Chapter 17: Christmas

The snow came on Christmas Eve. Not the heavy coastal snow of a nor'easter but the light, dry, interior snow that occasionally found its way to the coast, the flakes small and sharp, the accumulation slow, and by midnight there were two inches on the ground and the point was white, the granite path white, the tower white against a white sky, the keeper's house white under a white blanket, and the distinction between the structure and the landscape dissolved, the buildings becoming part of the ground, the ground becoming part of the sky, everything white, everything continuous, the world simplified to one color and one temperature and one condition, which was winter, which was December, which was the coast of Maine at the end of the year.

Eamon stood on the porch at midnight and looked at the snow. The flakes were still falling, small, distinct, each one visible in the porch light, each one a crystal, a structure, a geometry of ice so precise that it seemed designed, seemed engineered, seemed made rather than formed, and the making was the atmosphere doing what the atmosphere did, the water vapor condensing on particles of dust and freezing and crystallizing, the physics producing the beauty, the beauty a byproduct of the physics, the way the spectrum on the walls of the lantern room was a byproduct of the Fresnel lens, the beauty not the purpose but the consequence, the thing that happened while the system was doing its work.

Patrick was inside. He had arrived that afternoon, the Subaru coming up the road with the headlights cutting the early dark, the car pulling into the yard, and Patrick getting out with a duffel bag and a box of gifts and the slightly wary expression of a man who was coming home to a home that was changing, that was not the home he remembered, the home he remembered being a place where his mother made bread and his father climbed the tower and the routine was the routine and the structure was sound, and the home he was returning to was a place where the routine had been adjusted and the structure was stressed and the mother who made the bread now sometimes forgot the salt and sometimes forgot the name of the thing she put the salt in and sometimes forgot the name of the son she was making the bread for.

But the arrival had been good. Nora had met him at the door and known him and hugged him and said, "You're thin," as she always said, and Patrick had said, "I'm the same as always," as he always said, and the script was the script and the script held and the holding was the gift, the Christmas gift, the present that arrived before the presents under the tree, which was a small tree, a balsam fir that Eamon had cut from the stand of firs at the back of the point, a tree four feet tall that sat in a bucket of water in the sitting room with lights and ornaments that Nora had collected over forty years, each ornament a year, a memory, a marker, and she had hung them with care, with attention, remembering most of them, knowing the stories of most of them — this one from Patrick's first Christmas, this one from the trip to Nova Scotia, this one made by a student, a ceramic star painted with glitter that had mostly fallen off but the shape remained, the star recognizable, the making of it a memory that Nora held.

They had eaten dinner — the Christmas Eve dinner that was Nora's tradition, the chowder and the bread and the pie, the same meal, the same menu, the same recipes, the tradition as fixed as the log format, as the lens cleaning schedule, as the fog signal pattern, the tradition the structure, the structure the safety, the safety the thing that Christmas provided, the thing that all rituals provided, which was the illusion of permanence, the feeling that this has happened before and will happen again and the happening is the proof that the world continues.

And the dinner had been good. Nora had made the chowder correctly, completely, from memory that was deep enough to survive the erosion, the recipe in the hands rather than the mind, the technique below the level where the disease was working, and the chowder was her chowder, was the chowder that Patrick had eaten every Christmas Eve since he was old enough to eat chowder, and the bread was from the new starter and the bread was good, was different but good, and Patrick ate it and said nothing about the difference because Patrick was his father's son and his father's son noticed the difference and did not mention it.

Now it was midnight and Patrick was inside and Nora was in bed and Eamon was on the porch in the snow, and the snow was falling and the silence was the silence of snow, the particular silence that snow created, the muffling, the dampening, the world wrapped in white cotton, the sharp sounds softened, the hard edges rounded, and the silence was a comfort, was a blanket, was the quiet that the world sometimes offered when the world was not indifferent but was, briefly, kind.

He went inside. Patrick was in the sitting room, by the tree, in the chair that was Eamon's chair, and the sitting in Eamon's chair was not presumption but inheritance, the son in the father's chair, the generation occupying the space that the previous generation would eventually vacate, and Eamon sat in Nora's chair, across from his son, and they looked at the tree.

"She's worse," Patrick said.

"She's different."

"Dad."

"She's worse. Yes."

