Charlotte smiled, hands steady on the wheel. She was the driver. She had always been the driver—not because she was the most responsible, but because she was the only one who didn’t get lost in parking lots. The rain had started again, soft and insistent, like a secret the sky was finally telling.
The point was the climbing. The point was the three of them, still together, still choosing each other in the rain.
Then Sylvie’s mother had called last Tuesday. “Her numbers are not good,” she’d said, and Sylvie had sat on Charlotte’s kitchen floor and cried until her nose bled. Not dramatic blood, just a thin, tired trickle. Stephie had handed her a paper towel and said, “This weekend. We go this weekend.” charlotte stephie sylvie
Charlotte reached back and took Sylvie’s free hand. “Then we’ll describe it. We’ll tell her about the rain on our faces and the way the stairs creak and how the light doesn’t spin, it just is . Like a heartbeat. Like a stubborn old woman who refuses to go quietly.”
Later still, much later, after the funeral and the sorting of boxes and the long quiet months, Sylvie would find the video again. And she would see, in the corner of Stephie’s shot, a moment she hadn’t noticed before: Charlotte reaching over to tuck a strand of hair behind Sylvie’s ear, gentle and automatic, like breathing. And she would understand that the lighthouse was never the point. Charlotte smiled, hands steady on the wheel
“I’m just saying,” Stephie said, peeling a gummy worm from her thigh, “if we’re going to drive four hours to see a lighthouse that might be haunted, we should at least stop for decent coffee. Not gas station tar.”
Inside, the air was cold and smelled of old stone and older loneliness. The spiral staircase wound upward like a seashell’s memory. Charlotte went first, then Sylvie, then Stephie, their footsteps a hesitant rhythm. Halfway up, Sylvie stopped. The rain had started again, soft and insistent,
“Tell that to the vase.”