Keep on the Lamp

“Keep on the lamp, daddy,” she whispered as he went to shut it off.

“You have to go to sleep, Lucy. I have to turn the light out.”

“I get scared, daddy. Please, keep it on.” Her cheeks were rosy and plump. She hadn’t lost all the baby fat over four years. She was a small girl, but she had little rolls on her wrists and chub on her hands and belly. He smiled at her and looked at the Beatles lamp beside her bed. It was hard to describe. A rotating panoramic lamp-thing shaped like a plastic yellow capsule with a bulb and scenery in the middle. The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine characters floating perpetually in Pepperland. Lucy liked to look at the cartoon images cast from the lamp across her pale pink walls. Those of Blue Meanies, abstract whales, and her favorite, Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D., or just the Boob, as her daddy called him. What an impossible little creature he is to describe if you do not know him, if you had never been on that trip, or seen the movie.

“I’ll keep on the lamp if you promise to go to sleep,” he bargained softly. She nodded and smiled and squinted her eyes shut. He smiled back and winked. Her eyes twinkled a certain way when she smiled and she always showed her little teeth. There was nothing that wasn’t beautiful about her. She had her mother’s hair and her father’s eyes. In some light, she looked more like one than the other. He pulled the blanket up to her chin and gave her a kiss. He left the room and looked back at her through the cracked door. She was watching those fantastic whales swim over her walls and the yellow submarine seemingly chasing something around and around again through the Sea of Holes and across the universe of her room.

The next morning she woke for breakfast and ran to the small kitchen and took her booster seat from the cabinet and placed it carefully on the oak chair. She climbed up and sat there and waited for her dad to make her pancakes. Their routine was set and never once did he have to wake her. She always woke herself and burst from her room with unbridled enthusiasm.

“When do you turn the lamp off, daddy?”

“When you go to sleep, baby.”

“What do you do while you wait for me to go to sleep?”

He looked back at her and her messy morning hair that fell in whisky-colored tangles which she was pushing from her face with her two little hands. In some lights, she looked more like him, but in others, she looked just like her mom. He quickly suppressed the thought whenever it arose. She had chipped purple nail polish on her tiny fingernails that got lost in her hair as she tried to manage it. Purple was her favorite color. He flipped her pancake in the air and caught it in the pan, which made her giggle. He then answered her question, finally. “I read sometimes. I write, other times. Or I watch TV.”

“What do you write about, daddy?”

“Well, you know, Lucy. The silly stories I tell you sometimes. Love stories, other times.”

“About mommy?”

He exhaled as he plated her piggy pancake which was bursting with blueberries. He put butter and syrup on it and took her fork from the drawer and delivered the plate to her, which he set gently in front of her. He was always gentle with how he handled her in every way, as though she might break if he wasn’t. She looked up at him with her big slate-blue eyes. His eyes. With her mother’s lips and feminine proportions. She waited for the answer. Lucy was a very patient and smart girl. And her dad never once failed to answer her, regardless of how tough the question. He always looked her in the eye and answered. “Yes, Lucy. Sometimes about mommy.”

“Did you love her?”

He laughed, caught off guard by the question. “Yes,” he answered softly as he cut up her piggy pancake into bites she could eat. “I loved her very, very much.”

Lucy had not asked much about her mother before last week. But when she started preschool, she saw a lot of mommies dropping their kids off at school and very few dads. The incongruity of it wasn’t lost on her, though she was only 4. And so then, the questions came. He knew they would come eventually and he thought he was prepared to answer them. But he wasn’t. When she asked him, he froze.

“Did I love mommy, too?”

He cut the pancake up more and looked at the bursting blueberries smeared on the porcelain plate. He swallowed before he answered. “Yes, Lucy. You loved your mommy, too.”

“Do I look like her?”

“Yes, Lucy. You do. She was very beautiful like you are beautiful.”

“Do you miss her?”

He bit his lip and kept himself together. “Yes. I do.”

“Will I ever see her?” she asked with a mouthful, syrup drizzled down her chin. Blueberries stained her little teeth as she chewed.

“Please, don’t talk with your mouth full, Lucy. Remember your manners.”

She waited and swallowed then quickly asked again, “Will I ever see her, daddy?”

“Well. Maybe someday, Lucy. I don’t know how to say.”

“I want to see her.”

“I know. So do I.”

“Where did she go?”

“We are going to be late for school, Lucy. Let’s finish your breakfast and talk about it later.”

