment, please consider Renovator's Delight, A Delightful Renovation, and A Million to One to expound upon the storyline.
*
The man reached out and offered his hand as I climbed from the ship onto the dock, his eyes brushing across the pale skin on my ring finger where the wedding band had so recently been. Relieved when he didn't refer to it.
"Mayhew?" I questioned.
"As far as I can recall," he laughed, baring a fine set of white teeth, stark, surrounded by such tanned and weather-beaten skin. "Welcome to the island Briggs."
"Dan's fine," I smiled, happy to have my feet back upon terra firma, the two-hour boat trip from Catalina having done its best to dissuade me from taking up a job on the high seas any time soon.
"Then Dan it is," Mayhew grinned as he set to retrieve supplies ready to be handed from the crew of the ship. I joined the work and after roughly fifteen minutes of labor, Mayhew turned his attention back to me. "Right. Let's show you the ropes."
*
It was, as far as I was concerned at the time, the perfect job. Twelve months as caretaker of a lighthouse on an island off the coast of California. Yes, I was running away. From a job. From an ex-wife. But ultimately from a life that I no longer wanted to live. And where better than an isolated island, away from everyone and everything? Away from the clamor of traffic. The noise of humanity and the constant distraction of social media. And as we climbed the long staircase that led up from the dock and I breathed in the unpolluted sea air, felt the crisp breeze of the Pacific upon my face. I knew I'd made the right decision.
"Right, there She is," Mayhew gestured toward the lighthouse as we crossed a lawned area between the cliffs and the buildings, needlessly pointing out the towering monolith that dominated the small island. "She's set and forget now," he continued. "Basically, runs herself. Not like in the old days. Gets 'er power from the mains and if that cuts out, she'll switch herself to the solar battery," he pointed a wiry but muscled arm toward solar panels at the base of the tower. "That fails, is where you come in. There's a generator 'round the back of 'er. We'll head up after I show you around the residence."
The 'residence' was more than I'd envisaged. Modern inside, though retaining the original heritage exterior, and Mayhew noted my surprise.
"Yep, it's been renovated," he divulged. "Couple before me in fact. Brother and sister, if you can believe. Strange they were. Sort of, out of their time if you understand what I'm saying."
I didn't but I allowed him to continue regardless.
"Island'll do that to you if you let it. Change you. Though something tells me they were like that before they came here," he looked off into space a moment and I could only imagine his thoughts. He was older than me, considerably. But I felt I would've struggled to put an age to him accurately if asked. It was then he looked once more at my ring finger. "Just recent, I gather?"
Instinctively I clutched at my left hand, the missing ring and the remembrance of taking it off. Throwing it at 'her' in the divorce settlement hearing. Immature I knew. But understandable in response to her calculatedly vicious demands.
"A couple of months," I admitted.
"So, you'll be alone here?" He questioned and I confirmed, the information drawing a long intake of breath from the older man, just as slow a release. "Island can be a lonely place," he revealed, slowly nodding his head as he searched my eyes. "Let's head up to the light."
*
The view from the top was nothing short of awe-inspiring. The whole of the island stretched out below, the vastness of the ocean in every direction, no sight of land only white caps in a field of never-ending blue.
"Yep, she'll do that to ya!" Mayhew acknowledged my reverence to the beauty, his eyes remaining on me as he frowned. "A year here alone. This island can change a man Briggs," he repeated his earlier assertion. "Two things'll either happen. Man finds himself..."
"Or?" I smirked.
"...he loses his mind."
*
I was thankful I'd only signed a short-term lease on my apartment back in L.A. Accepting the loss of pre-paid rent a cost of healing my mental health. The few valuables that hadn't been taken by Linda in the divorce, I intended to store at my mother's, and it was then, as I packed the trunk with some vinyl records and electronic equipment, that I wondered how I'd indeed tell her?
The correspondence with the Coast Guard and Mayhew himself was conducted over only two weeks and in the intervening time of learning I'd been successful; I'd not talked with Mom. She knew nothing about the job and more importantly the time I'd be away. Just over a year since the death of my father, there was no good time to break the news she'd be losing her son for an extended time as well, albeit in a not-so-fatal manner.