"The chowder was good."

"The chowder is always good. The chowder is the last thing that will go."

"That's not funny."

"It's not a joke. The things she learned earliest are the things she keeps longest. The chowder, the bread, the knitting. The deep skills. The things in the hands."

Patrick was quiet. The tree lights blinked in their pattern, the pattern that the string of lights repeated, red green blue yellow red green blue yellow, the cycle continuous, the lights doing what the lights did, which was cycle, which was repeat, which was the thing that lights did when they were on a string and connected to a timer and the timer was the mechanism and the mechanism was the cycle and the cycle was the pattern.

"I visited Harbor Hill last week," Patrick said.

"You went to Rockland."

"I went to Rockland. I drove up from Woods Hole and visited the facility and drove back."

"Without telling me."

"I'm telling you now."

"You could have told me before."

"You would have told me not to go."

This was true. Eamon would have told him not to go because the going made it real, made it a step in a process that had steps, and the steps led to a destination, and the destination was the place where Nora would live and the place where Nora would not live, the two places, the keeper's house and Harbor Hill, and the distance between them was twenty-three miles on Route 1 and a lifetime in every other measurement.

"Tell me about it," Eamon said.

Patrick told him. Harbor Hill was a renovated Victorian on a hill above Rockland Harbor. It had twelve beds, twelve residents, a staff of nurses and aides trained in memory care. The rooms were private. The rooms had windows. The rooms looked out at the harbor or the garden, and the garden was maintained by the residents who could still garden and by the staff who gardened for the residents who could not, and the gardening was therapeutic, was purposeful, was not the busywork of an institution but the real work of growing things, and the growing was the therapy, was the maintenance, was the doing that kept the self alive.

The kitchen was open. The residents who could cook were encouraged to cook, were supported in cooking, the recipes simplified, the steps supervised, the independence maintained as long as the independence could be maintained, and when the independence could no longer be maintained the supervision increased, and the increase was gradual, was incremental, was the adjustment, the recalibration, the same adjustment that Eamon had made in his own house, the same shifting of the schedule, the same widening of the watch, the same tightening of the circle.

"It's not what you think," Patrick said.

"You don't know what I think."

"I know what you think because I thought the same thing. I thought linoleum and fluorescent lights and wheelchairs and a television on the wall. I thought institution. I thought facility. And it's not. It's a house. It's a house with staff. It's a house where she would have her own room and her own things and people who know what they're doing."

"I know what I'm doing."

"You know how to maintain a lighthouse."

"I know how to take care of my wife."

"Those are not the same skill set."

"They're the same discipline."

Patrick leaned forward in the chair, Eamon's chair, the son in the father's chair, the generation in the space, and the leaning was earnest, was urgent, was the body expressing what the words were failing to express, the lean of a man who was trying to reach his father across a distance that was not physical but structural, the distance between two men who loved the same woman and disagreed about what the love required.

"Dad. She didn't know you. In November. She looked at you and asked who you are. Colleen told me."

"Colleen talks too much."

"Colleen loves you both. And she's scared. She told me she's scared."

"Everyone is scared. Being scared is not a plan."

"Harbor Hill is a plan."

"Harbor Hill is a surrender."

"Harbor Hill is an adaptation."

The word again. Dr. Mehta's word. The word that meant the adjustment, the recalibration, the changing of the system to meet the changed conditions. The word that sounded reasonable, sounded clinical, sounded like the rational response to an irrational situation, the word that said: the world has changed and you must change with it, the conditions have changed and the routine must change, the lighthouse has been decommissioned and the keeper must accept the decommissioning.

"I promised your mother I would talk about this after Christmas," Eamon said.

"It's after midnight. It's Christmas."

"It's Christmas Eve. Christmas is tomorrow. And tomorrow we will eat dinner and open presents and be a family and we will not talk about Harbor Hill at the Christmas dinner table. We will talk about it on Friday. After you leave."

"I'm not leaving until we talk about it."

"Then you'll be here until Friday."

Patrick sat back in the chair. The tree lights blinked. The snow fell outside the window, visible in the porch light, the flakes still small, still sharp, still falling.

"All right," Patrick said. "Friday."

"Friday."

"But Dad — think about it. Between now and Friday. Think about what's best for her. Not what's easiest for you. What's best for her."

