Peter's Light

At precisely eight o'clock each summer evening, the beacon in the lighthouse on Peter's Island turned red.  It signaled bedtime and my grandmother rounded us up and sent us up the steep, narrow stairs to our rooms, one step closer to September and leaving.

It was a small light, barely enough to send a ripple out over the calm water of the passage but it shone bright and steady all the way to morning.  Sometimes when I couldn't sleep, I would crawl out of my bed and push aside the curtains just to make certain I could still see it.  It seemed to tell me that all was right with the world, that I would sleep and dream peacefully and safely, that there would be another perfect day.  I dreaded seeing the light come on, never wanted to let go of a single hour spent on the island especially with the risk of waking to the steady, sheep-like bleating of the foghorn and a day blanketed with dense, dripping fog.  All you could see was gray, like a cocoon, and Nana would keep us in.  It might last for a day or a week and I could feel this precious time slipping away second by second.  Then one morning it would magically clear - I could smell the sunshine and the grass and the salt fish and would practically trip over myself to get outside and see the ocean and Westport and The Old Road again.  The lighthouse on Peter's Island stood just as I remembered it, bright and clear in the morning sun, reassuring and promising and as unchanged as a picture postcard.

Ruthie and I went round The Old Road, up through the pastures of wild flowers and down again towards the dance hall and the square.  We picked and ate berries on the way, played tag with the dogs and waded through the tide as it came in, collected a day's worth of shells and watched for empty pop bottles to redeem.  We didn't speak it out loud, but we were careful to avoid her her daddy's store and risk being pulled in to the dark backroom with its sacks of grain and flour and sugar - it was his idea of a perfect play area, dim and musty, hard to breathe and right under his thumb - but we wanted to play in the light and the blue green water of Peter's Island.  

I suppose I've romanticized those childhood summers somewhat, gilded the memories to a degree and made the people more than they were.  They were days when anything was possible, when second chances were limitless and kindness was defined by community.  The lighthouse on Peter's Island still stands and its beacon still sends children to bed and brings the rest of us safely home.