*
Unsurprisingly, knowing her stoic nature, she took the news relatively well.
"It's undoubtedly an opportunity of a lifetime," she embraced me as I detailed the job. "I'm happy for you, really," she emphasized before she hurriedly turned away, the rinsing of her coffee mug all of a sudden, a priority. It was then I knew I was mistaken.
"Mom?" I questioned and she refused to look back in my direction. "What are you doing?"
"What? Nothing," her voice broke and I approached her from behind, reaching out to place a hand upon the arm of her hoodie. "I'm just being silly," she turned and her eyes had filled with tears.
"Mom," I struggled to find the right words to placate her.
"I'm just going to miss you is all," she managed to force a smile, and fighting off sympathy tears myself; I once again took her in my arms. This time the embrace was closer. Possibly too close as I felt her breasts pressing against my chest, the even more uncomfortable feeling of my penis nudging her pelvis.
"It's only a year," I stupidly stated and immediately thought of the fact Dad had only a year after his diagnosis. Probably not the best analogy. "There's a phone line on the island. We'll still be in touch," I offered, immediately feeling guilt at how little contact I'd had with her over the previous months anyway. The divorce had dominated my life and even knowing the grieving process she was going through concurrently; I'd chosen to focus on myself.
"I know," she sniffed as she broke the embrace, lifting a hand and using her sleeve to wipe her eyes. "As I said, I'm just being silly."
"No. No, you're not," I told her, seeing her as a human being for the first time in a long time, not just my mom. "You've been through as much shit as anyone over the last year," I declared. "If anyone deserves to run away, it's you," essentially admitting to her I was indeed fleeing my life and problems.
It then came to me, and I was speaking faster than I was thinking.
"I know," I straightened. "Why don't you come?"
"What?"
"Come with me?" I offered before I'd even the chance to think through the proposal. "To the island."
She was shaking her head, a furrow coming to her brow but I noticed the tears had dried.
"What are you talking about? It's impossible."
"No, it's not," I disagreed. "They expect a partner to accompany the applicant. There're provisions provided."
"I can't," Mom declared.
"You can!" I countered, smiling.
"But what about my..." She seemed to be struggling to find a reason to stay. "...I mean I have tennis on Saturday and next week I'm meet..." she abandoned her list of commitments mid-sentence. "I have no reason not to, do I?" She admitted and I shook my head. "Could I?"
"Why not?" I smiled. "It'd just take a phone call to let them know two would be on the boat," I pulled out my phone. "I could do it now."
She took a moment. Biting her bottom lip as she contemplated the offer.
"One year. On an island in the middle of the ocean. Just the two of us," she detailed the reality in three short sentences and I began to wonder if I'd made the right decision. Would it work? I hadn't lived with her under the same roof in more than fifteen years. We'd be in constant close contact. Forced to share everything, every day, with little to no privacy. Suddenly, selfishly, I wondered if it was too late to take it back?
And then I saw her smile. A brightness I hadn't seen in a very long time.
"I'll do it!" She beamed.
"You will?"
"Yes!" She approached and for the third time that morning we were embracing, her arms up around my neck, a surprising kiss beside my lips. Too close to my lips. The scent of perfume in her hair, the softness of her body against my own... I was glad when the hug ended.
*
I almost didn't recognize her.
"What's with the hair?" I smiled as she left the house.
"Oh," I saw her blush and she ran a finger across her bangs to brush her now short hair behind an ear. "I had it cut. Just to be more manageable."
The style was unlike her. A short bob that reminded me of flapper girls from the roaring twenties.
"It looks good," I admitted as I took her last bag from the porch and loaded it into the back of the cab, and again, she blushed. Very unlike her. "Right, all set?"
"Ready when you are Captain," she smiled and we were away.
Taxi from L.A. to the port. The ferry from Terminal Island to Catalina and the Coast Guard Cutter to take us due west, past San Nicolas to Caster Island. Our home for the next year.
A light rain, more a mist, settled in as we hit the open water and I left the bridge, finding Mom leaning against the railing looking overboard. Her face turning in my direction as I approached, her deathly pale complexion told me she wasn't handling the waves.
