She hadn't forgotten Julen's touch; what kind of horrible person would that have made her? But Julen was no longer here, his touch but a phantom that skimmed her skin in her dreams, and Argider's hands were so warm and strong and full of life, she found herself seeking them more and more, orchestrating "accidental" brushes, or grasping them outright whenever she was particularly happy or dismayed. And recently, she found herself more often the former than the latter.
Argider, for his part, never seemed bothered by this. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it as much as she did.
If only she knew whether he was being truthful about it.
She thought about his hands when she went through the old toolbox in the lighthouse. About how he would grasp the hammer handed down from her great-grandfather, about how he would work the saw her father sometimes made sing for her amusement, about how he would sort and select the correct screwdriver for the job, how he would gently pat the roof or the cabinet, or whatever he'd fixed and announce that it was done.
Summer, predictably, brought many storms, but on sunny days, Esma would join Argider at the cabin and help him as much as she could. Four weeks after having been pulled from the sea, Argider was healed well enough to walk on his own and clambered up the ladder at his first opportunity to assess the damage to the cabin's roof.
She bought the shingles he requested by the box, as well as a hammer for herself; she climbed the ladder beside him, and together, they worked on repairing the roof. Tearing away the old shingles was surprisingly emotional work, at first. Esma needed to remind herself that she wasn't throwing away her family's history, or her memories with Julen, but instead making sure they wouldn't fade into obscurity as the house deteriorated.
Repairs on the cabin also gave her more to think about during the long hours in the lighthouse, as she sketched diagrams and figured costs for each new project Argider suggested. She found a sense of exhilaration in the work, in imagining a future she'd long thought sealed.
"These shelves could be reworked," Argider said, studying the kitchen shelving. "It would give you more room for the staples, as well as more storage for cookware."
Esma ran her hand along the chipped paint. "I understand, but it would be a shame to lose the original. My grandfather made it for my grandmother. There, he carved her initials." She pointed to a small set of initials on the back of the middle shelf, surrounded by crudely-carved laurels.
"I said rework, not replace. The frame's still good. Perhaps we could add on to it horizontally, for more storage. There's plenty of room in the kitchen."
"And a new coat of paint."
"Whatever color you desire."
"Thank you. But I have to ask again, why are you doing this? You're healed, you owe me nothing. I'm very grateful, but also... mystified."
Argider buried his head among the shelves, checking their integrity. "I just like to see you smile."
"I'm sorry?"
He pulled out of the shelving and turned to her. "Your smile. That light in your eyes whenever we make something better, or when you get an idea for an improvement. I like it."
Esma stared at him, blood rushing into her cheeks. "That's very lovely, but it's no reason to work so hard."
"It's plenty of reason." He tilted his head. "Now, I've got to ask, why do you let me stay? You could have run me off the moment I got well, the moment we fixed the roof."
"There's one more section of roof left."
"Esma."
She hunched her shoulders and looked away. "I like having you around."
"See? It works for both of—"
"I like your smile, too," she went on, her eyes finding his. "And your laugh. The way nothing seems impossible for you. I like your touch. Knowing you're here, that I'm not alone, that..." She sighed. "I suppose I like you."
His lips twisted into something between a frown and a pout. "You suppose."
She chuckled. "I do. You're very likable, Argider."
"As are you." He looked around the cabin. "This place must have seen plenty of good times."
"Maybe it can see more, someday."
"Don't you think it's seeing some now?" He stepped forward and brushed some dust from her shoulder before settling his hand, heavy and warm, onto it. Warmth surged through Esma's chest, and before she realized what she was doing, she rested her head against his hand. Years of loneliness and solitude, softened only by memories, coursed through her muscles, and made them—made her—seek relief.
She slid her right hand up his chest, over his shoulder, and pulled him close, her heart fluttering as he wrapped his arm around her waist and his hand stroked her lower back, rhythmically, soothingly. Neither of them spoke, but listened instead to the other's heartbeat and breathing, drinking in the warmth and stability they both craved, though Esma could only speak to her own.
