Page 24 of Trick of Light
No, it didn’t fit. His father bought people off when he wanted them to go away. And made them sign NDAs.
His father went on. “I have good and bad days, I know that’s true. It’s like a fog that comes in sometimes, and when I come out of it, I don’t remember being in it. But I still know a lot and I know she’s full of shit. She tried to write me off before I was ready. Bury her. I don’t want her to get anything.”
“We suggest a settlement. Anything else could get embarrassing.”
“No settlement. I want my money to go other places. You know where.” He turned to Barnaby, who had stayed standing a few feet away from his father’s armchair, arms crossed over his chest. “Tell ’em.”
“They already know about the Sea Smoke Island Fund,” Barnaby told him. “They have investigators combing old records looking for survivors and their descendants.” He turned to the lawyers. “How is that going? Any more news for us?”
“Restitution,” his father said softly, before anyone could answer. “I like that word. It’s restful. Rest. Restitution. Then maybe I can rest. But not in an institution.”
Barnaby glanced at the lawyers, noting their reaction to his father’s shift into gibberish. He was often like this—a wave of clarity, then a step into the fog.
“It’s a complicated process.” One of the junior lawyers, a young woman with a neck tattoo she was trying to hide behind a turtleneck, opened a binder. “We want to make sure no one is included who can’t prove they’re a legitimate descendant. Screening out scammers and fakes is a top priority.”
John Carmichael yawned and stretched his arms behind his head. “Fakes and scammers, scammers and fakes. Is that worse than thieves?”
“Well, I’d say it’s the same thing?—”
“Let’s do an exhibit,” he announced. He lumbered to his feet. Barnaby lunged for his arm to steady him. “Get historians out here. Archeologists. Anthropologists. Museum folks, the kind with those little brushes that clean the dust off the past. I want it all out there. Everything that made way for the Lightkeeper Inn.”
With so many pleading glances from lawyers, Barnaby felt it was time to intervene. “Dad, we’re already working on all of that. Remember how we decided to take it nice and slow so the islanders could adapt? People are worried.”
“That town meeting was a clusterfuck,” said one of the lawyers, referring to an event they’d held early on in this process. The town hall had been packed with folks asking questions and yelling out misinformation. “A lot of locals are afraid they might lose their land. It’s important that we move slowly and make it clear nothing like that is going to happen.”
“Let’s make a movie!” John Carmichael pounded his fist on the table. “People like movies.”
“Okay.” Shooting an apologetic look at the assembled lawyers, Barnaby took his father by the elbow and steered him toward the door. “I think Judy has lunch waiting in the conservatory.”
“Soup? I like soup. Wait.” With a lurch, John veered in a different direction, toward the large triple-paned windows that looked out on the wide Atlantic and the lighthouse perched on a distant rock. He lowered his voice to whisper in Barnaby’s ear. “Don’t tell anyone, but a pirate came through this bay once.”
“Yes, so they say. The buried treasure. That’s whatever the island version of an urban legend is.” He tried to tug his father back in the right direction.
“No no, it’s real, as real as anything. She told me about it, and she was right about everything.”
Barnaby’s attention sharpened. “Who told you?”
“She did. My love. She said we could find it and disappear and have new lives. But she was the one who disappeared.” Was that a hint of grief in his father’s voice? “Back into the fog.”
“Dad, who are you talking about? Is it…Sophie? What happened to her? Do you remember? When I was born, in the hospital?”
His father frowned, as if trying to pin something down—then a look of anguish came over his face. “Too late. Too late. Elevens, elevens, too late.” He looked away, back toward the ocean. “We should sail out to the lighthouse today. Wind is east-southeast, about twelve knots, moderate chop. Tell Gunderson to get the Breezy Gal rigged up.”
Goddamn it. Moment of clarity, over. The Breezy Gal had been in dry dock for the past year, and Gunderson hadn’t worked for his father for the past ten years. And what did “elevens” mean?
“Let’s go find him, shall we?” Barnaby used that excuse to guide his father to the door. It was much better, he’d learned, not to argue or tell his father facts he’d just forget again anyway. Most likely he would forget they were looking for Gunderson by the time they reached the elevator.
“You keep an eye on that lighthouse,” he muttered to Barnaby. “It’s a tricky thing, light. Follow the wrong one and you can end up on the rocks.”
Barnaby got lucky. Judy Griffin was just emerging from the elevator. “We have lobster rolls for lunch,” she called cheerfully. His father’s eyes lit up, and that was that.
Back in the library, the lawyers were conferring among themselves. Barnaby finally allowed himself to sit down. “Good days and bad,” he told them. “Slightly different diagnoses from different neurologists.”
“We know,” Garcia said sympathetically. “But this situation is untenable, and as time goes on, it’s going to get worse. He needs to designate a durable power of attorney to someone. He must transfer decision-making power about the business side to a permanent, reliable representative, and our opinion is that person ought to be you. ”
Barnaby’s heart sank all the way to the pit of his stomach. “I’m only here on a temporary basis.”
“We get it. That’s what you intended when you came back. But now that you’re here, and you see the extent of the mess…” Garcia sat back and twirled his pen between his fingers. Such a nonchalant gesture, as if he wasn’t consigning Barnaby to a future he’d never desired for himself.
