| Romance Fiction posted October 6, 2025 | Chapters: |
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Dealing With Life
A chapter in the book Yesterday's Dreams
The Lighthouse Chap 1
by Begin Again
Author’s Note
This is the fourth and final story in Yesterday’s Dreams, following The Forgotten Dress, By The Sea, and The Untold Story. It is a stand-alone novella filled with romance and mystery.
This final story in Yesterday’s Dreams brings Claire home to scatter her father's ashes and close a door—on grief, the lighthouse, and the past. Instead, she finds a locket, a name, and a question that belongs to more than one family. A planned goodbye becomes a quiet search for what really happened—and what should happen next.
THE LIGHTHOUSE
Chapter 1
The road narrowed as it neared the point, a ribbon of cracked asphalt hemmed by scrub and stubborn grass clawing through gravel and stone. Claire eased off the gas. Her headlights skimmed the cliff edge and caught a pale shape for half a heartbeat — a person? Then there was only wind and gulls and the shine of the restless sea.
She rolled the window down. Cold salt stung her cheeks; the air tasted like her childhood — and like the day everything changed.
She pulled into the gravel turnout and killed the engine. The night wasn't silent — surf crashed against the rocks, gulls quarreled overhead, and the wind whistled through the grass. Ahead, the lighthouse rose bone-pale, its lantern room dark. The keeper's house leaned close, shingles curled and weatherworn. Home, her chest said. Careful, the rest of her answered.
The urn sat in the passenger seat; brass polished to a quiet glow. She had chosen it and insisted on the compass rose. She traced the faint engraving with her thumb.
"Well, Papa," she whispered, "here we are. Just you and me again."
The yard gate banged once, twice, as if someone had just passed through and left it to the wind.
Claire popped the trunk. Inside lay the things you keep when you come back to a place like this — a coil of rope, a folded tarp, a flashlight, and her father's old storm stick — an oar handle cut down and sanded smooth, its end wrapped with worn tape. She took the stick in her left hand, the urn in her right, and crossed the patchy yard.
The latch rattled. When she reached for it, a man stepped out from the tower's shadow — tall, early thirties, rain in his hair, a rolled set of plans under one arm.
Claire's boot slipped on the damp plank. She tightened her grip on the urn and angled the stick so he couldn't miss it.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, palms half-raised. "Didn't mean to startle you."
"You didn't," she said, though her pulse thought otherwise. "The point is closed."
"I know." He nodded toward the tower. "I'm David Reed. My family —"
Anger flared in Claire's eyes. She swallowed hard before snapping, "Doesn't own this until Monday," she said. "Tonight, it's mine."
His gaze flicked to the urn, then to the stick, then back to her face. "Understood. I shouldn't have come. I only wanted a look at what we're taking on."
"Don't you mean what you're taking away?" she asked.
He took that without flinching. "Fair."
The wind pushed the gate. He steadied the latch without thinking. "This is loose. Wedge a scrap under the tongue and it won't bang all night."
"I can manage," she said.
"I believe you." He stepped back, careful not to crowd her. "I'm — sorry for your loss."
There was no good answer to that. She nodded and, in the strongest voice she could manage, she said, "Good night, Mr. Reed."
"David," he said, then seemed to reconsider. "Right. Good night." He turned and then stopped. "I didn't get your name."
Claire smiled. "Because I didn't give it. Like I said, goodnight, Mr. Reed."
He took the path toward the turnoff, his boots scuffing against the stone, and was gone. She stood with the quiet gate in her hand, the tower behind her breathing like a sleeping lion. The stick felt right against her palm, the old tape tacky with salt.
Her phone buzzed. Aunt Ruth's name lit the screen.
"I've just arrived," Claire said. "And before you ask — I'm fine."
"I don't understand why you had to go back there alone," Ruth muttered. "Didn't one person already waste his life defending that —" a pause, softened by force — "that dilapidated relic?"
"That's not fair," Claire said, pushing the gate open. "It needs work, but it's withstood a lot of storms and kept people off the rocks."
"Whatever you say."
"Papa always said, 'Others can point out the rocks, but it's the captain who steers the boat around them. Many take the journey, but the course is my own.'"
"Oh, Claire. You sound just like him. Can't you scatter his ashes and come home? Or at least stay in town?"
"I've come to give him a proper send-off," she said. "And to say goodbye to what we shared."
Ruth sighed. "He was a good man."
"He was. I'll call in the morning."
The keeper's door stuck, then gave with the same old sound. Inside smelled like coffee, salt, and damp wood. His yellow slicker still hung on the pegboard. The sight knocked something loose in her chest. She steadied herself with a palm on the doorframe, set the urn on the table, and leaned the storm stick within reach against the wall.
"Rules," she told the room. "I talk. You listen. No judging."
Wind moved through the walls in a way she knew by heart. Somewhere, a loose trim board clicked with the gusts.
Every Saturday, dust that edge. Press here to check for rot. Don't forget!
