The Lighthouse Keeper Read online

  REVIEWERS REJOICE OVER JAMES

  MICHAEL PRATT’S

  THE LAST VALENTINE

  “Get out your box of tissues, and rid yourself of all distractions because once you pick up this book, you will not put it down … Fans of The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks will enjoy this book.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Pratt’s debut novel, like Casablanca, tugs at the heart and brings out the hankies. Sincere, heartfelt.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Interesting and moving … Readers will be eager to learn how it all ends … [A] sweet, nostalgic story.”

  —Library Journal

  “Love is given a new dimension in the author’s tale of one family’s deep devotion. [THE LAST VALENTINE] will take the reader back to the first time he or she loved and will promise secrets of love that can last forever.”

  —South Idaho Press

  “Heart-wrenching but triumphant … besides the love story, its message is the importance of love, of God, helping others, and the secret of happiness.”

  —The Daily Herald (Provo, UT)

  “Pratt captures the heart of the reader from the beginning and tugs at the heartstrings throughout the novel.”

  —Desert Mailer News (Lancaster, CA)

  “Pratt lets his story do the talking and ends up touching the reader’s heart … If you are a romantic, you will want to read this story … there is a magic to it that will touch you. Just as THE CHRISTMAS BOX found an audience, this story should do the same.”

  —The Daily Sun (Robins Warner, GA)

  ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES

  BY JAMES MICHAEL PRATT

  THE LAST VALENTINE

  THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

  THE

  LIGHTHOUSE

  KEEPER

  JAMES MICHAEL

  PRATT

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Lyric excerpts from “Cheek to Cheek” by Irving Berlin © Copyright 1935 by Irving Berlin © Copyright Renewed. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

  Excerpt from Here is Your War by Ernie Pyle, Copyright © 1943, © 1971 by Henry Holt and Company. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

  Copyright © 2000 by James Michael Pratt.

  Excerpt from Ticket Home copyright © 2001 by James Michael Pratt.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-055533

  ISBN: 0-312-97469-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / February 2000

  St Martin’s Paperbacks edition / February 2001

  St. Martin’s Paperback titles are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedicated to the memory of the man who inspired this

  story, Grant L. Pratt Sr., my father, and soldier of the

  First Armored Division, “Old Ironsides,” campaigns in

  North Africa and Italy during World War II.

  The example he set before me guides my steps

  and lights my path to this day.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I WOULD like to express my gratitude to the memory of men who have so fully lived with “light” that they have ever been an inspiration to me through the years. The inspiration I have gained from knowing them directly influenced the message of this book.

  First, with grateful appreciation and in memory of the strength and character of a youthful friend, Michael Alan Carlisle, who surrendered his life in the service of others in San Salvador in 1973 at the age of twenty, I still owe a debt of gratitude. His living example in our youth added one more stone to the pillars of moral courage and strength which sustain me.

  Holy scripture reads: “No greater love hath a man than this, than to give his life for his fellow man.” Michael Carlisle was willing to follow a greater light than his own. Thank you, Mike. I told you, I wouldn’t forget.

  And there is that very special Mike, my son, who is living with dignity and honor in his youth, as did his namesake. He is kind, loving to those around him, and generous to his friends. It takes a special kind of boy to be willing to follow “the light of the world” in this day and age of temptation and trials. I honor and respect him for that light he lives in and shares with others.

  * * *

  To my friend and executive editor Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s Press, I offer a special thanks. She is ever a talented and enthusiastic supporter of fiction with a message, and she is genuine and honest in her profession.

  My thanks once again to literary managers Kenneth J. Atchity and Chi Li Wong of Atchity Entertainment International, Inc., of Los Angeles and New York, who dedicate themselves to bettering our profession and, by so doing, bring value and entertainment to the reader and moviegoers. They possess the “big picture” while encouraging the dreams of those they represent. Also, a special thanks to my friend Andrea McKeown, AEI Executive Editor, who offered valuable advice and assistance in the initial proposal for The Lighthouse Keeper.

  To Leo Weidner, personal coach and “success guru,” I want to offer my everlasting appreciation for taking what you found in 1997 and making him a better man through expert and wise counsel. I love ya, man!

  To my long-suffering wife, Jeanne, I love you. Thanks for enduring all the lean times to help me fulfill this dream of mine—being part of the solution and a light to a world often living in the shadows at midday.

