Page 75 of The Lightkeeper

“What are you smiling at?” Frankie demanded of her twinand then set her eyes on Gigi.“What about Lou, Gigi? She’s the only one who hasn’t gotten a label.”

“Not her time.”

Frankie snorted. “Bull?—”

“Frankie!”

“Crap.”She set her empty plate down, eyes twinkling. “I know what’s going to happen.”

“Oh, yeah?” Everyone watched Lou play along.

“Yup.” Frankie licked her fork and then poked Lou in the knee with it. “The inn is going to go up for sale. You’re going to put in an offer, and lo and behold, the new owner is some fancy Park Avenue Prince who’s going to take one look at you, feel your…passion…for turning his dad’s property from a lump of coal into a diamond, fall head over heels, and voilà.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Lou rolled her eyes so hard I was surprised she didn’t tip backward.

“I’m going to make sure it happens.”

Lou groaned.“I honestly don’t know where you get this from. Mom, are you sure we came out together? Gigi, are you sure her label shouldn’t read ‘crazy’instead of ‘Chandler?’”

Everyone laughed while Frankie playfully swatted her sister. “Rude.”

“Me? If you set me up with someone, it’s going to come back to haunt you,” Lou mumbled, rising and grabbing every empty plate in sight.

Frankie moved to help her sister, followed by Aurora, and then Violet and Mom. Before I knew it, everyone was huddled back into the kitchen, squeezing and bumping, joking and laughing. For the first time in a decade, my lighthouse was filled with laughter. With love.

And it was all because of Aurora.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I said to my brother when he came to stand by my side; the rest of the crew had migrated backto Aurora’s shelves, admiring and probing about all of her specimens—especially Stuart.

“I can’t believe that’s going to grow back,” Frankie gaped. “So freaking cool.”

“It looks just like Kit’s drawing,” Lou added.

Meanwhile, Aurora’sface was pure light. Brilliant. Warm. Glowing. She was pure light as she picked and pointed, happily sharing with anyone who would listen to the life stories behind her collection.

“Yeah, we did have to do this,” Jamie replied, drawing my attention back to him. “We’ve been broken for far too long.”

“We?” I shook my head. “It’s me.” My throat bobbed. “I’m the one who’s fucked up.” Even as I said the words, I didn’t feel them like I normally did. Their sharp teeth seemed dull, skating over the surface of my skin rather than sinking deep.

Jamie shook his head. “No matter how hard you try, no person… no animal… no organism… exists on its own.” He nodded to Aurora and our sisters, a few words likeecosystemandsymbioticandenvironmentfiltering over. “Even all the way out here… even after everything you’ve been through… you don’t exist on your own. We all were broken by what happened to you. Mom still hesitates every time her phone rings. I still have nightmares that this family is going to lose one more person it loves. Frankie…remember when Frankie burned her finger badly a couple months ago and I took her to the hospital?”

I nodded. Hazards of candle making.

“She had a panic attack when we walked through the doors. Froze up. Cold sweat. I took her right back to the car because that was worse than the damn burn on her finger.”

And then I thought about that tiny sharpness I’d heard from her earlier and wondered if that little pin in Frankie’s armor was there because of me. To poke a hole in any hope of love that inflatedtoo quickly.

“It’s all my fault.”The pain in my chest deepened.

“No, Kit,” he swore, his tone one that he hadn’t used on me in a long time—the one he grew when Dad died and he stepped up to take care of the family. “It’s not your fault because none of us live in a vacuum. Not those creatures from the sea. Not the sea from the shore. Not the sun from the horizon. Not the ships from this lighthouse. We’re all affected—we’re all in this together. We have been from the moment you came home.”

My teeth gritted tight, and then my brother handed me a scrap of paper.

I took it, confused, and unfolded it. There was only a single number written on the sheet. A single—large—number.

“What is this?”

“The only way we’ve been able to help,” he said lowly. “When you came back from the hospital and then moved into the lighthouse, Gigi…”

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