Sara answers back with an equally friendly wave. "Diane! Meet my new friend.”
Diane's eyes land on me, and there's a slight pause as she takes me in. As she approaches, I notice the way she appraises me, with the clinical detachment of someone who’s probably spent too much time interviewing strangers.
“Diane, this is Nathan Garner,” Sara says. “He’s the one I was telling you about… The artist. He’s agreed to paint the lighthouse for me.”
“Oh, how lovely. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Nathan. I'm sure Sara's been regaling you with tales of the island and its interesting inhabitants."
"Interesting is certainly one way to describe it," I reply.
“Diane is from Charlotte too,” says Sara.
“Really?”
“Albemarle, actually,” Diane says. “But close enough.”
I blink at the coincidence. “Well, I guess what they say about small worlds is true.”
“Indeed,” Sara says, her eyes crinkling in amusement. “Well, Nathan, shall we continue?”
The three of us part ways, Diane returning to her porch, while Sara and I continue back toward the main house.
"Sara, this place… It's incredible. I can't wait to get started on some sketches."
As we ascend the hill, Sara gives me a wily smile. “She’s quite a sight, isn’t she?”
The way she says it, I’m not sure if she means the lighthouse or Diane.
We settle at the porch table, and Sara pours tea into mismatched mugs. The conversation stays easy, as if we’ve known each other longer than a few hours. She asks about my family, my last job, my earliest memory of the ocean. She doesn’t judge, just catalogues, storing each answer for later. Occasionally, her gaze drifts to the guest cottage, as if tracking the passage of its elusive inhabitant.
I ask her about Diane, and her expression turns thoughtful. “Diane… She’s a good woman, still finding her footing after some personal setbacks. But she’s resilient. She’s been here a couple of years now. I invited her here to write my memoir, then asked her to stay.” Sara sips her tea, glancing toward the cottage. “She and her daughter. And I’m glad I did. I think they’ve found a certain peace here on the island.”
“Daughter?”
“Yes, Cassie. She’s thirteen. Bright as a button and just as sharp. She has dreams of being a scientist one day.”
“That's a wonderful dream. My mother was a scientist. A biologist, actually. She used to take me to the ocean and explain all about the mysteries beneath the surface.”
“Is that why you chose Kitty Hawk for your gallery? Because of your mother?”
“In a way, yes. The ocean was always her place of peace. It’s where she found her inspiration, her joy. I guess I wanted to feel close to her somehow. Even though she’s gone, I wanted a piece of that peace, that joy.”
We finish our tea, and Sara stands, gathering the empty cups. “You should come back tomorrow. If the weather holds, you’ll want to catch the light just after sunrise. It’s when the whole island glows, even the ugly parts.”
She walks me down the porch, then pauses. “Diane’s single, by the way.” It catches me off guard, and I’m not sure how to respond. But before I can, she continues. “In case you were wondering.”
With that, she turns back to the house and leaves me standing there, watching the swirl of sea and sky, the lighthouse steadfast in the distance. The words "Diane's single" echo in my mind, mingled with the crash of waves and the distant call of a seagull. I'm not sure why Sara thought it necessary to share that information, but it adds another layer of intrigue to my day.
6
Nathan
Morning at the lighthouse is a private kind of quiet, filtered through mist and the hush of water on sand, the world subtracts itself down to just what matters. I claim the weathered bench at the base of the tower, a slab of sun-worn driftwood perched above the dune grass, the perfect spot for studying how the old lightkeeper’s house leans into the wind.
I arrange a hard-bound sketchbook half-filled with failures, two drawing pencils, though I only ever use the finer one, charcoal sticks in a recycled jam jar, and a kneaded eraser shaped into a rabbit’s ear from nervous fidgeting, and prepare to work.
The first order of business is always the horizon. You’d think it would be easy, a straight line where the sky surrenders to the ocean, but out here it buckles and flexes, refusing to stay true for more than a minute. Today it’s blurred by the marine layer, a gauze of pale blue, and the top of the lighthouse hovers above it like something airlifted from a different reality. I make the first mark, graphite on toothy paper, and the rest of the world recedes.
Ten minutes in, I’m deep in the muscle memory of shading when I sense movement at the edge of my vision. Not the sly, territorial shuffle of gulls, but something shorter, wilder. There is a faint metallic rattle, then a sharp sneeze.