He fed her the rest of the piggy pancake in silence. His mind toiled. His stomach was in knots. He wasn’t prepared for any of this. He typically didn’t feed her out of a desire for her to feed herself and to become the “big girl” she exalted herself to be so proudly and so often. Her questions staggered him, though he tried not to show it. His hands trembled as he handled her fork and her glass of orange juice. Lucy watched his hands, but she didn’t say anything. It scared her when he shook like he did at times. And although she didn’t understand it, she felt it. It was a fear, like her fear of the dark. He got like this every time she talked about her mommy, but she wasn’t of an age to make any logical connections or to rationalize as much and to deduce from his outward anxiety anything other than a reactive and instinctive fear. He tried to steady his hands and control the sick feeling in his stomach, but it overcame him and he put the fork down and smiled at her and said let’s get going.

He brushed her hair and got her dressed. Put her hair in pigtails. She put on her own boots, though she always put them on the wrong feet. The statistical probability of her putting her boots on the wrong feet every time was astronomical, he had considered more than once. But he never stood in the way of her being a big girl, which all started once upon a potty. She always looked up at him as she sat in front of the door after putting on her boots and asked with her eyes if she had them on the right feet. When he shook his head no, she would change them. God, he loved this girl and he knew he was hopelessly consumed by her and that she was all the light in his universe.

He helped her put her backpack on, which was the Yellow Submarine, of course. It was near impossible to find, but it was what she wanted so he found it online and ordered it. Little Lucy Belle had most everything she wanted without being spoiled at all. She splashed in every puddle along the sidewalk on the way to school in her purple rubber boots. He smiled at her and never once told her not to splash in a puddle because every father in the universe knows that puddles were meant for little girls to jump in. It is a rule somewhere. In some wise-old book of fatherhood. It was only when she got too close to the street did he ever tell her no and pull her away as he once had when he worried that she was going to be hit by a speeding car that skirted dangerously along the curb. The fright was a year old, but it was something neither of them would forget. His, of the danger imposed by the car, and hers, of her daddy yelling her name and violently jerking her away from it by her little arm that was sore for a few days after. He walked between her and the street. Between her and all things dangerous or unknown, but it wasn’t a place he could walk forever, he knew. But for now, it was his place.

He kissed her goodbye and watched her waddle into school as he always did. He was the only dad there standing on the sidewalk as Lucy turned and waved, her hair in flopping pigtails. Her cheeks rosy as always and her eyes the color of his, but the shape of her mom’s. The other parents pulled away in cars as soon as their kids disappeared, but he would watch Lucy walk all the way down the hall to her classroom, though she didn’t see him. He smiled at her and when the classroom door shut, he reluctantly left. And when he went home, he would write and the things he wrote would be published on a blog or in an online news magazine. And afterwards he topped it off with some technical writing for an AI firm that made robots which would replace people someday, he was sure, though he never expressed it. He did that to pay their bills. Usually, he had a few hours before Lucy got out of school to work on the novel he never finished. The novel that would be a wonderful success and buy he and Lucy a house around Portland, Maine on the beach. A place they had visited and where he had told her that they would move to someday. Where she said they could buy a lighthouse and live in it and see the mermaids wash ashore, or the abstract whales jump from the Sea of Holes. Many times over she asked him if they could see Pepperland from that lighthouse and he said sure they could. And he said, “Just maybe, John, Paul, George, and Ringo might drop by for a spot of tea,” in a terrible British accent that made her laugh. Anything was possible, he taught her. All you need is love.

But the phone rang. The sound of an encased bell snared in a plastic box. A sound he hadn’t heard in years. It shook him awake from his reverie as he sat in front of his laptop with the unfinished novel before him staring blankly back at him. His phone never rang and it startled him. It was an old red rotary phone that he and Lucy bought at an antique shop. It rang again and again. And with every ring he grew more anxious and he stared at it from across the room and listened to it until it died. But when it stopped, he could still hear it, as though it was still ringing, like an echo, absent of all logic. Then it was quiet again. He tried to write, but had one wary eye on the phone and the other on the clock. He closed the laptop and left to get Lucy earlier that day than normal. He walked hurriedly with an eerie and irrepressible sense of panic. The school was only a half mile away, but it felt like an eternity, and as his panic grew, he began to run. Finally, he got there and looked through the window of Lucy’s class for her, but he didn’t see her.

Then there she was. Smiling at something the teacher was saying. Seeing her comforted him and he decided not to get her early and he just stood outside looking on. It was an hour before school ended, and slowly parents began to trickle in to pick up their kids, most of them on cellphones. Nothing changed for them. Even here. They are still on cellphones. He thought about the AI robot. About how he wanted to save enough to buy his own to be a mother to Lucy. They are that seamless. That perfect. And programmed just so, it would be hard to tell they weren’t human. Only they wouldn’t break anyone’s heart. And they certainly wouldn’t try to harm their child, born or unborn.