The distinction was a knife. The distinction cut between the two things that Eamon had believed were the same thing — what was best for Nora and what Eamon could provide — and the cutting separated them, laid them apart, showed the gap between them, the gap that was the difference between a man's capacity and a woman's need, the gap that was growing as the capacity stayed the same and the need increased.

"I think about what's best for her every minute of every day," Eamon said.

"I know you do."

"Every minute. When I'm in the tower, I'm thinking about her. When I'm cleaning the lens, I'm thinking about her. When I'm writing the log, I'm thinking about her. She is the lighthouse, Patrick. She is the thing I maintain. She is the thing I keep."

Patrick looked at his father. The looking was the looking of a son who was seeing his father for the first time, not as a father but as a man, the man behind the father, the man who climbed the stairs and cleaned the lens and kept the log and did all of it, all of the maintaining and the keeping and the watching and the writing, did all of it for a woman, for a marriage, for a love that expressed itself through maintenance because maintenance was the only language the man spoke fluently.

"I know," Patrick said. "I know she is."

They sat by the tree. The snow fell. The house was quiet. Nora was sleeping upstairs, in the bed, in the room, in the house on the point, and the snow was covering the point and the tower and the house and the world, and the covering was white, was silent, was the world's blanket, and underneath the blanket the point was the point and the tower was the tower and the house was the house and the woman was sleeping and the son was in the father's chair and the father was in the mother's chair and the tree was blinking and the night was Christmas Eve and the morning would be Christmas and the morning would bring the presents and the dinner and the family and the pretending that everything was the same, the pretending that was not lying but hoping, the hoping that was the human version of the fog signal, the sound sent out into the dark, into the unknown, the sound that said: here, here, here, we are here, we are still here.

Christmas morning. Nora woke and Eamon was there and the recognition was immediate, was a gift, the first gift, the gift that preceded the gifts under the tree, and she said, "Merry Christmas, Eamon," and he said, "Merry Christmas," and the names were correct and the morning was solid and the day could be built.

They opened presents. Small things, practical things — a scarf Nora had knitted for Patrick, blue, the blue of the bay in summer, the blue of her eyes. A book for Nora, a novel she had not read, or had read and did not remember, and the possibility of either was the gift, the newness guaranteed by the forgetting. A new chamois for Eamon, from Patrick, who understood that the chamois was not a rag but an instrument, and the giving of the chamois was a recognition, an acknowledgment, an honoring of the work that the chamois did.

They ate dinner at noon. The turkey — small, a twelve-pounder, because three people did not need a larger turkey — and the stuffing and the potatoes and the cranberry sauce, the menu as fixed as the Christmas Eve menu, the menu as fixed as the keeper's routine, and Nora made the dinner, made all of it, the turkey and the stuffing and the potatoes and the cranberry sauce, and the making was correct, was complete, was the full deployment of the skills that resided in her hands, the skills that the disease had not reached, and the dinner was good, was excellent, was the best meal of the year, and they ate it at the kitchen table in the light of the brass lamp and the candles that Nora had placed on the table, the candles that she placed every Christmas, the same candleholders, the same white candles, the same positions on the table, the tradition the structure, the structure the safety.

"This is perfect," Patrick said.

"It's just dinner," Nora said.

"It's not just dinner. It's your dinner. It's Christmas dinner. It's the best thing."

Nora smiled. The smile was the smile of a woman who had been told she was needed, who had been told that the thing she did mattered, who had been told that the making of the dinner was not just dinner but was love, was the oldest form of love, the feeding, the nourishing, the sustaining of the people she loved through the food she made with her hands.

They ate the pie — blueberry, the last of the August berries from the freezer, the same berries that Patrick had eaten as a boy, the berries that had made him sick in the car, the berries that Eamon had cleaned from the upholstery without a word, and the pie was good, the pie was the same, the pie was the constant.

In the afternoon, they walked the point. The three of them, Eamon and Nora and Patrick, walking the path to the rocks, the path covered in snow, the footprints of the three of them marking the white surface, three sets of tracks, three sizes, the family's passage recorded in the snow the way the family's passage was recorded in the log, each entry a mark, each mark a day, each day a step on the path.