  My love and adoration also goes to my “read-a-holic” daughter, Amy, who helps keep me inspired to write uplifting themes. She reminds me why I write and for whom.

  Finally, I want to thank the many readers who wrote to me offering kind words for The Last Valentine and who have shared with me their anxious anticipation for my next book. To them I offer The Lighthouse Keeper with gratitude for the inspiration and encouragement they have given me.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  1

  PROLOGUE

  KATHLEEN HAD been painting for hours but finally had to put the paintbrush down. Each stroke of the brush had been a futile attempt to forget his pain, and hers.

  Walking from the easel to the open door of the cottage attached to
the Port Hope Lighthouse, she leaned against its doorpost and watched as the lonely lighthouse keeper sat in his wheelchair gazing out to sea. She knew what he was thinking. It was this place that had first brought him to his beloved Anna more than fifty years before.

  She struggled with the belief that her father was going to die, not the strong, self-reliant, well-loved lighthouse keeper. She had never known a mother but for the faintest of memories. And the memory was a gleaming smile of a lovely face bending over to kiss her soft toddler cheeks on one of hundreds of nights she had been tucked into bed by her.

  He was all she had. Of course there was her own dear family, her husband Tony, and sweet children back on Nantucket, but no man matched this man, her father.

  She went back to the canvas, stumped. Almost there, she thought. To finish the cove scene and the pier was all that was required to make this painting a tribute and gift to her father. She desperately wanted him to see it completed before … Those words she couldn’t say, couldn’t think about, made it as hard to finish the painting as it did to contemplate them.

  If she finished the painting, maybe he, too, would come to an end.

  1

  THE OCEAN never changed. Maybe that’s why Peter O’Banyon loved it so very much. The ebb and flow of her vast tides were reliable. He aged, but she stayed the same. Her waves, currents, and perpetual deepness awed him; they were never ending, like eternity. Eternity meant more to him now that he was about to set foot upon its shore.

  A gentle warm breeze tussled his silvery hair, and his eyes closed meditatively. It was as if Uncle Billie had just patted him on the head, “You’re becomin’ a right smart and handsome lad, Peter. It makes me proud. Go on now, enjoy your day with Anna.”

  On the inside, it felt like 1942, and the cliff upon which he now sat was then a rolling hill of grasses and sand that tumbled down to the beach. It had not been eroded by time—not a sheer drop as it now was.

  Peter opened his eyes and gazed down to his blanket-covered lap. His daughter had laid the old lighthouse logbook and a pen there as he had asked. He reached into his overcoat pocket and pulled a crumpled and considerably age-worn letter from a time-yellowed envelope.

  With his free hand, though trembling, he shuffled through the tattered and frayed logbook until he found the final blank page at the end. Placing the letter and envelope in the crease for a page marker, he began to methodically spell out his final impressions to bring this lighthouse logbook to a seamless conclusion:

  “Port Hope Island Lighthouse is empty now except for the occasional tourist, who on Saturday mornings pays the state-park fee of $3.50 to climb the stairs and look out over the ocean from the majestic cliff home that I have known. I first called it home with my Uncle Billie, then with my beloved Anna. But its very emptiness offers a poetic soliloquy of sorts, if one listens hard enough.

  “It is as if the old lighthouse keeper is haunting the halls, striking a match to the 1500-watt-candlepower oil lantern that used to cast a beam across the bay to guide so many seafarers safely to shore. None of the mariners from the past would have ever seen the lightkeeper, but I grew up knowing they saw his flame. One hundred times one thousand must have been grateful to see it there burning brightly during the gales and storms that lashed the New England coast from the 1920s to 1943 when he faithfully manned his watch.

  “The lighthouse stood silently majestic then as it does now, a pinprick of illumination in the deep blue darkness, but its message was loud enough then. ‘Aye, laddie,’ he would say to me. ‘A lightkeeper never knows who he touches with the toil of his hands while keepin’ the flame alive.’

  “The old light went out with him some fifty-five years ago. A newer, more powerful beacon has been built inland with radar navigation, making the old Port Hope Lighthouse obsolete. I often wondered if my uncle, the seasoned seafarer, ever felt as if he too was becoming ‘obsolete,’ a relic of bygone times—when individual men made such a difference; when machines were no match for their brains or brawn.

  “William Robert O’Banyon, ‘Uncle Billie,’ made me what I was, what I became. From a small boy of ten, I grew up with him on the tiny outer island off Massachusetts’ larger, more famous Nantucket. He was my ‘schoolmaster of life,’ as he often reminded me.