His heart was racing when she came outside. She smiled widely and ran to him, hobbled by the bookbag stuffed full of papers and a large picture book. Art that she drew for her daddy, that he would hang on the refrigerator, or clip to twine that crisscrossed her room until they got old and the corners of the paper started to curl. Snowmen in the winter. Flowers in the spring. Suns and beaches in the summer. And leaves and pumpkins in the fall with an occasional turkey. Lucy knew something was wrong with her dad when he held her tighter than he normally did. Yet, she wasn’t able to understand why, only that there was something there. It came and it went. Like the snow and the sun. He put her to bed that night and she asked again for him to keep on the lamp. And again, he did until after she fell asleep.

The next day the routine was as normal, only Lucy wanted eggs and toast instead of her usual piggy pancakes. She didn’t talk about her mom, but he thought of her. And when he thought of her, he trembled. His cup of coffee shivered in the saucer until he steadied his hand and smiled at Lucy who noticed. When he took Lucy to school, he saw the object of his fear. She appeared out of the corner of his eye as a shadow. It wasn’t possible, he told himself. But it was. Assuredly, it was. He thought for a moment that he was hallucinating and hurried Lucy along. He got her safely to school and told the teachers not to allow anyone to see her, no matter who they say they are. They assured him that he was the only authorized visitor and feeling comforted, and telling himself again he was imagining things, he went home. And after an hour of technical writing and more blogging to pay the current bills, he opened the novel again to pay future ones. He retitled it for about the hundredth time, this time it was called “The Lighthouse.”

He was making some headway when someone knocked at the door. And his eyes followed the sun and behind the stained-glass there was a shadow. He didn’t want to answer it. But it knocked again. What couldn’t be a person, and what had to be a thing. And he thought again not to answer. But he stood up and walked to the door slowly as though he didn’t want what was outside to hear him approach. He could only see the shadowy-figure outside through the various colors of the stained-glass. He reached slowly for the handle with a trembling hand and held it there before turning it. And the door unlatched with a deafening click and there on the door stoop she stood – Lucy’s mom.

“David,” she said in almost a whisper.

“I’m not,” he replied resolutely.

“You are,” she cried with her hands over her gaping mouth. “You are!” Tears hopelessly fell down her face and she consumed all the world with two big eyes as she always had. All of his world. 

“I am not David.”

“You are! And I’m Annie! We were married, David! We had a daughter. I've missed you.”

“I am Paul and I’ve never been David. You have the wrong home.” He felt panicked, but he didn’t shake. His tone was not the least bit excited and he nodded, briefly making eye contact, before shutting the door on her. She knocked again. He opened it, against his better judgment. He knew she wouldn’t go away, and they couldn’t get away from her if he simply ignored her.

“I want to see her,” she cried. She heaved and slouched down holding her knees and vomited in the azaleas. “I’ve got to see her!”

“You had a choice. You already made it.”

“You were right, David. I am sorry. I am so sorry! For four years all I did was think about it. Every day. I saw a counselor and tried to get help, but it wouldn’t go away. I lost her and I lost you. The same day! I lost everything. Nothing was what I hoped it would be. I am sorry!”

“You don’t need to apologize to me.”

“I do! Please let me come inside. I need to see her!”

“She is at school,” he said plainly.

“Can I be here when she comes home? Can I see her then?”

“This is our home. It isn’t yours.”

Annie put her hands over her face and cried. And Paul, who was indeed once David, watched her at first with no feeling at all, the trembling of his anxiety gone. But years of anger and torment melted from him as they stood there in the open doorway with no words spoken between them. Just her tears that he had long ago cried himself. But in gratitude to God for the years that followed them leaving their mother, he opened the door and let her inside, still with no intent to allow her to stay to see Lucy. He watched the clock and she spoke.

But another apology was all she was able to muster, repeatedly, and choked in tears before he spoke simply and calmly standing in front of her as she set down on the sofa to listen to him.

“She has burns on her back from the saline. When she is asleep she sometimes wakes in a terror and screams. As though she remembers what happened. Do you know what they did to her for you? They scraped her out of you like someone does seeds from a pumpkin. They might have ripped her arm or leg off in the process. They may have sold her skin tissue to be dissected in a lab. Or her organs. Or eyes. They may have crushed her skulls with forceps. She could breathe then. She had a heartbeat. A diaphragm. She had arms and legs and she moved around inside of you. But she didn't move you at all. Did she? All she wanted to do was to live and to be loved by her parents. Her imperfect parents, one of whom didn’t want her. One whom wanted her more than he wanted his own life.”

“I lived for four years,” she replied. “In constant sorrow. Wondering what she would have been like, or what she would have looked like. How she would have liked her breakfast and what the sound of her voice or laugh would have been. I wasn’t ready for a child, David!”

“I wasn’t anymore ready. But I’m not David anymore, Annie. I’m Paul.”

“What is her name?”

Paul shook his head and walked to the door, opening the latch.

“She needs her mother!”