Her father's voice echoed in her mind.
She walked to the rear window. The trim board stuck out slightly — about a fingernail's width. On habit, she pressed it with her thumb.
A soft click. The board slid forward, and a slender envelope eased into her palm.
Her father's plain print on the face — For the harbormaster if I am not here.
The tape on the corners had dried and curled. She turned it over, saw nothing, but her curiosity didn't allow her to open it. She set it beside the urn and listened as the house answered the wind. Under her fingers, the table's old groove from homework nights fit her thumb, a reminder of home.
The iron stair waited where it always had. She picked up the stick, tucked it under her arm, took the urn, and started up. At twenty-five steps, she paused, like he'd taught her, keeping her breath steady, and climbed on. The lantern room felt larger without the lens. Salt dulled the glass. A clean ring on the circular sill marked where the lamp used to sit. She set the urn there, propped the stick within reach, and rested her palm against the cold pane.
"Papa, it's over," she said, not sure whether she meant the fight or the keeping. White-capped waves hammered the crags below. A faint metal tick came from the frame, as if the tower remembered how to speak.
"If I bury you here, you'll always be at home," she said. "If I take you to the sea, you go where I can't." She swallowed. "Either way, you're gone from me forever, and I don't know how to go on alone and without this place."
Something beneath her boot gave a slight creak. She looked down. A hair-thin seam circled a panel in the pedestal where the lens had sat. She ran a fingertip along it and found a small resistance — a keyway — something she'd never noticed before.
He told her everything. Why hadn't he told her about this?
Below, the outer door let out a long, complaining creak. Claire snatched up the stick and stepped into the stairwell. "Hello?"
Her voice fell down the iron in hollow rings. No answer. Just the door easing back to stillness and the wind moving on. She scolded herself for being so jumpy. She'd heard the creaks and groans a thousand times, but tonight — without her father — it felt different.
Back in the kitchen, she set the kettle on and let the room settle into its day's end shape — fading light at the window, mug by the sink, slicker on its peg. She held the warm tea in both hands until the heat steadied her. The stick leaned against her leg.
By the back door, the shallow cabinet that always looked like an afterthought held nails, twine, a tin of screws, and behind them — a folded scrap of cedar shim. She took the shim outside and wedged the gate latch tight. David's advice, without the satisfaction of admitting it.
When she tugged the cabinet door closed, something clicked behind the jars. She reached in and found a brass key hanging from a nail on a loop of twine.
A strip of tape on the bow read, in his neat hand — Pedestal.
"Of course you did," she said, half laugh, half breath — his answer to the small groove that she'd never seen before.
She took the key and the stick and went back to the tower. The iron complained under her boots. In the lantern room, she knelt, slid the key into the slim keyway, and turned. The hidden latch let go. The plate lifted an inch.
Inside lay a cloth-wrapped bundle and a plain envelope sealed with brown tape. On the envelope, in his hand: For Claire — open when you're not alone.
He knew she would come alone. He also knew how to make her ask for help. Her father's voice was always with her.
She took both — the sealed envelope and the bundle, lowered the plate, relocked the seam, and slipped the key into her pocket. The stick came back down with her, tapping once on each iron tread.
She slipped the sealed envelope into her bag — something for later. At the table, each opened the bundle. Inside lay a small velvet pouch and a folded note brittle at the crease.
Lily —
I'll be on the morning ferry. If you are sure, meet me on the south slip. If you have changed your mind, leave the locket with Mrs. Harper, and I'll understand.
D. Reed
No date. No last name. Just that.
The pouch held a gold locket with a small dent near the hinge and a thin scratch across the face. No photograph — only a fold of pale-blue ribbon tucked where a picture would go.
Lily — Mrs. Harper — South slip.
Claire closed the locket and felt its warmth settle into her palm.
She couldn't make sense of any of it. Was it a test of some sort? Certainly not about the future. No — it appeared as if her father had some unfinished business and he was laying it in her hands.
She made up the back-room bed with the wool blanket from the cedar chest, slid the storm stick between the mattress and the frame where her hand could find it in the dark, and lay down with her boots still on. Sleep came in short pieces and left. It was enough.
Before first light, she was up with the kettle. The sky wore a thin cloak of pewter. She touched the urn's rim. "Good morning, Papa."
On the porch, the air was clean and cold. Far out, a gull lifted with something bright in its beak, then let it fall to the foam. The sea took it and kept its own counsel.
She tucked the locket into her jacket and felt its roundness under her fingers. Names moved through her mind like buoys in a channel — Lily. Mrs. Harper. South slip. In a town this size, someone would know them. Helen at the wharf knew everyone. June Reed kept the church ledgers. The harbor office had maps so old the paper went soft at the folds.
Behind her, the tower gave a single, soft answer — a hinge acknowledging an old story ready, finally, to open.
"Lily," Claire said to the morning, "what story do you have to tell?"
With the wind at her back, she headed down the slope toward town.
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