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Back The Lighthouse Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. PART ONE
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. PART TWO
  13. 12
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 18
  18. 19
  19. 21
  20. 22
  21. 23
  22. 24
  23. 25
  24. 26
  25. 27
  26. 28
  27. 30
  28. 31
  29. 32
  30. 33
  31. 34
  32. 35
  33. 36
  34. 37
  35. 38
  36. 39
  37. 40
  38. 41
  39. 42
  40. 43
  41. PART THREE
  42. 44
  43. 45
  44. 46
  45. 47
  46. 49
  47. 50
  48. 51
  49. 52
  50. EPILOGUE

“Do any of us really know what we’re doing? I lost my wife a month ago and came this close to losing my daughter. Is moving away the answer? I don’t know. But I have a good feeling about what we’re about to do, and I’d love to have the support of my brother, because heaven knows I’ll need it in the coming months.”

“Hey, I’ll always support you, and I’ll always be there for you and Amy, no matter what. But that doesn’t mean I don’t reserve the right to think you’re out of your mind.”

“Thanks, Jack. You know, you’re welcome down there whenever you like. You might even get a taste for country life. Trust me, wait till you see it.”

“I’ll be coming down, all right,” Jack retorted as he bent down to pick up his beer. “But only to make sure you haven’t completely gone around the bend. Oh, and if you think you’re gonna see me gallivanting around the countryside on the back of a horse anytime soon, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Kevin grinned. “We’ll see, Jack. We’ll see.”

51

51

With a date locked in and excitement surrounding the move beginning to build, there was packing to do, and plenty of it. Amy and her dad went about the house making a list of what they needed to take and what could be sent to storage, and then, together, they moved from room to room and boxed everything up.

One night, when they were in the master bedroom sorting through her mother’s things, Amy came across the stack of photo albums. Remembering what she and her dad had promised each other back at the ranch, they boiled the kettle, sat down on the couch, and went through the albums together, page by page, photo by photo, laughing, crying, remembering a mother and a wife who they knew would have given everything she could to be with them right now, joining them on this great adventure.

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked.

Amy pulled a clump of tissues from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I’m okay. I just miss her so much.”

“I know. So do I.”

As she flipped to the last page of the final album, Amy arrived at a photo of her parents taken over twenty years ago on her mother’s childhood farm.

“This is the famous photo, isn’t it?”

Kevin nodded, smiling. “We took it with her old Polaroid camera, right after I had dug up that box and read your mother’s letter.”

“Didn’t you used to carry that letter around with you?”

“I still do,” he said, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, where the letter had remained safely kept.

Teary-eyed, Amy opened the letter and spent the next few minutes lost in her mother’s words:

Dear Stranger,