After several moments, they released each other wordlessly, and Argider turned back to the shelves. "I just like to see you smile," he repeated, and began to take measurements for an addition.
Esma nodded and excused herself to the garden. She sank into the patch of cleared soil and turned her face to the sky, letting the tears come. She'd never forget Julen, never want to even try. But his blood had stilled where hers still ran, hot and strong and wanting; and if she could find comfort in Argider, where was the harm in taking it?
She wrote Julen's name in the soil with her fingertip, then smoothed it over. He would always be part of her life, part of the cabin, part of her. But time treats people differently than it treats cabins and lighthouses; it commands them to live, to keep living. And sometimes, it lays out a path, however long, however twisted, to happiness. To a happiness thought lost.
To a happiness, however unexpected, however ephemeral, found once again.
* * *
She knew it was bound to happen. One day, Argider's curiosity, or the scope of his repair plans, would get the best of him, and he would enter the bedroom on the other side of the cabin.
She hadn't forbidden him from entering, nor had she locked it, for there was nothing there she wished to keep secret. It was simply difficult to explain, a roomful of memories that she had never visited in the company of anyone else.
She found Argider seated on the big four-post bed, looking at a picture, a box of memorabilia beside him. He didn't turn around as she entered.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I know I shouldn't be here."
"It wasn't locked."
He held up the picture. "This is you, right?"
"Many years ago." She walked around to the other side of the bed and sat beside Argider. "And that's Julen."
"How long were you married?"
"Fourteen years."
"What happened?"
"Pneumonia."
"Oh." Argider set the picture down. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"I didn't mean to pry."
Esma picked up the box between them and riffled through its contents: letters, jewelry, small mementos, odds and ends from inside the cabin and out, seashells and pretty rocks. "I've never talked about him—about us—with anyone else." She could feel Argider watching her.
"He was a wonderful man," she went on, "strong and supportive. He understood that the lighthouse was my life, and he learned how to work it to help me. Even after marrying him, I feared that once my father died, this island would become very lonely. But he saw to it that was never the case. He was smart, perhaps even a bit strange by others' standards. He would always come up with something so unexpected to say that I couldn't help but laugh.
"Of course, we had our little disagreements. Who doesn't? He would sleep in the lighthouse on those nights. But by the time I got up to check on him the following morning, he'd prepared breakfast for the both of us in the lighthouse kitchen and was usually fast asleep at the table." Esma laughed. "And when the spats were my fault... well, I had my own way of smoothing things over."
"It sounds like you really enjoyed one another," Argider said quietly.
"Oh, we did!" She pulled a small necklace from the box, a deep red stone on a dainty chain. "This is one of the first gifts he gave me. You can see that he didn't know me well yet—such a delicate necklace would never hold up to the work I do. But it was given from a place of love; how could I refuse it? Later, he learned what I liked and what I needed." She placed the necklace back and closed the box. "I miss him."
"Naturally."
Esma sighed. "But nothing can bring him back. I'm not sure I'd want him to come back, if it was possible. I've grown so old in his absence, he'd be terrified!"
"He'd probably love you more."
"No need to be so kind."
"I mean it." Argider gave her a wavering smile. "Look at all you've done since, on your own. You've kept this place, and his memory, alive. He'd have nothing but admiration for you!"
"To be fair, I did nothing for this cabin. I was content to let it return to nature. Until you came." Esma pursed her lips and breathed deeply. "And until you came, I'd no use for Julen's clothes, either. So, thank you. You've given new life to my memories, and I can't repay you enough for that."
"It was me repaying you, remember?" Argider shifted on the bed and looked away from the box.
"I apologize if this made you uncomfortable."
"Not uncomfortable. I just feel like... an intruder."