“She needed a mother. Now she only needs me. And I need her. You know, I followed her with only the faith that God would reunite us despite how I did it. And God allowed me to find her and we moved here and here we will stay until she grows and we die again. One day, I will teach her how to ride a bike. I will teach her to tie her shoes, how to read and write, and how to be a lady. I will take her trick-or-treating and to the beach. I will teach her the value of life and how people are people before they are born to the world. She will grow up and respect the sanctity of life in this world and you will not know her in yours. I will walk her down the aisle when she marries. I will hold my grandchildren when they are born and teach them how to play baseball.”

“But I’m here! Give me a chance, David!”

He stood in the open doorway and looked at her. God, how he once loved her. With everything in his soul. “I am making a choice, Annie. Like you once did with Susan Weed and then the clinic. You will not ruin her life here by telling her that you aborted her after trying to kill her yourself because she was inconvenient to you at the time. This world is not for you. You should wake up and let us be.”

Annie convulsed and opened her eyes, gasping for breath. She was in her bathtub and the water had drained from it, the chain plug twisted around her big toe which was blue. All her toes were blue. Vomit ran down her chin and naked chest and she bawled and writhed in that porcelain uterus with cramps in her stomach and an empty bottle of pills like a capsized vessel rolling over beside her. She twisted and accidentally pulled the plastic shower curtain down upon her and she lay beneath it, having died from suicide, and having come back to life against her desire to do so. They never told her at the clinic it would be like this. It wasn’t in their brochure. It was a just a clump of cells and not a life. It was her body, her choice, not his, not anyone’s. The inconvenient thing in her threatened her happiness and responsibility wasn’t hers for its conception. It wasn’t by God’s grace, they said. It was not a gift, it was a burden like a tumor, easily removed with saline and cold metal instruments. Treated with antibiotics and pills. And anything that she was to feel was simply hormones, not to be confused with the guilt of infanticide.

“Oh, God!” she screamed. The door broke down and a friend was there to take her to the hospital. The entire way she said all she knew to say. It’s not your fault, Annie. It’s not your fault.

“I saw them,” Annie cried, curled up in the fetal position in the passenger seat of the cold car. She was shivering and blue.

“Who?” her friend asked speeding through night traffic.

“David and the baby. I saw them. I want to go back.”

Her friend offered a sympathetic smile and caressed her bare shoulder. The hospital was close. “Honey, David died. He did what you were trying to do to yourself. You got to come to terms with that. You didn’t love him and there was never a baby. It was not a baby.”

“Yes. She is a baby. And she is beautiful. I saw her as he walked her to school. I want to see her again.”

Lucy’s dad stood in front of the school waiting for her to come outside. David or Paul. Dad or daddy. It didn’t matter. Lucy burst out with her purple boots on, hobbled by her backpack. She had peanut butter and jelly on her rosy cheeks from lunch. “Daddy!” she screamed happily. He held her like he always did, but this time not so tight and she didn’t feel any fear in him. It had passed and his hands would never tremble and he was absolved of the anxiety he was once riddled with. He finished and sold the novel. The publisher asked for another and offered a sizeable advance which he put down on a nice beach house in Maine that included an old lighthouse and a boat, both in need of gentle restoration, the pretty agent said smiling at Lucy.

But that night, months before the novel sold and the lighthouse became a reality, he fed her dinner and read her a story about orphaned bears. And he told her about her mom when they were alive and how they met, and how her mother died in an accident just after Lucy was born. He didn’t tremble at all. It is okay to lie, he assured himself, to protect our children from the inexorable cruelties of life and the selfish choices that are made against them and their well-being for the sake of progress and convenience and one’s own phony sense of freedom. The living world’s unfathomable way of incessantly defiling the sanctity of life didn’t exist here, in death. In this paradoxical world, life was cherished and freedom was not to kill, but to live and let live. To create, not to destroy.

“Was she beautiful?” Lucy asked.

“She was the most beautiful woman in the world. Wait just a second,” he said smiling. “I think I have a picture.” He took the picture he hadn’t looked at in years out of an old book about a lion and smiled at it before giving it over to Lucy. He exhaled in peace. Annie had always moved him and she did it once again. Lucy’s face lit up as she lied in bed carefully holding the picture in her hands. She asked her daddy to hang it up on the twine above her bed. She looked up at it and smiled full of innocence and love. “She looks like me!”

He tucked her in and kissed her forehead. “Yes. She does,” he said as he went to flip the switch of the light.

“Keep on the lamp, daddy.”

He agreed. “Until you go to sleep.”

She smiled and her big eyes followed Jeremy, the Boob, and John, Paul, George, and Ringo through the Sea of Holes and the Sea of Time, and the yellow submarine, and the abstract whales. Then she found her mommy’s picture with her eyes and went to sleep looking up at her, dreaming of her, of them all in Pepperland.