The bay was gray under a white sky. The snow had stopped but the sky was still heavy, still full, and the light was the flat white light of a cloud-covered winter day, and the bay was empty of boats, the lobster season over, the harbor quiet, and the lighthouse stood on the point in the snow and the tower was white and the snow was white and the tower and the snow were the same color, the same whiteness, the tower part of the winter, the tower part of the landscape, the tower as permanent as the granite it was built from and as temporary as the snow that covered it.

They stood at the end of the point, at the flat ledge, the ledge covered in snow, and they looked at the water, the three of them, the family, and the water was dark and the sky was white and the snow was on the rocks and the bay was wide and the distance was visible, the distance between the point and the islands, the distance between the coast and the horizon, the distance between the present and the future, and the distances were real and the distances were unmeasurable and the distances were what they were.

Nora reached for Eamon's arm. She took it. She held it. Her hand in the crook of his elbow, the grip familiar, the weight of her hand familiar, and Patrick was on her other side, and she took his arm too, and she stood between them, between the husband and the son, held by both, holding both, the woman at the center, the light at the center, the lens at the center that gathered the light from both sides and focused it and sent it forward, and the forward was the future and the future was uncertain and the uncertainty was the weather and the weather was what it was, and they stood on the rocks in the snow and looked at the water and the water did not care about their looking and the water did not care about their love and the water did not care about their fear, and the not-caring was not cruelty but indifference, and the indifference was the world, and the world was the thing they lived in, and the living was the keeping, and the keeping was the standing on the rocks in the snow with the arms held and the eyes looking and the water moving and the light, what little light the shortest days provided, the light that was returning, one minute at a time.

"I love this place," Nora said.

"I know," Eamon said.

"Don't let me forget it."

The sentence was a command and a plea and a prayer and a keeper's instruction, the instruction to maintain, to preserve, to keep the thing alive through daily attention, and the thing was not the place but the memory of the place, not the lighthouse but the knowing of the lighthouse, not the bay but the seeing of the bay, and the instruction was impossible, was beyond his capacity, was the one maintenance task he could not perform, the one keeping he could not keep, and he heard the instruction and he accepted it and he knew he could not fulfill it and he said, "I won't."

They walked back. The three sets of footprints in the snow, going and returning, the path marked, the passage recorded, the family's movement through the winter afternoon inscribed on the white surface of the world, and the inscription would melt, would disappear, would be erased by the next snow or the next thaw, and the erasure was the condition, and the condition was the world, and the world was what it was.

Patrick left on Friday. Before he left, they talked. They talked in the sitting room, Eamon and Patrick, while Nora was in the kitchen, and the talking was the talking that Patrick had wanted, the talking about Harbor Hill, and Eamon listened and Patrick spoke and the speaking was careful, was prepared, was the presentation of a case that Patrick had been building for months, and the case was strong, and the case was accurate, and the case was the truth.

"Will you visit?" Eamon said.

"Every weekend."

"It's a four-hundred-mile drive."

"I'll drive it."

"And I'll be here. On the point. Without her."

"You'll be here. And she'll be in Rockland. Twenty-three miles. You can see her every day."

"It won't be the same."

"No. It won't be the same."

They shook hands. The grip said what it always said. Patrick drove away. The Subaru went down the road and the taillights disappeared and the road was empty and the snow was on the road and the tracks of the tires were in the snow and the tracks would fill and the filling would erase the evidence and the evidence would be gone.

Eamon went to the tower. He climbed the seventy-two steps. He sat at the desk. He opened the log. He wrote:

1500. Overcast. NW 5. Temp 26. Barometer 30.10. Snow 3 inches. P. Bryce departed. All systems satisfactory. Harbor Hill discussion begun.

He closed the log. He sat at the desk. The brass lamp was burning. The office was warm from the lamp and from the heat rising through the stairwell from the ground floor, the warmth of the house migrating into the tower through the covered walkway, the two structures sharing their heat the way they shared their keeper, and the keeper sat at the desk and looked at the barometer on the wall, the Negretti & Zambra, the repaired barometer, the instrument that measured pressure and displayed the measurement as a number on a dial, and the number was 30.10, and the number meant fair weather, and the weather was fair, and the lighthouse was satisfactory, and the keeper was at his desk, and the log was written, and the discussion was begun.