"You're not intruding. By no means." Esma reached over and took his hand into her own. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "This room is full of memories, no more. Memories I was willing to let fade with my own life."
Argider cleared his throat. "The roof's almost finished. If I work on just that, I should be done in a week or two, at most."
Dread seeped into Esma's stomach, cold and bitter. "And then what?"
"Maybe it's time for me to move on."
Esma tapped the box. "Because of this?"
"Because I've been here too long, taking up your time. I don't belong here; I'm just some overgrown harbor rat you fished from the sea. You don't even know me, Esma. You've no idea who I am."
"Then tell me." She took his other hand into her own, forcing him to turn around and face her. "Tell me who you are. I want to know."
"You'll regret asking."
"No, I won't. Not ever."
* * *
There were worse things than being alone, Esma learned. Not many, but Argider had lived through most of them.
He told her of his broken family, a distant mother and an idler father, of siblings who could barely comprehend the severity of their situation, and thus acclimated to it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He told of his first voyage at age fourteen, run out of the house by his father and not expected to return. He told her about leaving for Curcea, about the siblings he left behind, about a sister named Tere.
"For all I know, my father made good on his threat," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "For all I know, she's out there now, being sold and bought and... and used. And I just ran." A choked sob escaped him. "Like a coward, I just ran away."
"You were only a boy," Esma said softly.
"I was enough of a man to understand the stakes. And I did nothing."
"What could you have done?"
Argider squeezed his eyes shut, freeing the tears that had been accumulating. "I don't know. A life at sea wasn't for her, she was too frail. Perhaps I could have given her my money, maybe I could have taken her to Curcea with me. But then what? I'm hardly ever there. Curcea and Rothecona, they're not home; they're just where I tend to end up."
"Maybe it didn't happen. Maybe she is all right, with a family of her own by now."
"I wish I could believe that."
"Would you ever like to find out?"
Argider shook his head violently. "As long as I don't know the truth, maybe one day I can believe what you're saying." He drew a shaky breath. "All my life, I've been trying to make up for it, trying to help others, as if that would erase my cowardice. But even that goes wrong. Sometimes they don't need the help, sometimes they don't want it, sometimes they get violent just being offered.
"And sometimes, they're Benat."
"Benat?"
"The other sailor from the Westerell. It was his first trip; I promised him it would be all right, a chance to get his sea legs." Argider slammed his fist on the bed. "It was supposed to be a short trip, damn it! An easy trip, a safe one. He wasn't supposed to die! It... it was supposed to be me."
Esma said nothing, but put her arm around his shoulders and drew him close.
"I lost my footing when the ship listed. I was going overboard, and Benat, damn his big heart, he tried to pull me back. Then the ship lurched again, and we both went over." A true sob broke free from Argider's throat, followed by more. "It should've been me! Me! I should be gone!"
He buried his face against Esma's chest and cried harder. She slipped her other arm around him and held him to her, feeling his tears seep through her dress, feeling his shoulders jerk beneath her hands, feeling over forty years of grief spill out of a man who had been holding it in for far too long. A man who she wondered had not been crushed beneath the weight of it all.
At last, his sobs subsided, and he pulled away, looking at the mess he'd left on Esma's dress.
"What a disgrace."
"Not at all." Esma pulled a handkerchief from one of her pockets and handed it to him. "The only disgrace is the burden life has dealt you. It's too much for one person."
"And yet, here I am." He cleaned his face. "So, now you know. You know what a failure I am. What a coward." He laughed ruefully. "I was hoping to keep it from you, but I guess this means I've just been here too long."
"Not long enough."
"What do you mean?"
"Your ankle wasn't the only thing that needs to heal."
"And how, pray tell, do I heal the rest?"
Esma shrugged. "I wish I knew. But this seems like a start."
"No. It seems like I cut myself open, for your observation. Now, how do I put it back together?"
"For my observation?"
"Yes, and you saw how broken I am."