  “All I know now, as I look back, is if Uncle Billie was my original ‘schoolmaster,’ then Anna was the one who brought to me the gentleness and love for life I have known. I never knew, nor ever wanted to know, another like her.

  “I realize now, as I gaze down to the bay, jotting these notes in the lighthouse log, that perhaps it is my final farewell to this place that I have loved so well.”

  Peter O’Banyon set the habitually handled, black, leather-bound logbook on his lap. His daughter had made sure he was comfortable, a blanket covering his shoulders as he sat in the wheelchair eyeing the splendor of twilight. This was his favorite time of day, though at times it seemed a melancholy hour, watching the fading sun turn a luminescent blue sea into a shimmering yellow, then back to deep blue. From the southern point of the island, where the lighthouse sat, he had a perfect advantage to enjoy sunrise or sunset. Now, sunset accented the deep blueness that also seemed to fill his soul.

  He looked up into the sky and watched the progeny from seagulls that had flown overhead five decades before and was soothed by the noisy cacophony as they were carried on their wings by a light offshore breeze.

  Some things never change, he thought. It amused him now to watch the seabirds swoop down from the cliffside heights to the beach and pier below, squawking and grousing over bits and pieces of churned up sea life that washed to shore. “I knew your great-great-grandparents,” he said aloud, as if they could understand that his knowing their past could make the present all the more interesting to them. People are like seagulls, he thought.

  Memory was to Peter as a resuscitating breath was to the dying. He relied heavily upon it. It awakened all that was good, the golden strands of life, all that had been right in living fully without regret. And, oh, how good, but brief, it had been with Anna.

  He focused intently on the pier now as he had for fifty-seven full years of Saturdays at sunset. He never missed his rendezvous, even though the last few years of sickness from cancer had him confined to bed rest at his daughter Kathleen’s home on Nantucket Island. Now the doctors had given him weeks, at best, but with their permission and Kathleen’s loving understanding, she had brought him here once more.

  Peter pulled the withered letter from the logbook pages marking his final entry. He looked down on it. His watering eyes couldn’t read the words, but he had them memorized now, and he clutched the yellowed paper as if it were holy script—it had indeed seemed so to him.

  “What happened?” he whispered to himself as he held his hands out and witnessed the wear of time. “I was nineteen just yesterday.” It seemed like yesterday, anyway. No matter. Inside was where Anna lived, and he was forever young there.

  He was happy to be here though. As sick as he had been for two years and as tired and heavy with age as he sometimes felt, a sudden surge of youth and feeling of liveliness coursed through him now.

  His daughter, Kathleen, waved to him from the top of the lighthouse. “I’m turning on the lights, Dad,” she called out.

  He nodded and smiled. It was the ritual. The lights would shine on the pier and then he would focus his wrinkled eyes and maybe see Anna there, dancing once again.

  If he looked hard enough, he could see himself running along the beach … with her.

  Laughing.

  Holding hands.

  Full of the joy young love brings. No care for tomorrow.

  Just now.

  They would tumble into the surf, kiss, and run some more, dodging the foamy breakers as they rolled in, and then playfully jump into them.

  He had been nineteen, she eighteen.…

  It was wartime, but also time for love.

  He turned to look for his daughter, who had brought him hom
e to the lighthouse, and sighed. He wanted just a little more time, just in case Anna had come.

  Perhaps he should turn back to face the pier once more. If his watering eyes could focus well enough, he might imagine her standing there, the way she would each Saturday morning on the antiquated dock.

  He drank deeply of the cool sea air. In his mind’s eye she was waving, smiling, the long tresses of crimson cascading down to her shoulders. She seemed to beckon him to join her for a swim once more. She waved. He stood on the hill looking down.

  Should he wave back? Dare he indulge his imagination? He could smile though. She always smiled back—at least in his mind.

  No. He would venture a wave this time. It was getting late in the number of years they greeted each other thus, Saturday after Saturday, his special day of the week to be alone with her.

  He took his cap off and held it high over his head and waved. But she was gone like so many mirages.

  He looked down and upon his lap was the lighthouse journal—the logbook. He moved his hand over the pages, turning them slowly and gently.

  “Then fife is not a dream. Love has endured this probation without them. Uncle Billie and Anna were and are real,” he whispered to himself.

  “Dad! I’ll be right down to get you,” Kathleen, his daughter, called from the lighthouse window.