"I saw nothing broken." Esma smiled and stroked his face. "Simply bruised. Nothing that can't heal with time."
Argider scoffed. "I doubt I have enough time left."
"Enough to try, perhaps?" Her hand moved to his hair, and he mirrored her movement, his fingertips snagging in her wind-tossed tangles. "Stay with me, Argider, for as long as you need to. No matter who you are, or what has happened, the past has no hold on you here."
Argider glanced around the room. "You say that, in this room, of all places?"
"They're only memories." Esma looked around herself. The armoire that held her favorite dresses and Julen's clothes, the window through which the sunlight would find them, still wrapped in one another's arms from the night before, the vanity where Julen would shave and she would fix her hair—the room was rife with memories, but that was all they were. Memories could not bring Julen back, memories could not hold her when she felt alone, memories could move with her into the future, but never change, no matter the circumstances.
"Good or bad," she went on, "that's all they are. We can't change them, we can't fix what went wrong, no matter how hard we try."
"Then how do we heal?"
"I think... I think we heal by making new ones. Good ones." She stared into Argider's eyes for breathless moments, before leaning forward and kissing his cheek. "You're welcome to stay. You're welcome to heal, here, with me."
"With you?" he murmured against her ear.
"Please."
She shivered when he pressed his lips to her neck, just below her ear, and pulled him tighter against her. He wrapped his arms around her and slowly, they lay back together on the bed. Lingering touches and soft kisses were more than enough for both of them at the moment, and, caught up in each other's warmth, they soon fell asleep on the dusty quilt, in the pale afternoon sunlight.
* * *
The roof was finished just as summer began to wane. His main project complete, Argider turned his attention to the garden. Gathering thin cuts of spare wood, he began hammering them together according to plans he had sketched out.
"We've missed the season for flowers this year," Esma said, exiting the lighthouse with two mugs of coffee.
"This is getting a start on next year. It'll have to be done and up before anything gets planted." He exchanged his sketch for the coffee, and Esma looked at the paper. It was a plan for a trellis that would eventually become home to flowering vines.
"This is a lovely idea."
"You mentioned it."
"Really? When?"
He sat back on the ground, one leg tucked beneath him, the other stretched out in front of him. "I don't remember when, exactly. It was one of those clear nights, when you can come down from the lighthouse. We were sitting out here, and you talked about it, about your favorite gardens from the storybooks you read as a girl."
Esma's eyes widened as the memory came back. "'Any real garden must have a gate,'" she said, "'or a trellis, at least.' Was that it? How do you remember?"
"You looked so wistful when you said it, like having a gate or a trellis would make you the happiest woman in the world—"
"I do have simple pleasures."
"—and I couldn't help wondering what it would feel like to do that. To make someone that happy." He took a swig of coffee. "Like I've told you, I love to see you smile."
"I appreciate it. But it's so much more work for you."
"I've nothing else to do at the moment."
Esma stared into her coffee silently. For the past weeks, ever since Argider began work on the final section of the roof, she debated whether she should introduce him to the lighthouse. On the one hand, she could use the help, and the company. On the other, she'd become so used to running it by herself, and so proud of that fact. It was what had distinguished her from other women as she grew older, and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to relinquish her self-sufficient image.
But Argider was nothing if not energetic and efficient, and if she allowed him to remain idle too long, she feared she might end up with a second cabin to tend to. She smiled at the thought and sipped her coffee.
"When you have some time," she said, "there's something I want to show you."
"Oh?" Argider got to his feet and dusted the back of his trousers. "I've got time now. What is it?"
Without a word, Esma turned and walked back to the lighthouse. She stood just outside the door until Argider joined her.
"This," she said, "is the Abaroa Lighthouse. 'The Refuge.'" She grasped Argider's hand and pressed it to the lighthouse wall. "And this is Argider Nayar. I believe the two of you will make lovely acquaintances." She smiled at Argider and pushed open the door.
"Welcome to my world."